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Achievement of Senior Secondary School 

Students? A Study of High School Students 

from X City in western China based on 

Regression Discontinuity Analysis

Jing Yang,
1, 3

 Xiaomei Ye,
2
 Yuhong Du

1
 

 
1. Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China 

2. Peking University, Beijing, China 

3. Tianquan Senior Secondary School of Sichuan Province, Ya’an, 

Sichuan, China 

 

Abstract: The fairness and efficacy of the elite stream in general senior 

secondary education have long been a contentious issue. Based on the 
longitudinal data of the students who were enrolled in five senior 

secondary schools in X City in western China in 2017 and 2018, this 
study examined the effects of elite class streaming in improving student 

academic performance, using regression discontinuity analysis. The 

research findings showed that: despite the significant differences in the 

grade-10 streaming examination results and the grade-12 academic 

achievement between the elite class and regular class students, the gap 

was not markedly widened after three years of senior secondary 
education; the elite stream did not exhibit distinct promotive effects on 

the advancement of students’ overall performance when the cutoff point 
of elite class admission was utilized as the exogenous variable to 

evaluate the effects of the elite stream on student performance; both the 

parameter estimation and non-parametric estimation results 
demonstrated that the elite stream had no marked effects in improving 

student performance and there was no gender difference or urban vs. 
rural difference in the impact of the elite stream on student academic 

achievement. 

Best Evidence in Chinese Education 2023; 14(1):1757-1761. 

Doi: 10.15354/bece.23.ar062 



Yang et al. (Beijing & Sichuan, China). Elite Stream and Academic Achievement. 

BECE, Vol.14, No.1, 2023 1758 

How to Cite: Yang, J., Ye, X., & Du, Y. (2023). Can the elite stream improve the 

academic achievement of senior secondary school students? A study of high school 

students from X city in western China based on regression discontinuity analysis. 

Best Evidence in Chinese Education, 14(1):1757-1761. 

Keywords: Elite Class, Academic Performance, Regression Discontinuity Design 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
 

About Authors: Jing Yang, Faculty of Education, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China; Tianquan Senior 

Secondary School of Sichuan Province, Ya’an, Sichuan, China. 

Yuhong Du, Faculty of Education, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China. 

Correspondence to: Xiaomei Ye, Graduate School of Education, Peking University, Beijing, China. E-mail: 

201523010066@mail.bnu.edu.cn  

Conflict of Interests: None. 
 

© 2023 Insights Publisher. All rights reserved. 

Creative Commons Non Commercial CC BY-NC: This article is distributed under the terms of the 

Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial 4.0 License 

(http://www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) which permits non-commercial use, reproduction and distribution of 

the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed by the Insights Publisher. 

mailto:201523010066@mail.bnu.edu.cn
http://www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/


Yang et al. (Beijing & Sichuan, China). Elite Stream and Academic Achievement. 

BECE, Vol.14, No. 1, 2023 1759 

 

Introduction 

Elite Classes deployed by general high schools have always been an attraction to par-

ents of students of senior secondary level. With elite classes, schools put high achieving 

students into the fast stream, equipping them with experienced anchor teachers, and 

implementing more demanding instruction. Under the principle of equitable and effi-

cient education, a scientific evaluation of the impact of the elite stream on student aca-

demic advancement is crucial for students and their parents making evidence-based ed-

ucational decisions and for schools reasonably allotting educational resources. Based on 

the academic achievement status of both elite class and regular class students from five 

county-level general high schools in a western city of China, this study focuses on ex-

amining the effects of the elite stream, an intra-school education resource allocation 

strategy, on student performance, employing the quasi-experiment design and regres-

sion discontinuity analysis. 

Research Methodology 

Data Sources 

Data in this article are derived from the longitudinal database of science students in X 

City in western China who were enrolled in senior secondary school in 2017 and 2018. 

