Teacher Effectiveness and its Determinants in Germany: A Deepened Analysis

教育经济学中关于教师效能的知识状况可以用两句话简单概括：1。教师在学生的发展中起着至关重要的作用。2. 教师的具体特点对学生的表现产生了特殊的影响，这些特点在很大程度上仍不清楚。许多研究，特别是在美国进行的研究表明，教师素质的差异是相当大的，只有少数教师的特征，如经验、学科知识或相同的性别可以适度地解释这种差异。目前尚不清楚这些研究是否对德国教育系统具有外部有效性，因为德国的学校系统和教师培训存在很大差异。其鲜明的特点是有组织的教师培训计划，早期跟踪和私立和公立学校的有限竞争。国家教育小组研究（NEPS）使得首次在德国应用计量经济学方法成为可能，这些方法对教师质量的变化以及教师特征与学生表现之间的联系产生了可信的结果。本项目由三部分组成。首先，我们希望在前一个资助期工作的基础上，利用将在第二个资助期获得的数据，加强我们评估结果的统计能力，从而得出关于德国教师有效性及其决定因素的更有力的结论。此外，我们希望将我们之前的研究扩展两倍。在第二部分中，由于NEPS数据的特定新兴结构，我们可以将之前依赖于两年成就收益的评估技术扩展到基于一年成就收益的方法。从方法论的角度来看，这是特别有趣的，因为文献的标准是基于一年的收益。此外，比较这两种估计方法对于评估我们第一个资助期的结果和潜在的发展政策影响至关重要。在第三部分中，我们希望利用第二个资助期结束时面板数据的显著延长的时间维度来改进估计方法。到那时，NEPS数据将允许清除混杂因素在学生表现中的差异。我们想把这个经过清理的测量分为课堂和教师两个部分，这样可以更好地确定教师对学生成绩的因果影响。在他们的实体中，这三个项目部分与第一个资助期的结果相结合，将为德国教师及其特征对学生成绩的影响提供关键证据。这些研究结果可以为德国当前的教育政策提供深刻的政策建议。

The state of knowledge in the economics of education on teacher effectiveness could briefly be summarized in two sentences: 1. Teachers play a critical role in the development of their students. 2. The specific teacher characteristics that account for their particular effects on their students' performance remain mostly unclear. Many studies, particularly conducted in the US, show that teacher quality variation is quite substantial and that only few teacher traits such as experience, subject knowledge or the same gender can moderately explain this variation. It is yet unclear whether these studies are externally valid for the German education system as it differs quite considerably in its school system as well as in its teacher training. Examples of its distinctive features are the structured teacher training programs, the early tracking and the limited competition of private and public schools. The National Educational Panel Study (NEPS) makes it possible for the first time to apply econometric methods for Germany that yield credible results about the variation of teacher quality and about the link between teacher traits and student performances.This project consists of three parts. First, we want to build upon the work of the previous funding period and use the data that will become available over the second funding period to strengthen the statistical power of our estimation results, thereby allowing for more robust conclusions on teacher effectiveness and its determinants in Germany. Furthermore, we want to extend our previous study twofold. In the second part, due to the specific emerging structure of the NEPS data, we can extend our previous estimation techniques that relied on two-year achievement gains to methods that will be based on one-year achievement gains. This is particularly interesting from a methodological point of view, as the standard of the literature is based on one-year gains. In addition, the comparison of these two estimation methods is critical for the assessment of our results of the first funding period and the potentially developed policy implications.In the third part, we want to exploit the considerably extended time dimension of the panel data by the end of the second funding period to improve the estimation methods. By then, the NEPS data will allow the cleansing of the variation in student performances of confounding factors. We want to divide this cleansed measure into a classroom and a teacher component, which will allow for a better identification of causal teacher effects on student achievement.In their entity, these three project parts in association with the results from the first funding period will provide critical evidence on the effects of German teachers and their traits on student achievement. Profound policy advice can be made on the basis of these results for current German education policy.