On the difficulties of evaluating the effect of school facility conditions on student outcomes

Abstract

This paper presents various empirical strategies used to analyze the effect from school facilities on student outcomes, and discusses strengths and weaknesses by the methods. A key challenge in studies of student outcomes is that outcomes are affected by many factors and that many of these factors are correlated with each other. Moreover, some factors are difficult to measure, and cannot be observed in data. Hence, it is difficult to avoid problems related to omitted variables bias and the estimated correlations can thus often not be interpreted as causal effects. It is important to be aware of how difficult it is to move on from a correlation to a causal effect. If researchers wrongfully draw causal inferences one risks misleading policy makers into allocating resources to the wrong factors.

Investments and maintenance spending for public facilities: what do we know and what do we want to know

“…1. Note that Hopland (2019) cautions that results from the studies on school construction projects are more reliable, due to methodological advantages.…”

“…The perhaps most important simplification is that the building condition can be summarized into a single variable (similar as in survey data studied empirically by, e.g. NOU, 2004;Riksrevisjonen, 2004Riksrevisjonen, -2005Hopland, 2014Hopland, , 2021Hopland and Kvamsdal, 2019a). While measuring the building condition as one number is a practical way to summarize building conditions, it is not necessarily a very good way to do it.…”

“…Beyond the effects of larger school construction projects, Hopland and Nyhus (2015, 2016) provide evidence that indicators of school facilities and the physical learning environment positively affect student performance and motivation. The results vary across settings and specifications, though, and several studies cannot reject a zero effect from buildings on student performance (Hopland, 2012, 2013, 2021) [1]. Moreover, Taskinen et al .…”

“…Beyond the effects of larger school construction projects, Nyhus (2015, 2016) provide evidence that indicators of school facilities and the physical learning environment positively affect student performance and motivation. The results vary across settings and specifications, though, and several studies cannot reject a zero effect from buildings on student performance (Hopland, 2012(Hopland, , 2013(Hopland, , 2021 [1]. Moreover, Taskinen et al (1997), Buckley et al (2005), Madureira et al (2015), Toyinbo et al (2016) Kalimeri et al (2016), andBako-Biro et al (2012) find that poor facilities conditions may lead to lower achievement, health issues, turnover, and sick leave that increases labor costs.…”