The sample of the study consists of 3,397 students from county-level schools with 1,669 

enrolled in 2017 and 1,728 enrolled in 2018. For the convenience of comparison, nor-

malization was administered to the scores of science students in X City. Data shows that 

despite the significant differences in the sources of science students as well as the varia-

tions in the number and size of elite classes and the student test results among various 

schools, the cutoff points for elite classes in all schools are similar, with standard devia-

tions ranging from 0.64 to 0.96. 

Research Design 

The determination of the cutoff point of elite class admission in each school relies on 

the number and size of this type of classes prescribed before the admission examination 

and the performance of all students at the school in the uniform grade-10 final examina-

tion in X City. Neither the school nor students can manipulate who will enter the elite 

classes. Elite class admission can be viewed as an exogenous change administered to 

sampled students. In principle, students will be accepted by elite classes as long as their 

examination results reach the cutoff point; otherwise, they will enter regular classes. 

Yet, in the actual streaming, some students may fail to enroll into elite classes despite 

having scores surpassing the cutoff point while those with scores below it have the 

chance to enter them. That may result in the discontinuity jump on the two sides of the 

cutoff point being neither 1 (denoting elite class admission) nor 0 (denoting non elite 

class admission). Therefore, the present study employed the fuzzy discontinuity design 

in the estimation and used the cutoff point as an instrumental variable to estimate the 

academic performance differences between students who complied with admission rules. 



Yang et al. (Beijing & Sichuan, China). Elite Stream and Academic Achievement. 

BECE, Vol.14, No. 1, 2023 1760 

 

Both parametric estimation and non-parametric estimation were adopted to identify the 

influences of the elite stream on student academic achievement. Considering the differ-

ences in the cutoff point of elite classes between schools and academic years, this study 

incorporated the fixed effect of school-academic year in the estimation model to control 

for factors that did not show time difference between schools and academic years but 

have an impact on student academic performance. 

Research Hypotheses 

Based on the relevant conclusions made by previous studies, the following hypotheses 

were proposed:  

H0: The elite stream cannot promote student academic progress. 

H1: The elite stream can significantly enhance student performance. 

Research Findings 

Descriptive statistics showed that there was a considerable difference in the grade-10 

streaming examination results and the grade-12 academic achievement between elite 

class and regular class students, yet the gap did not undergo significant alteration after 

three school years. That indicated that despite the unbalanced distribution of education-

al resources between elite and regular classes during this period, there was a limited 

effect of the elite stream in promoting student academic performance. To identify the 

causal relation between the elite stream and student academic progress, this study uti-

lized the cutoff point of elite class admission as the exogenous variable to construct 

quasi-experiment design and employed fussy regression discontinuity design to evaluate 

the effects of the elite stream on students’ disciplinary results and their overall perfor-

mance. The findings showed that the elite stream had no significant promotive effects 

on the advancement of students’ overall performance and disciplinary results. The ro-

bustness check demonstrated that the driving variable and control variables verified the 

continuum hypothesis at the cut-point, and the estimation results are not affected by 

distinct bandwidth values or the make-up of the sample. No significant positive impact 

of the elite stream on students’ overall performance and disciplinary results were de-

tected. Therefore, the research findings showed strong robustness. The results of the 

heterogeneity test indicated that the elite stream had no significant positive effect on the 

academic achievement of students of different genders and with different types of regis-

tered residence. As a result, it was concluded that the elite stream in general high 

schools could not serve as an effective strategy for optimizing education resource allo-

cation and encouraging student academic progress. 

 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



Yang et al. (Beijing & Sichuan, China). Elite Stream and Academic Achievement. 

BECE, Vol.14, No. 1, 2023 1761 

 

The Chinese version of this article has been published in China Economics of Education Review, 

2022, 7(05):41-61. The English version has been authorized for being publication in BECE by the 

author(s) and the Chinese journal. 

 

杨 靖, 叶晓梅, 杜育红. (2022). 重点班能否提升高中生的学业成绩?—基于西部某市普通高中的

断点回归设计研究. 教育经济评论, 2022, 7(5):41-61. 

 

 

Received: 30 March 2023 

Revised: 11 April 2023 

Accepted: 05May 2023 

 

 

 

 

 


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