On how to measure differences in educational outcomes
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.18222/eae.v36.10663Keywords:
Educational Indicators, Educational Inequalities, Education AssessmentAbstract
The article shows that the Kullback-Leibler divergence is not appropriate for comparing distributions of learning assessment grades, as is done in various published studies. This article argues that when the aim is to evaluate the inequality of score or education distributions, it is reasonable to employ a commonly used measure of inequality, such as the Gini index. The article also shows that it is not appropriate to use the Kullback-Leibler divergence as a measure of grade inequality between categories of students. To illustrate the use of various statistical measures and procedures, an analysis is conducted on the distribution of educational attainment among employed individuals in Brazil and its states, using data from the 2022 Pesquisa Nacional por Amostra de Domicílios Contínua [Continuous National Household Sample Survey].
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