skip to main content
Washington State Institute for Public Policy
Back Button

Teacher graduate degrees

Pre-K to 12 Education
  Literature review updated April 2012.
This program was archived December 2024.

This analysis examines the impact of having a teacher with a graduate degree, versus having a teacher without a graduate degree, holding all other measured school, teacher, and student characteristics equal.
 
ALL
META-ANALYSIS
CITATIONS

Meta-analysis is a statistical method to combine the results from separate studies on a program, policy, or topic to estimate its effect on an outcome. WSIPP systematically evaluates all credible evaluations we can locate on each topic. The outcomes measured are the program impacts measured in the research literature (for example, impacts on crime or educational attainment). Treatment N represents the total number of individuals or units in the treatment group across the included studies.

An effect size (ES) is a standard metric that summarizes the degree to which a program or policy affects a measured outcome. If the effect size is positive, the outcome increases. If the effect size is negative, the outcome decreases. See Estimating Program Effects Using Effect Sizes for additional information on how we estimate effect sizes.

The effect size may be adjusted from the unadjusted effect size estimated in the meta-analysis. Historically, WSIPP adjusted effect sizes to some programs based on the methodological characteristics of the study. For programs reviewed in 2024 or later, we do not make additional adjustments, and we use the unadjusted effect size whenever we run a benefit-cost analysis.

Research shows the magnitude of effects may change over time. For those effect sizes, we estimate outcome-based adjustments, which we apply between the first time ES is estimated and the second time ES is estimated. More details about these adjustments can be found in our Technical Documentation.

Meta-Analysis of Program Effects
Outcomes measured No. of effect sizes Treatment N Effect sizes (ES) and standard errors (SE) Unadjusted effect size (random effects model)
ES SE Age ES p-value
10 31 5242072 0.000 0.002 11 0.000 0.931

Citations Used in the Meta-Analysis

Archibald, S. (2006). Narrowing in on educational resources that do affect student achievement. Peabody Journal of Education, 81(4), 23-42.

Buddin, R., & Zamarro, G. (2009). Teacher qualifications and middle school student achievement (Working Paper WR-671- IES). Santa Monica, CA: RAND.

Buddin, R., & Zamarro, G. (2009). Teacher qualifications and student achievement in urban elementary schools. Journal of Urban Economics 66(2), 103-115.

Cavalluzzo, L.C. (2004). Is national board certification an effective signal of teacher quality? Alexandria, VA: The CNA Corporation.

Chingos, M.M., & Peterson, P.E. (2011). It's easier to pick a good teacher than to train one: Familiar and new results on the correlates of teacher effectiveness. Economics of Education Review, 30(3), 449-465.

Clotfelter, C.T., Ladd, H.F., & Vigdor, J.L. (2006). Teacher-student matching and the assessment of teacher effectiveness. The Journal of Human Resources, 41(4), 778-820.

Clotfelter, C.T., Ladd, H.F., & Vigdor, J.L. (2007). Teacher credentials and student achievement: Longitudinal analysis with student fixed effects. Economics of Education Review, 26(6), 673-682.

Clotfelter, C.T., Ladd, H.F., & Vigdor, J.L. (2010). Teacher credentials and student achievement in high school: A cross-subject analysis with student fixed effects. Journal of Human Resources, 45(3), 655-681.

Corcoran, S.P., Jennings, J.L., & Beveridge, A.A. (2011). Teacher effectiveness on high- and low-stakes tests. Unpublished manuscript, New York University.

Croninger, R.G., Rice, J. K., Rathbun, A., & Nishio, M. (2007). Teacher qualifications and early learning: Effects of certification, degree, and experience on first-grade student achievement. Economics of Education Review, 26(3), 312-324.

Goldhaber, D., & Anthony, E. (2007). Can teacher quality be effectively assessed? National board certification as a signal of effective teaching. The Review of Economics and Statistics, 89(1), 134-150.

Goldhaber, D.D., & Brewer, D.J. (1996). Evaluating the effect of teacher degree level on educational performance. In W. J. Fowler, Jr. (Ed.), Developments in school finance, 1996: Fiscal proceedings from the Annual NCES State Data Conference (pp. 197-210). Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics.

Goldhaber, D.D., & Brewer, D.J. (1997). Why don't schools and teachers seem to matter? Assessing the impact of unobservables on educational productivity. The Journal of Human Resources, 32(3), 505-523.

Goldhaber, D.D., & Brewer, D.J. (2000). Does teacher certification matter? High school teacher certification status and student achievement. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 22(2), 129-145.

Goldhaber, D.D., Brewer, D.J., & Anderson, D.J. (1999). A three-way components analysis of educational productivity. Education Economics, 7(3), 199-208.

Hanushek, E.A. (1992). The trade-off between child quantity and quality. Journal of Political Economy, 100(1), 84-117.

Harris, D.N., & Sass, T.R. (2011). Teacher training, teacher quality and student achievement. Journal of Public Economics, 95(7- 8), 798-812.

Huang, F.L., & Moon, T.R. (2009). Is experience the best teacher? A multilevel analysis of teacher characteristics and student achievement in low performing schools. Educational Assessment, Evaluation and Accountability, 21(3), 209-234.

Jacob, B.A., & Lefgren, L. (2008). Can principals identify effective teachers? Evidence on subjective performance evaluation in education. Journal of Labor Economics, 26(1), 101-136.

Koedel, C., & Betts, J.R. (2007). Re-examining the role of teacher quality in the educational production function. Unpublished manuscript, University of Missouri-Columbia, Department of Economics.

Krieg, J. M. (2006). Teacher quality and attrition. Economics of Education Review, 25(1), 13-27.

Krueger, A.B. (1999). Experimental estimates of education production functions. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 114(2), 497-532.

Ladd, H. F., Sass, T.R., & Harris, D.N. (2007). The impact of national board certified teachers on student achievement in Florida and North Carolina: A summary of the evidence prepared for the National Academies Committee on the evaluation of the impact of teacher certification by NBPTS. Unpublished manuscript.

Leak, J.A., & Farkas, G. (2011). Effects of teacher credentials, coursework, and certification on student achievement in math and reading in kindergarten: An ECLS-K study. Evanston, IL: Society for Research on Educational Effectiveness.

Leigh, A.K. (2010). Estimating teacher effectiveness from two-year changes in students' test scores. Economics of Education Review, 29(3), 480-488.

Rockoff, J.E., Jacob, B.A., Kane, T.J., & Staiger, D.O. (2011). Can you recognize an effective teacher when you recruit one? Education Finance and Policy, 6(1), 43-74.