Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

What Did You Get? Peers, Information, and Student Exam Performance

  • Published:
Research in Higher Education Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

When students are aware of the exam grades of their peers, does this information affect their subsequent exam performance? For example, knowing that my friend scored a higher grade on Exam 1 than myself might motivate me to improve my performance on Exam 2, or might frustrate me such that I stop trying to catch up. We analyze whether students’ performance is shaped by the grades of their classmates. To answer this question, we use survey-based data on students’ connections to other students with the grades that students obtained in a class. We find that a peer effect on grades does exist, where students who know that the grades of their friends were higher than their own on the first exam are motivated to improve their score on the following exam.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3
Fig. 4

Similar content being viewed by others

Data Availability

Anonymized data will be made available.

Code Availability

Code will be made available.

Notes

  1. The only exception to this are Political Science majors who have to complete this course in their first year.

  2. Note, we later we interact SAT scores with grade difference to examine how the informational effect might be conditional on existing ability/knowledge.

  3. A note on the interpretation of the parameters \(\rho\) and ln\(\sigma\) in Table 2. The estimation does not directly estimate \(\rho\). To constrain \(\rho\) within its valid limits, and for numerical stability during optimization, it estimates the inverse hyperbolic tangent of \(\rho\). This estimate is reported as at \(\rho\). In the bottom panel of the output, we undo this transformation for the reader and report \(\rho\). Note the standard error for \(\rho\) is computed using the delta method, and its confidence intervals are the transformed intervals of at \(\rho\). Similarly, \(\sigma\), the standard error of the residual in the grade differential equation, is not directly estimated; for numerical stability, heckman instead estimates ln\(\sigma\). The untransformed sigma is reported at the bottom of the table.

  4. Note, we cannot implement a heckman style selection model as we do not have information on the full student population of the university, i.e., the universe of all possible students that could enroll in the course.

References

  • Angrist, J. D., & Lang, K. (2004). Does school integration generate peer effects? Evidence from Boston’s Metco program. American Economic Review, 94(5), 1613–1634.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Arcidiacono, P., & Nicholson, S. (2005). Peer effects in medical school. Journal of Public Economics, 89(2–3), 327–350.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Astin, A. W. (1977). Four critical years. Effects of college on beliefs, attitudes, and knowledge. Jossey-Bass.

    Google Scholar 

  • Astin, A. W. (1997). What matters in college? Jossey-Bass.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bauman, K. E., & Ennett, S. T. (1996). On the importance of peer influence for adolescent drug use: commonly neglected considerations. Addiction, 91(2), 185–198.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Berman, J. Z., Levine, E. E., Barasch, A., & Small, D. A. (2015). The Braggart’s dilemma: On the social rewards and penalties of advertising prosocial behavior. Journal of Marketing Research, 52(1), 90–104.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bietenbeck, J. (2021). Peer motivation, and educational success. Technical report working paper.

  • Brouwer, J., & Jansen, E. (2019). Beyond grades: Developing knowledge sharing in learning communities as a graduate attribute. Higher Education Research & Development, 38(2), 219–234.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Buchmann, C., & Dalton, B. (2002). Interpersonal influences and educational aspirations in 12 countries: The importance of institutional context. Sociology of Education, 75(2), 99–122.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bunte, J. B. (2019). Why do students enroll in political science courses? PS: Political Science and Politics, 52(2), 353–360.

    Google Scholar 

  • Carrell, S. E., Fullerton, R. L., & West, J. E. (2009). Does your cohort matter? Measuring peer effects in college achievement. Journal of Labor Economics, 27(3), 439–464.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Celant, S. (2011). The analysis of students’ academic achievement: The evaluation of peer effects through relational links. Quality & Quantity, 47(2), 615–631.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Copelovitch, M. S. (2010). the international monetary fund in the global economy: Banks, bonds, and bailouts. Cambridge University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • De Giorgi, G., Pellizzari, M., & Redaelli, S. (2010). Identification of social interactions through partially overlapping peer groups. American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, 2(2), 241–275.

