The socioeconomic Gap between teacher and test-based assessments

Abstract

The goal of this Master’s thesis is to analyze whether teacher and test-based assessments differ systematically between low-income and high-income students throughout the Portuguese education system. Nationwide data on students and their assessments in 14 subjects in the 6th, 9th, 11thand 12thgrades from 2008 to 2018 was analyzed following linear specifications to test whether there are significant socioeconomic gaps between both grading schemes. Results show all students are typically given worse results in exams than by their teachers, and low-income students tend to have a smaller gap between these two types of assessments.