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- Title
The Lake Wobegon effect in student self-reported data.
- Authors
Maxwell, Nan L.; Lopus, Jane S.
- Abstract
For over a decade, presenter Garrison Keillor assured listeners of American Public Radio's "A Prairie Home Companion" that in Lake Wobegon "all the women are strong, all the men are good-looking, and all the children are above average." The research on reports of exceptional achievement of Lake Wobegon's children indicates that students tend to overstate their academic accomplishments, and that below-average students are less likely to report their achievements at all. This produces a "Lake Wobegon" effect in student self-reported data. To verify its existence and isolate its underlying causes, data on about 2,600 students at 10 U.S. colleges and universities were collected. Instructors participating in the study administered a short questionnaire to students and then collected parallel demographic and academic achievement information from university records for all students enrolled in the class. The analysis indicates that the Lake Wobegon effect in student self-reported data may contribute to estimation biases. These biases stem from two sources. First, below-average students tend to inflate their academic achievements, and second, they often fail to report their inferior accomplishments. Because of this, it is important to consider biases when drawing inferences from samples that rely on student self-reported data.
- Subjects
UNITED States; SELF-evaluation; STUDENT self-evaluation; ACADEMIC achievement; LAKE Wobegon (Minn. : Imaginary place); UNIVERSITIES &; colleges; KEILLOR, Garrison, 1942-
- Publication
American Economic Review, 1994, Vol 84, Issue 2, p201
- ISSN
0002-8282
- Publication type
Article