고려대학교

초록/요약

Purpose: Using the Korean Education and Employment Panel Survey, this study addresses the question of how time use during middle school affects college entrance outcomes of Korean students. In particular, we investigate the effectiveness of time and money spent in private tutoring. We further investigate the role of student academic interests and self-rated skills. Design/Methodology/Data/Approach: We use data from the Korean Education & Employment Panel (KEEP) Survey for 1,030 students which were observed in their third year of middle school in 2004 and in their first year of college in 2008. Our main dependent variable is a student’s college rank in 2008. We run OLS regressions of the college rank on a student’s time use as a middle school senior in 2004. We include a large set of control variables including student, family, and school background. Besides time and money invested in private tutoring, we further investigate the particular role of student academic interests and self-rated skills for a student’s college entrance success. Findings/Results: Findings indicate that time spent in private tutoring in middle school has no statistically significant effect on college entrance outcomes. On the contrary, money spent on private tutoring has a statistically significant impact, yet the size of the impact is very modest. Compared to socioeconomic factors, student interests and self-rated skills, other time use, and location, the effects of private tutoring are rather modest and contribute only 9.2 percent to the explained variation in college ranks. Value: The results suggest that a more holistic approach to education should take into account the important role of academic interests and innate skills. Future education should take this finding into account and aim to nurture students’ interests and intrinsic motivation from early ages.