    Google Scholar 

  • De Paola, M., & Scoppa, V. (2010). Peer group effects on the academic performance of Italian students. Applied Economics, 42(17), 2203–2215.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Dixon-Román, E., Everson, H., & McArdle, J. (2013). Race, poverty and SAT scores: Modeling the influences of family income on black and white high school students? SAT performance. Teachers College Record, 115(4), 1–33.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Duflo, E., Dupas, P., & Kremer, M. (2011). Peer effects, teacher incentives, and the impact of tracking: Evidence from a randomized evaluation in Kenya. American Economic Review, 101(5), 1739–1774.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Duncan, G. J., Boisjoly, J., Kremer, M., Levy, D. M., & Eccles, J. (2005). Peer effects in drug use and sex among college students. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, 33(3), 375–385.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Eisenkopf, G. (2010). Peer effects, motivation, and learning. Economics of Education Review, 29(3), 364–374.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ficano, C. C. (2012). Peer effects in college academic outcomes-gender matters! Economics of Education Review, 31(6), 1102–1115.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Foster, G. (2006). It’s not your peers, and it’s not your friends: Some progress toward understanding the educational peer effect mechanism. Journal of Public Economics, 90(8–9), 1455–1475.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Foster, G., & Frijters, P. (2010). Students’ beliefs about peer effects. Economics Letters, 108(3), 260–263.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • García-Lóopez, L. J., Díez-Bedmar, M. B. & Almansa-Moreno, J. M. (2013). From being a trainee to being a trainer: Helping peers improve their public speaking skills. Revista de Psicodidáactica 18(2).

  • Golsteyn, B. H., Non, A., & Zölitz, U. (2021). The impact of peer personality on academic achievement. Journal of Political Economy, 129(4), 1052–1099.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gray, T. R., & Bunte, J. B. (2022). The effect of grades on student performance: Evidence From a quasi-experiment. College Teaching, 70(1), 15–28.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Guimond, S., & Roussel, L. (2001). Bragging about one’s school grades: Gender stereotyping and students’ perception of their abilities in science, mathematics, and languag. Social Psychology of Education, 4(3), 275–293.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hallinan, M. T., & Williams, R. A. (1990). Students’ characteristics and the peer-influence process. Sociology of Education, 63(2), 122–132.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Han, L., & Li, T. (2009). The gender difference of peer influence in higher education. Economics of Education Review, 28(1), 129–134.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hasan, S., & Bagde, S. (2013). The mechanics of social capital and academic performance in an Indian college. American Sociological Review, 78(6), 1009–1032.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ho, D. E., Imai, K., King, G., & Stuart, E. A. (2007). Matching as nonparametric preprocessing for reducing model dependence in parametric causal inference. Political Analysis, 15(3), 199–236.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hommes, J., Rienties, B., de Grave, W., Bos, G., Schuwirth, L., & Scherpbier, A. (2012). Visualising the invisible: a network approach to reveal the informal social side of student learning. Advances in Health Sciences Education, 17(5), 743–757.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hong, S. C., & Lee, J. (2017). Who is sitting next to you? Peer effects inside the classroom. Quantitative Economics, 8(1), 239–275.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hovland, C. I., Janis, I. L., & Kelley, H. H. (1953). Communication and persuasion.

  • Hoxby, C. M. (2000). Peer effects in the classroom: Learning from gender and race variation. Working Paper: 1–63.

  • Huckfeldt, R. R., & Sprague, J. (1995). Citizens, politics and social communication: Information and influence in an election campaign. Cambridge University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Ibarra, H., & Andrews, S. B. (1993). Power, social influence, and sense making: Effects of network centrality and proximity on employee perceptions. Administrative Science Quarterly, 38(2), 277–303.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Jain, T., & Kapoor, M. (2015). The impact of study groups and roommates on academic performance. The Review of Economics and Statistics, 97(1), 44–54.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Järvelä, S., Volet, S., & Järvenoja, H. (2010). Research on motivation in collaborative learning: Moving beyond the cognitive-situative divide and combining individual and social processes. Educational Psychologist, 45(1), 15–27.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Katz, N., Lazer, D., Arrow, H., & Contractor, N. (2016). Network theory and small groups. Small Group Research, 35(3), 307–332.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Klofstad, C. (2010). Civic talk: Peers, politics, and the future of democracy. Temple University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kremer, M., & Levy, D. (2008). Peer effects and alcohol use among college students. The Journal of Economic Perspectives, 22(3), 189–206.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kuh, G. D., Cruce, T. M., Shoup, R., Kinzie, J., & Gonyea, R. M. (2008). Unmasking the effects of student engagement on first-year college grades and persistence. The Journal of Higher Education, 79(5), 540–563.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lazear, E. P. (2001). Educational production. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 116(3), 777–803.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Legewie, J., & DiPrete, T. A. (2012). School context and the gender gap in educational achievement. American Sociological Review, 77(3), 463–485.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • López Turley, R. N., & Wodtke, G. (2010). College residence and academic performance: Who benefits from living on campus? Urban Education, 45(4), 506–532.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lyle, D. S. (2007). Estimating and interpreting peer and role model effects from randomly assigned social groups at west point. The Review of Economics and Statistics, 89(2), 289–299.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lyle, D. S. (2009). The effects of peer group heterogeneity on the production of human capital at west point. American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, 1(4), 69–84.

