The Implications of Pupil Rank for Achievement

Abstract

The significance of social interaction has become an increasingly important part of economic thought and models through the work on peer effects, social norms, and networks. Within this literature, a novel focus of ranking within groups has emerged. The rank of an individual is usually defined as the ordinal position within a specific group. This could be the work environment or a classroom, and much of this literature focuses on rank effects in education settings. The literature studies rank effects for various age groups. There is evidence that a rank position even during early life phases, such as in elementary education, has lasting effects on education outcomes such as test scores or subject specializations, choices during college, and wages. A first-order challenge in the study of rank effects is to separate them from other highly correlated effects. For example, individuals with a high rank academic rank in a group will likely have high academic ability in absolute terms. Papers in this field directly account for measured ability, and so rely on the variation in rank that exists across groups for any given ability measure, that is, a score of 80 in one group would rank the student top, while near the bottom in another. The comparability of achievement measures across settings is key; one commonly employed solution is to account for level differences across settings. While the literature has now established the importance of rank, there are several—potentially non- competing—ideas for the precise behavioral mechanisms of why rank matters so much. Future work will most likely focus on integrating rank effects into the literature on social interactions to discuss implications for optimal group formation.