The contribution of schooling to the cognitive development of secondary education students in Cyprus: an application of regression discontinuity with multiple cut-off points

Abstract

This article reports the results of a study in which the basic regression-discontinuity approach to assess the effect of 1 year of schooling is extended. The data analysis covers the 6 grades of secondary education in Cyprus and thus assesses the contribution of secondary education to the cognitive development of 12- to 18-year-old students. A model with multiple cut-off points is fitted. Achievement scores on both curriculum-based tests in language and mathematics and the non-curriculum-referenced Comprehensive Test of Cognitive Development (CTCD), which measures the development of 5 domains of reasoning (i.e., categorical, quantitative, spatial, causal, and propositional), were analysed to measure the effect of schooling. Implications of findings for the development of educational effectiveness research are drawn.

Keywords:

• methodology of educational effectiveness research
• effect of schooling
• multilevel modelling
• regression discontinuity