A New Look at Lake Wobegon: Who's in Your Canoe?

摘要

Over 20 years ago, Maxwell and Lopus (1994) identified what has since been referred to as the "Lake Wobegon" effect in economic education research. They found that students generally tend to overstate their academic accomplishments and that low-achieving students are unlikely to report their achievement at all, with the combined effect being an upward bias in scores. In research from the broader health literature, mis-reporting of certain behaviors is often tied to survey conditions, Brener, Billy, and Grady (2003). For instance, Hoyt and Chaloupka (1994) find that adolescents overreport illicit substance use when surveyed in the presence of a friend and they systematically underreport use when a family member is present.Given that student self-reported data is a ubiquitous feature of empirically based economic education research, the potential for systematic misreporting raises significant concerns about biased estimates and misinterpretation of results when nonrandom reporting error occurs. In fact, Becker and Powers (2001) argue against using student-provided data for aptitude measures due to their unreliability. Systematic self-reporting is especially troubling if the economic research evaluates the impact of educational inputs,pedagogical techniques, or course policies, and potentially biased results lead educators to implement misguided policy.