    Google Scholar 

  • Main, J. B., & Ost, B. (2014). The impact of letter grades on student effort, course selection, and major choice: A regression-discontinuity analysis. The Journal of Economic Education, 45(1), 1–10.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • McEwan, P. J., & Soderberg, K. A. (2006). Roommate effects on grades: Evidence from first-year housing assignments. Research in Higher Education, 47(3), 347–370.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Oettinger, G. S. (2002). The effect of nonlinear incentives on performance: Evidence from “ECON 101’’. The Review of Economics and Statistics, 84(3), 509–517.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Parker, J., Grant, J., Portland, J. C., & Reed, O. (2010). Classmate peer effects: Evidence from core courses at three colleges. Reed College Working Paper.

  • Pascarella, E. T. (1984). College environmental influences on students’ educational aspirations. The Journal of Higher Education, 55(6), 751–771.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Patacchini, E., Rainone, E., & Zenou, Y. (2017). Heterogeneous peer effects in education. Journal of Economic Behavior Organization, 134, 1–38.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Poldin, O., Valeeva, D., & Yudkevich, M. (2015). Which peers matter: How social ties affect peer-group effects. Research in Higher Education, 57(4), 448–468.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pollock, S. (2011). Taking a scientific approach to science teaching (p. 443). In Earth and space science: Making connections in education and public outreach.

  • Sacerdote, B. (2001). Peer effects with random assignment: Results for Dartmouth roommates. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 116(2), 681–704.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sartori, A. E. (2003). An estimator for some binary-outcome selection models without exclusion restrictions. Political Analysis, 11(2), 111–138.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Stinebrickner, R., & Stinebrickner, T. R. (2006). What can be learned about peer effects using college roommates? Evidence from new survey data and students from disadvantaged backgrounds. Journal of Public Economics, 90(8–9), 1435–1454.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Stubbs, T., Reinsberg, B., Kentikelenis, A., & King, L. (2018). How to evaluate the effects of IMF conditionality. The Review of International Organizations, 4(2), 1–45.

    Google Scholar 

  • Thorkildsen, T. A., & Nicholls, J. G. (1991). Students’ critiques as motivation. Educational Psychologist, 26(3–4), 347–368.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tincani, M. (2017). Heterogeneous peer effects and rank concerns: Theory and evidence.

  • Vitale, M. P., Porzio, G. C., & Doreian, P. (2015). Examining the effect of social influence on student performance through network autocorrelation models. Journal of Applied Statistics, 43(1), 115–127.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Weinhardt, F. & Murphy, R. (2016). Top of the class: The importance of ordinal rank.

  • Wentzel, K. R. (2005). Peer relationships, motivation, and academic performance at school. In A. J. Elliot & C. S. Dweck (Eds.), The Guilford Press.

  • Westrick, P. A., Marini, J. P., Young, L., Ng, H., Shmueli, D., & Shaw, E. J. (2019). Validity of the SAT R for predicting first-year grades and retention to the second year. College Board Research Paper.

  • Winne, P. H., & Nesbit, J. C. (2010). The psychology of academic achievement. Annual Review of Psychology, 61(1), 653–678.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Winship, C., & Mare, R. D. (1992). Models for sample selection bias. Annual Review of Sociology, 18(1), 327–350.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Zimmer, R. W., & Toma, E. F. (2000). Peer effects in private and public schools across countries. Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, 19(1), 75–92.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Zimmerman, D. J. (2003). Peer effects in academic outcomes: Evidence from a natural experiment. The Review of Economics and Statistics, 85(1), 9–23.

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Funding

Not applicable

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. The University of Texas at Dallas, Department of Political Science, TX, Richardson, USA

    Lauren Ratliff Santoro

  2. Vienna University of Economics and Business, Institute for International Political Economy, Vienna, Austria

    Jonas B. Bunte

Authors
  1. Lauren Ratliff Santoro
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Jonas B. Bunte
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Contributions

Each author contributed equally to the manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Lauren Ratliff Santoro.

Ethics declarations

Conflict of interest

Not applicable

Additional information

Publisher's Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Supplementary Information

Below is the link to the electronic supplementary material.

Supplementary File 1 (PDF 133 KB)

Rights and permissions

Springer Nature or its licensor holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Santoro, L.R., Bunte, J.B. What Did You Get? Peers, Information, and Student Exam Performance. Res High Educ 64, 423–450 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11162-022-09711-w

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11162-022-09711-w

Keywords

Search

Navigation