







































 

 

 

 

 

 

The Effect of Preschool Education on Non-

cognitive Skills of Middle School Students: Em-

pirical Study Based on CEPS

Xin Gong, Zhenyi Li

Central China Normal University, Wuhan, China 

 

Abstract. Preschool education has been being seen as a crucial factor of 

individual cognitive skills, but it is yet clear regarding its effect on chil-

dren’s non-cognitive skills. Apart from cognitive skills, the “capabili-
ties” in the human capital model should also include non-cognitive 

skills. Using the baseline data of the “China Education Panel Survey”, 
this study explored the influence of preschool education experience on 

the non-cognitive skills of middle School students by using the method of 

propensity score matching. The results showed that children’s chances 
of receiving preschool education has been affected by factors like the 

health status of the children before schooling, family economic status, 

and parents’ education level. More importantly, preschool education 
had a statistically significant positive impact on the students’ ability of 

curiosity, acceptance of new things and self-discipline, and showed a 
negative impact on negative emotionality. 

Best Evid Chin Edu 2019; 3(1):287-303. 

Doi: 10.15354/bece.19.ar1070 

Keywords: Preschool Education; Middle School Students; Non-cognitive Skills; 

Propensity Score Matching 

 

 

 

 

 
 

Correspondence to: Xin Gong, College of Education, Central China Normal University, Wuhan, China, E-mail: 

gongxin@mail.ccnu.edu.cn. 

About the Author Zhenyi Li, College of Education, Central China Normal University, Wuhan, China, E-mail: 
lizhenyi0206@163.com.  

Conflict of Interests: None. 



Gong & Li. Preschool and Non-cognitive Skills of Middle School Students 

Vol.3, No. 1, 2019 288 

Research Background and Problem 

RESCHOOL education, is of great significance to children’s physical and men-

tal health, habit formation and intellectual development, and has a foundational 

role in individual’s lifelong development. In recent years, more and more atten-

tion has been paid to preschool education in China, and the gross enrollment rate of 

preschool education has increased from 35.9% in 2001 to 77.4% in 2016. The rapid 

progress of preschool education, on the one hand, benefits from the rapid growth of the 

social economy; on the other hand, the increasing realization of the economic and non-

economic value of preschool education for children’s overall growth. James J. Heckman, 

a Nobel Laureate in economy, has found that early childhood development interven-

tions before formal elementary school are the highest-reward form of human capital 

investment, which is worth more than later investments in school education and on-the-

job training (Heckman, 2006), and the economic benefits of universal preschool educa-

tion is far greater than the traditional economic plan (Qiu & Liu, 2011). In terms of the 

specific impact of preschool education on children’s development, it mainly focuses on 

the following two aspects: cognitive ability including in language, mathematics, and 

academic achievement; and non-cognitive ability such as sociability, self-confidence, 

motivation, etc. 

Under the traditional human capital model, the word “ability” is always equat-

ed with cognitive ability, while the non-cognitive ability is usually ignored. However, in 

empirical studies, the cognitive ability from the controlled individuals only cannot ex-

plain the whole variety of individual outcomes. Therefore, Bowles proposed that “abil-

ity” in the human capital model should not be limited to “cognitive ability”, but should 

also include “non-cognitive ability” (Bowles & Osborne, 2001). In recent decades, sup-

porters of the new human capital theory headed by Heckman divided the “ability” in 

human capital into two parts: cognitive and non-cognitive abilities, emphasizing the 

important role of non-cognitive ability that is independent from cognitive ability 

(Heckman, 2007). 

In studies over the past decade on non-cognitive ability, most of them have 

confirmed the important role of non-cognitive ability in individual’s academic perfor-

mance and income (Eren & Ozbeklik, 2013; Heckman & Rubinstein, 2001; Heineck & 

Anger, 2010; Scick & Steckel, 2015). Li et al. (2017) found that non-cognitive ability 

has a significant positive impact on students’ academic performance. Le et al. (2017) 

used the data of the “Chinese Family Panel Survey” in 2012 and 2014, and according to 

“The Big Five-Factor Model of Personalities”, showed that the non-cognitive ability has 

a substantial effect on the income of laborers, and its contribution was even higher than 

that of the core variable concerned by traditional human capital- education years. Huang 

and Xie (2017) found an explanatory effect of the non-cognitive ability on labor income 

difference that is independent from cognitive ability. Compared with cognitive ability, 

the non-cognitive ability has a greater impact on workers’ income (Yu et al., 2017). The 

non-cognitive ability has also been found to improve individual’s happiness and was 

P 



Gong & Li. Preschool and Non-cognitive Skills of Middle School Students 

Vol.3, No. 1, 2019 289 

more conducive to a healthy and long life (Friedman et al., 2010; Kubzansky et al., 

2009). In addition to the “instrumental” value of non-cognitive ability such as on an 

individual’s academic performance, income, and health, researchers start to realize its 

own value of the non-cognitive ability. For example, from an emotional perspective, if 

an individual rarely shows negative emotionality, then its immediate happiness will be 

relatively higher indicating the intrinsic value of the non-cognitive ability. In recent 

years, attention has been paid to the key competencies of students in China, and formu-

lated the overall framework of “key competencies of Chinese students’ development”, 

emphasizing on the cultivation of comprehensive quality of students’ both cognitive and 

non-cognitive abilities. 

