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The role of teacher content knowledge in student achievement - A panel data analysis from Tanzanian primary schools
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School of Business |
Master's thesis
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en
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63
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Abstract
The goal of this paper is to study the impact of teacher content knowledge on student achievement in Tanzania. In addition, I observe whether other school inputs and teacher characteristics impact student achievement. Using data from two rounds of a nationally representative Service Delivery Indicator (SDI) survey in 2014 and 2016, I construct a novel panel dataset, which includes math and English test scores of fourth-grade students and their teachers. I exploit within-student variation across years to control for time-invariant student characteristics, including endowed ability, to estimate the impact of teacher content knowledge on student test scores in mathematics and English.
I find that teacher content knowledge does not have a significant impact on student achievement in Tanzania. However, there is weak evidence to suggest that teacher performance on pedagogy tests is positively associated with student achievement and that female teachers are associated with higher student test scores. The main findings of this study align with previous research from low-income countries, where studies consistently find no statistically significant effect of teacher content knowledge on student achievement. These findings suggest that student achievement in Tanzania is driven by factors other than teacher content knowledge. A possible explanation behind these findings could be that teacher knowledge is low overall, making teachers less effective. In that case, improving teacher knowledge at the national level could have positive impacts on student achievement.
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Reinikka, RitvaThesis advisor
Reinikka, RitvaOther note
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Master_code_Kivimäki.zip