Better than Most: Teacher Beliefs About Effort and Ability in Uganda

46 Pages Posted: 15 May 2018 Last revised: 2 Aug 2019

See all articles by Shwetlena Sabarwal

Shwetlena Sabarwal

World Bank

Kanishka Kacker

World Bank

James P. Habyarimana

Georgetown University; Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA)

Date Written: May 14, 2018

Abstract

Do teachers have accurate beliefs about their effort and ability? This paper explores this through a survey experiment in public-private partnership schools in Uganda, wherein teacher self-beliefs are contrasted with their beliefs about other teachers in the same school. The study finds that, on average, teachers tend to rate ability, effort, and job satisfaction more positively for themselves than for other teachers. This tendency is called high relative self-regard. The study finds no systematic evidence of high relative self-regard around perceptions of student engagement quality and available support structures. More experienced teachers are less likely to exhibit high relative self-regard, while teachers showing low effort are more likely to exhibit it. This is analogous to the Dunning-Kruger effect in psychology, except respondents rate themselves as better than most (not better than average) and variation is explored over effort (not cognitive ability). High relative self-regard is less pronounced in owner-managed public-private partnership schools, suggesting that when principle-agent problems are less severe, schools find ways to correct for inaccurate teacher self-beliefs. These results provide suggestive evidence of cognitive biases that help teachers rationalize suboptimal effort in the classroom. This in turn points to the importance of providing objective feedback to teachers about their effort and performance as one potential way to improve their performance. Teacher self-beliefs are important areas of intervention because they are likely to affect how teachers optimize their effort and training investments. Self-beliefs are also likely to affect how teachers respond to changes in incentive and accountability regimes.

Keywords: Effective Schools and Teachers, Educational Institutions & Facilities, Educational Sciences, Environmental Protection, Social Assessment, Private Sector Economics

Suggested Citation

Sabarwal, Shwetlena and Kacker, Kanishka and Habyarimana, James P., Better than Most: Teacher Beliefs About Effort and Ability in Uganda (May 14, 2018). World Bank Policy Research Working Paper No. 8440, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3178463

Shwetlena Sabarwal (Contact Author)

World Bank ( email )

1818 H Street, NW
Washington, DC 20433
United States

Kanishka Kacker

World Bank

1818 H Street, NW
Washington, DC 20433
United States

James P. Habyarimana

Georgetown University ( email )

Washington, DC 20057
United States

Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA)

Schaumburg-Lippe-Str. 7 / 9
Bonn, D-53072
Germany

Do you have negative results from your research you’d like to share?

Paper statistics

Downloads
79
Abstract Views
421
Rank
555,299
PlumX Metrics