The impact of non-cognitive skills on students' transition to college

• Applicant: Dr. Frauke Peter
• Subject Area: Education Systems and Educational Institutions ; Economic Policy, Applied Economics
• Term: from 2017 to 2020
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 337126832

The planned project aims at identifying the potential effect of non-cognitive skills on adolescents' intention to enrol in college and on their actual enrolment, since non-cognitive skills are important input factors for people's human capital decisions. Intention to enrol in college as well as the actual enrolment impact on an individual's educational and labour market success. An individual's intention to study is highly correlated with the likelihood to enrol and to subsequently obtain a degree, as an individual must have the intent of doing something before she can actually put it into practice. Furthermore, pursuing a college degree impacts on a person's labour market success later in life; measured by earnings, occupational status, or the likelihood of employment. Individuals might therefore have different preferences, ceteris paribus, for either college or vocational education for that matter. This project assumes, that adolescents, who tend to be, for example, anxious or insecure, might decide against college education, as they might be unable to assess the likelihood of succeeding or they might underestimate their likelihood of success. In addition, adolescents, who tend to be altruistic, might decide in favour or against college education dependent on their family's preferences. Whereas, adolescents, who tend to believe in their skills, might decide in favour of college education, as they probably underestimate the costs of pursuing a college degree. Using data from the Cohort 4 of the National Education Panel Study (NEPS) is well-suited for the underlying research question, as participants are in their final school year in 2014/15 obtaining the college entrance certificate. Hence, some students might start their first year of college or vocational education that same year. Especially regarding the effect of non-cognitive skills on actual enrolment benefits from this data set, as non-cognitive skills and intention to enrol are both measured prior enrolment. But in a first step the project will look at the association of students' intention to enrol and their non-cognitive skills, which will allow replicating and expanding existing findings. Beside associations this project aims at examining potential causal effects by applying matching methods. Both, linear probability models and matching methods assume selection on observables, i.e. assume that all influences on either intention/enrolment or non-cognitive skills are explained by the used set of observed characteristics. Thus, this project will in addition implement a novel econometric method regarding the selection on unobservables and the stability of coefficients. This method allows assessing any remaining potential bias of unobserved factors.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants