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Class Size in Early Grades, Student Grit and Later School Outcomes

The increasing recognition of non-cognitive skills in economics has led many researchers to investigate how educational practices enhance these skills. In this paper, we focus on the non-cognitive skill known as ‘grit’, and we study the causal relation between class size and grit. Using data from follow-up surveys of Project STAR, we show that fourth-grade pupils who experienced small classes during early grades are 0.12 standard deviations higher in grit than their peers in regular classes. We also show that grit matters, because nearly half of the effect of smaller classes on test scores operates through grit. The effects of grit are far-reaching: students with higher grit have better grades at the end of compulsory schooling, are more likely to graduate from high school on time and are more likely to take a college entrance exam.