Sergio Longobardi

The Effects of Socioeconomic Background and Test-taking Motivation on Italian Students’ Achievement

The aim of this work is to analyze the educational outcomes of Italian students and to explain the differences across Italian macro regions. In addition to the “classic” determinants of student achievement (e.g. family socioeconomic background) we investigated the extent to which the test-taking motivation may contribute to influence the results from assessment test and to explain, partially, the Italian territorial disparities. Therefore, a two stage approach is provided. Firstly, the data envelopment analysis (DEA) is applied to obtain a synthetic measure of the test-taking motivation. Secondly, a multilevel regression model is employed to investigate the effect of this measure of test-taking motivation on student performance after controlling for school and student factors.

Quis custiodet ipsos custodes? How to detect and correct teacher cheating in Italian student data

The increasing diffusion of standardized assessments of students’ competences has been accompanied by an increasing need to make reliable data available to all stakeholders of the educational system (policy makers, teachers, researchers, families and students). In this light, we propose a multistep approach to detect and correct teacher cheating, which decreases the quality of student data offered by the Italian Institute for the Educational Evaluation of Instruction and Training. Our method integrates the “mechanistic” logic of the fuzzy clustering technique with a statistical model-based approach, and it aims to improve the detection of cheating and to correct test scores at both the class and student level. The results show a normalization of the scores and a stronger correction on data for Southern regions, where the propensity to cheat appears to be highest.

The determinants of e-disclosure attitude: empirical evidences from Italian and Spanish municipalities

ABSTRACT Research investigates the attitude to the information disclosure via website, analysing a sample of 287 Italian and Spanish municipalities. A Tobit regression approach is adopted to explore the main determinants of e-disclosure. The findings show that municipality’s factors like Internet visibility, wealth and leverage play an important role to determine the level of e-disclosure. In addition, a cluster analysis highlights that in Italy there is a greater level of e-disclosure than in Spain, revealing a set of specific elements that characterize municipalities with higher disclosure.

THE MULTIDIMENSIONAL DRIVERS OF FINANCIAL LITERACY OF ITALIAN STUDENTS

The globally integrated nature of modern economies has increased the complexity of the socioeconomic context, particularly with reference to economic and financial issues. Individuals are increasingly required to make financial decisions, such as saving for retirement, expenditure on education and health, or buying a home, with the consequence that financial literacy is becoming an increasingly important and frequently investigated determinant of human capital formation and development. Given the importance of financial knowledge in modern society, the aim of this paper is to assess the determinants of financial literacy among Italian students using data from the 2012 Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) survey. A structural equation approach is adopted in order to explore not only the direct effect of family socio-economic background on the students’ financial competences, but also its indirect effect, when student’s motivations and attitudes are considered as mediator factors. The findings are intended to provide useful insights for policy makers in order to develop specific initiatives to improve the level of financial knowledge among the young people.