Estimating the Effect of Peer Assisted Study on Student Grades in Economics

Abstract

This paper estimates the effect of student led Peer Assisted Study Sessions (P.A.S.S.) on student grades in economics – a program now offered in over 1800 institutes worldwide. P.A.S.S. sessions are voluntary, therefore students who attend are likely to be endogenously selected and thus comparing average grades of attending students leads to bias in the reported effectiveness of the program. Using exogenous timetabling restrictions and the promotion of the course by teaching staff as instrumental variables, we estimate that a single session raises a student’s final grade by around 3.2 percentage points.