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Author: Hitt, Collin
Resulting in 4 citations.
1. Hitt, Collin
Character Assessment: Three Essays
Ph.D. Dissertation, Department of Education Policy, University of Arkansas, 2016
Cohort(s): NLSY79, NLSY97
Publisher: ProQuest Dissertations & Theses (PQDT)
Keyword(s): Educational Attainment; Educational Longitudinal Study (ELS:2002); High School and Beyond (HSB); National Education Longitudinal Survey (NELS); National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (AddHealth); Noncognitive Skills; Nonresponse

Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher.

I propose a new approach to measuring character skills. In the following three essays, my co-authors and I measure the effort that adolescent students appear to put forward on surveys and tests. First, I examine the extent to which students simply skip questions or plead ignorance on surveys. Second, I develop new methods for detecting careless answers, those instances in which students appear to be "just filling in the bubbles." I show, using longitudinal datasets, that both measures are predictive of educational degree attainment, independent of measured cognitive ability and other demographic factors. Finally, I demonstrate that international differences in reading, math and science test scores appear in fact to partially reflect international differences in student effort on assessments. Just as some students skip questions and carelessly answer surveys, some students do the same on tests. To the extent that effort on surveys and tests reflects noncognitive skills, presumed international differences in cognitive ability (as measured by standardized tests) might in fact be driven by differences in noncognitive ability. Altogether, the measures explored in the paper present three new methods for quantifying student character skills, which can be used in future research. Throughout, my co-authors and I posit that the character skills that our measures capture are related to conscientiousness and self-control. [Author uses NLSY79 and NLSY97 in first essay]
Bibliography Citation
Hitt, Collin. Character Assessment: Three Essays. Ph.D. Dissertation, Department of Education Policy, University of Arkansas, 2016.
2. Hitt, Collin
When You Say Nothing at All: The Surprising Predictive Power of Student Effort on Surveys
Presented: Albuquerque NM, Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management (APPAM) Annual Fall Research Conference, November 2014
Cohort(s): NLSY97
Publisher: Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management (APPAM)
Keyword(s): Educational Attainment; Nonresponse; Personality/Big Five Factor Model or Traits

Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher.

The completion of a survey is a task. We calculate student effort on surveys within several prominent longitudinal datasets frequently used in social science research, such as the National Longitudinal Study of Youth 1997 and National Educational Longitudinal Survey 1988. Specifically, we calculate the frequency with which respondents provide incomplete, invalid or inconsistent answers. We then test whether survey-effort in adolescence is predictive of later life outcomes. Remarkably, the information captured in our measures of survey effort is a consistent predictor of educational attainment. We also examine outcomes such as income, crime, health and marriage. The pattern of relationships between survey effort and later outcomes is consistent with what one would expect of conscientiousness. Thus we suggest survey effort as a proxy measure of student skills, for use in program evaluations and public policy research.
Bibliography Citation
Hitt, Collin. "When You Say Nothing at All: The Surprising Predictive Power of Student Effort on Surveys." Presented: Albuquerque NM, Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management (APPAM) Annual Fall Research Conference, November 2014.
3. Hitt, Collin
Trivitt, Julie
Don’t Know? Or Don’t Care? Predicting Educational Attainment Using Survey Item Response Rates and Coding Speed Tests as Measures of Conscientiousness
EDRE Working Paper No. 2013-05, University of Arkansas, August 2013.
Also: http://www.uaedreform.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/Hitt_Trivitt_EDRE_2013_05.pdf
Cohort(s): NLSY97
Publisher: Department of Education Reform, University of Arkansas
Keyword(s): Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery (ASVAB); Educational Attainment; Noncognitive Skills; Nonresponse; Personality/Big Five Factor Model or Traits

Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher.

Leading research shows the importance of non-cognitive skills for educational attainment, but advances in this research have been slowed by a common data limitation: most datasets do not contain explicit measures of non-cognitive skills. We examine a new proxy for non-cognitive skills, survey item response rates. Using a detailed national survey of American adolescents, we find that the percentage of questions left unanswered is a significant predictor of educational attainment. The fewer questions left unanswered, the higher the likelihood overall that respondents will enroll in college. We replicate our analysis using a more rudimentary dataset, of the kind typically used in program evaluations, and again find that item response rates are predictive of educational attainment. We posit that survey item response rates capture conscientiousness, a personality trait that is not explicitly measured in most surveys. Thus item response rates provide a convenient measure of non-cognitive skills. We also examine another proxy for non-cognitive skills, results on a coding speed test. Coding speed is also predictive of educational attainment, independent of cognitive ability. Our results suggest coding speed also captures conscientiousness, albeit different facets of conscientiousness than item response rates. We conclude that coding speed and item response rates can both be used to measure the impact of public policy on important non-cognitive skills.
Bibliography Citation
Hitt, Collin and Julie Trivitt. "Don’t Know? Or Don’t Care? Predicting Educational Attainment Using Survey Item Response Rates and Coding Speed Tests as Measures of Conscientiousness." EDRE Working Paper No. 2013-05, University of Arkansas, August 2013.
4. Hitt, Collin
Trivitt, Julie
Cheng, Albert
When You Say Nothing at All: The Predictive Power of Student Effort on Surveys
Economics of Education Review 52 (June 2016): 105-119.
Also: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0272775716300541
Cohort(s): NLSY79, NLSY97
Publisher: Elsevier
Keyword(s): Educational Attainment; Educational Longitudinal Study (ELS:2002); High School and Beyond (HSB); National Education Longitudinal Survey (NELS); National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (AddHealth); Noncognitive Skills; Nonresponse

Character traits and noncognitive skills are important for human capital development and long-run life outcomes. Research in economics and psychology now shows this convincingly. But research into the exact determinants of noncognitive skills has been slowed by a common data limitation: most large-scale datasets do not contain adequate measures of noncognitive skills. This is particularly problematic in education policy evaluation. We demonstrate that within any survey dataset, there is important latent information that can be used as a proxy measure of noncognitive skills. Specifically, we examine the amount of conscientious effort that students exhibit on surveys, as measured by their item response rates. We use six nationally-representative, longitudinal surveys of American youth. We find that the percentage of questions skipped during the baseline year when respondents were adolescents is a significant predictor of later-life educational attainment, net of cognitive ability. Insofar as item response rates affect employment and income, they do so through their effect on education attainment. The pattern of findings gives compelling reasons to view item response rates as a promising behavioral measure of noncognitive skills for use in future research. We posit that response rates are a measure of conscientiousness, though additional research is required to determine what exact noncognitive skills are being captured by item response rates.
Bibliography Citation
Hitt, Collin, Julie Trivitt and Albert Cheng. "When You Say Nothing at All: The Predictive Power of Student Effort on Surveys." Economics of Education Review 52 (June 2016): 105-119.