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Children left behind: self-confidence of pupils in competitive environments
Federičová, Miroslava ; Pertold, Filip ; Smith, Michael
Early-tracking systems naturally divide many classes of 11 years old students into two groups:\nstudents preparing for exams to enter better schools and everyone else, who decide not to compete for selective schools. Utilizing TIMSS data and a follow-up study in the Czech Republic, which has an early-tracking system similar to other European states following the German model, we show that this environment has a detrimental effect on the self-confidence of pupils in mathematics who do not apply for selective schools but have peers in their classroom who do apply. In particular, we show that girls who do not apply for selective schools experience a 11% drop in confidence in mathematics if they have four applicants among classmates and this effect is even larger if the applicants are successful in the admission process. We focus on self-confidence in mathematics as an outcome variable because the literature suggests it is directly linked to pupils' motivation to study STEM fields as well as subsequent educational achievement. Our results suggest that the decrease in selfconfidence among girls is long lasting and implies that gender gaps in self-confidence can be a result of the competitive environment of the educational system.
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Self-confidence of a class and competition of the classmates for eight-year gymnasium
Federičová, Miroslava ; Pertold, Filip ; Smith, Michael
The Czech Republic belongs to a small group of European countries with an educational system that leads to a very early differentiation of pupils in schools according to their academic performance and socio-economic background. In the Czech Republic, 18% of pupils in the 5th grade apply for 8-year grammar schools (gymnasia in Czech) and go through the challenging process of preparing for entrance exams. Thus, on average 3 pupils in each classroom apply to these gymnasia, of which almost 2 pupils are admitted. Our analysis on data from a unique survey of schools shows that a presence of an extra classmate who is applying for gymnasia affects one’s self-confidence. The biggest negative impact we noted was in case of self-confidence of girls in mathematics. Decline in confidence (from the level in the fourth grade, that is before preparing for entrance exams) is about 7% of the student with at least two classmates who applied. As a control group, we use the class where no one has applied.
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Learning by torture or learning by play? A comparison of satisfaction with school and mathematics from the perspective of international testing programs
Federičová, Miroslava ; Münich, Daniel
The international survey PISA 2012, which focused on 15-year-old students in OECD countries and many others, showed that almost 80% of students feel happy at school. Among the 64 participating countries, those with the highest proportion of contented students were Indonesia, Albania and Peru (96%, 94% and 94%). However, the countries with the lowest share of such students were South Korea, the Czech Republic and Slovakia (60%, 63% and 64%).
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Preparing for the eight-year gymnasium: the great pupil steeplechase
Federičová, Miroslava ; Münich, Daniel
Nearly 20% of all fifth-year pupils apply for entry to eight-year gymnasium, but fewer than half of them are successful. The vast majority apply on the basis of their own and their parents‘ joint interests. Preparation for the entry exams is a burden both for the children and their parents, whether in the form of lost free time, or in terms of financial outlayings for tutoring, preparatory courses and practice tests. Nearly 85% of those enrolled to take the entry examinations dedicate time weekly to their preparation, and each day sees almost one in two of these pupils busy with preparation. Intensive preparation vastly increases the likelihood of acceptance for the lowerachieving half of candidates. For the higher-achieving half, intensive preparation is rather an insurance measure, to ensure that the very hard-working candidates from the lower half will not overtake them. There are many indications that intensive extra-curricular study in preparation for the entry examinations for eight-year gymnasium significantly improves pupils‘ knowledge and skills. In this, will power, perseverance, ambition, rigour and pressure from the parents play a significant role.
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