On effects of non-cognitive skills, social isolation, and bullying on school performance

Abstract

The thesis aims to explore the impact of non-cognitive skills, social isolation among classmates, and bullying on educational outcomes, with a focus on Italian school setting. For this purpose, census data from INVALSI – the Italian National Institute for the Evaluation of the Educational System – on a whole population of Italian primary school children attending the 5th grade in the school year 2013/14 are used. The thesis is organized as follows. In Chapter 1, we investigate whether students’ non-cognitive skills affect their educational outcomes. For these students we estimate how standardized test scores in literacy and numeracy obtained in the 8th and 10th grades are affected by their academic motivation, regulatory self-efficacy, and social isolation as measured when attending primary school, controlling for their ex-ante cognitive abilities as proxied by standardized test scores achieved in the 5th grade.