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This paper quantifies the learning gain that accrues to 15-year-old students over one year of schooling in 18 countries and economies, where the cohort eligible to sit the OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA)ISA test overlaps with two distinct school cohorts. School-entry regulations are used as an exogenous source of variation for grade levels in an instrumental- variables framework. The focus on the joint effect of schooling and age, together with (local) linearity assumptions, make it possible to account for differences in school-starting age across students who are expected to be in different grades. On average, students' test scores increase by about one-fifth of a standard deviation over a school year. While estimates of the grade gain for individual countries and economies come with wide confidence intervals, this study also shows the annual learning gain of students around the age of 15 tends to be larger in high-income countries compared to middle-income countries.

This paper compares the learning gain over one year of schooling among 15-year-old students in Austria and Scotland (United Kingdom). Common metrics for reading, mathematics and science learning, as established by the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), are used. In order to overcome the limitations of a cross-sectional, single-cohort design, multiple cycles of PISA data are combined. The fact that Austria and Scotland moved their testing period across cycles is also exploited. The results are used to establish a benchmark for other performance differences observed in PISA, such as gender gaps, socio-economic gaps or between-country differences.

Because of the regulations concerning school entry in most school systems, a child's date of birth may significantly affect his or her age at entry into school, and thus their first experience of schooling. Using data from the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), this paper provides a comparative analysis of the impact of a student's month of birth on cognitive and non-cognitive outcomes. It describes school regulations regarding school entry in over 45 countries and economies, and discusses the reasons why a student's date of birth may have consequences on his or her performance in school. The results show that a student's month of birth has consequences on performance in the three main domains assessed by PISA, and also on the student's progress through education, as those children who were the youngest in their grade cohort at entry into school were more likely to have repeated a grade in primary school. This paper also shows that, in several school systems, being the youngest in the school-entry cohort has an impact on self-confidence, notably on self-perceived competence and self-efficacy, and also on future education outcomes. These results call for raising awareness amongst educators and parents of the initial disadvantage experienced by the youngest children in their first years of school. The paper concludes with a review of existing recommendations to reduce age-related effects on education outcomes.

A student's performance in school is influenced by personal characteristics, but also, amongst other influences, by those of his or her schoolmates. Schoolmates can motivate and help each other overcome learning difficulties; but they can also disrupt instruction, require disproportionate attention from teachers, and be a source of anxiety. The way students are allocated to schools, and whether that results in greater socio-economic or academic differences across schools, may thus have an impact on education outcomes at the country level. In which PISA-participating countries and economies are students concentrated in certain schools, depending largely on their ability or socio-economic status? How is socio-economic segregation across schools related to the achievement gaps between students of different socio-economic status?