Myths of Official Measurement:Auditing and Improving Administrative Data in Developing Countries
Myths of Official Measurement:Auditing and Improving Administrative Data in Developing Countries
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DOI：
10.35489/bsg-rise-wp_2020/042
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发表时间：
2020-07
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通讯作者：
Abhijeet Singh
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作者：
Abhijeet Singh
国家能力的一个核心组成部分是行政数据的质量，这是有效决策的关键推动因素，但尚未得到充分研究。我是在印度教育系统的背景下研究这个问题的。使用直接审计证据，我表明，中央邦的学生成绩水平，从每年覆盖约700万学生的大规模人口普查中，由于作弊而严重夸大。这种扭曲影响着所有成绩水平的学生，但对表现不佳的学生来说尤为严重。在随后的随机实验中，我对安得拉邦（Andhra Pradesh） 2400多所学校进行了调查，评估了基于平板电脑的考试是否能减少作弊行为。我发现，无论是在私立学校还是在公立学校，教师监考的纸质评估都严重夸大了学生的成绩，但在基于平板电脑的评估中没有发现这种扭曲的证据。这些结果表明，即使没有强有力的激励措施，“一切照旧”的学习评估也可能受到损害，从而限制其对政策行动或研究的有用性，尽管即使在规模上也有可能遏制这种操纵。这一数据腐败的挑战，以及解决这一问题的改革的潜在证据，可能会在各个部门普遍存在。RISE工作文件20/042,2020年7月
A central, yet understudied, component of state capacity is the quality of administrative data, which is a key enabler of effective policy making. I study this in the context of education systems in India. Using direct audit evidence, I show that levels of student achievement in Madhya Pradesh, from a large census covering approximately 7 million students annually, are severely inflated due to cheating. This distortion affects students at all levels of achievement but is particularly severe for low-performing students. In a follow-up randomized experiment, covering over 2400 schools in a different state (Andhra Pradesh), I evaluate whether tablet-based testing, which makes cheating harder, could reduce distortion. I find paper-based assessments proctored by teachers severely exaggerate achievement, in both private and government schools, but find no evidence of such distortion in tablet-based assessments. These results suggest that business-as-usual learning assessments may be compromised even without high-powered incentives, limiting their usefulness for policy action or research, although it may be possible to curtail such manipulation even at scale. This challenge of data corruptibility, and potentially evidence on reforms to address it, is likely to generalize across sectors. RISE Working Paper 20/042 July 2020