The drivers of month-of-birth differences in children's cognitive and non-cognitive skills

Area of Science:

• Educational Psychology
• Developmental Psychology
• Sociology of Education

Background:

• Children born later in the academic year often exhibit lower educational attainment.
• The specific mechanisms driving this academic inequality are not well understood.
• This disparity is particularly pronounced in younger age groups.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the mechanisms behind educational inequalities related to birth month.
• To quantify the impact of age at cognitive skills testing on educational outcomes.
• To evaluate potential policy interventions, such as age adjustment of test scores.

Main Methods:

• Utilized two complementary identification strategies.
• Analyzed rich data from two UK birth cohort studies.
• Estimated the upper bound effect of age at test on educational attainment.

Main Results:

• Differences in age at cognitive skills testing account for the majority of outcome variations.
• The combined effects of school entry age, schooling duration, and relative age were negligible.
• Age at test did not fully explain differences in children's self-perceived scholastic competence.

Conclusions:

• Age adjustment of national achievement test scores is a potential policy to address birth month-related penalties.
• While age adjustment may improve ability beliefs, additional policies are necessary.
• Further research is needed to address the remaining disparities in scholastic self-concept.