With the attention paid to the non-cognitive ability, more discussion was raised 

on the cultivation of non-cognitive ability and its potential influence. Studies showed 

that the formation of non-cognitive ability needs several periods within a long develop-

ing period (Almlund et al., 2011), and the important period for the non-cognitive ability 

acquisition is the early childhood (Coneus & Laucht, 2014; Heckman, 2006). Moreover, 

abilities formed in different stages were closely related each other, and the development 

of one skill would help to acquire other skills during the next period (Borghans et al., 

2008). Preschool stage is a sensitive period essential to cultivate children’s initiative, 

good personality, sense of responsibility, self-esteem, and self-control (Zhu, 2003; Shen, 

1997), and to develop qualities such as curiosity, thirst for knowledge, imagination, and 

sociability as well (Pang et al., 2003). In particular, various game activities during the 

preschool period had an important impact on the cultivation of the non-intellectual 

abilities (Shen, 1997). Duncan et al. (2007) found in their empirical study that stable 

emotional characteristics cultivated in the early stage contribute to the development of 

children’s exploration ability later. A large number of empirical studies have confirmed 

that preschool education has a positive impact on the development of children’s cogni-

tive and non-cognitive abilities (social skills, attention, etc.) (Nores & Barnett, 2010). 

The earlier the intervention would, the more beneficial would follow to the formation of 

both the cognitive and non-cognitive abilities. Besides, families and preschoolers might 

be more motivated to focus on the cognitive and non-cognitive development as it is too 

early to consider the competitive College Entrance Test during the preschool period. 

Based on the analysis and consideration above regarding the education reality 

in China, we proposed that the acquisition of preschool education may possess an im-

portant role in the development of children’s non-cognitive abilities. However, it is yet 

known about the clear relationship between preschool education and the non-cognitive 

ability. In view of this, this study was designed to use the baseline data of China Educa-

tion Panel Survey (CEPS) to observe the influence of preschool education on the devel-

opment of the non-cognitive abilities in middle school students’ via Propensity Score 

Matching Method and, at the same time, to investigate the factors that affect the pre-

school education opportunities. As the prominent role of non-cognitive ability is in-

creasingly recognized, it is particularly pivotal to explore the role of preschool educa-

tion in developing the non-cognitive ability. First, it is important for public education 

policy makers in establishing capital investment, implementation and improvement of 



Gong & Li. Preschool and Non-cognitive Skills of Middle School Students 

Vol.3, No. 1, 2019 290 

the preschool education plan, popularization of preschool education, and promotion of 

human capital accumulation; second, it is crucial to provide with empirical evidence to 

the role of preschool education in the development of students’ non-cognitive ability. 

Literature Review 

Accumulating data have showed the contributing effects of preschool education on both 

cognitive and non-cognitive abilities. At the same time, some pieces of evidence have 

confirmed the significant role of preschool education in the improvement of children’s 

non-cognitive ability. Reynolds (1995) investigated the impact of the Child-Parent Cen-

ter Educational Program on children’s cognitive and social development, and found that 

students in grades one to six who had received one or two years of preschool education 

had 0.34 standard difference higher in cognitive and social development than those who 

had not received the preschool education. Adaptability is another important characteris-

tic for those who receive preschool education. Sammons (2010) found that preschool 

education has a long-term impact on children’s “hyperactivity”, “self-discipline” and 

“anti-social” behaviors. Furthermore, Sammons et al. (2014) used data from the UK and 

found that high-quality preschools (v.s. low-quality ones) had a significant impact on 

the non-cognitive ability (such as self-discipline) of 16-year-olds. Andersson et al. 

(1992) obtained similar results in a study carried out in Sweden that students who par-

ticipated in the public childcare system were more independent and confident. Gormely 

et al. (2011) used the fixed effects regressions with propensity score matching examined 

the effect of the early childhood education on children’s social-emotional outcomes in 

Tulsa, Oklahoma, and found that children participated in early childhood education 

programs showed lower timidity and higher concentration, and this effect was more 

significant on male children who came from the low-income families. Heckman (2006) 

indicated that the reason why the Perry Preschool Program in the United States could 

effectively improve the future success of participants was majorly due to its role in im-

proving the non-cognitive ability. Chetty et al. (2010) found that high-quality education 

in K grade in the United States, had a significant impact on students’ non-cognitive 

abilities such as autonomy and effort in the grades of 4 and 8, and could reduce students’ 

destructive behaviors. 

However, in China, few studies did the same observation. Several studies fo-

cused on the impact of preschool education on children’s cognitive development, but 

most of them were small sample and did not examine the long-term impact. Peng et al. 

(2011) investigated 182 children from three rural elementary schools in Sichuan Prov-

ince and found that children with kindergarten learning were more likely to be praised 

by their peers and less likely to be downgraded than the comparisons. Rao et al. (2012) 

observed 370 rural children in Guizhou Province and showed that children who had 

attended kindergarten or preschool classes were significantly better than those who had 

not in reading and mathematics. Liu et al. (2013) studied 1,360 children in Beijing and 

Shanxi Province and found that one-year preschool education had a significant effect on 

the mathematical learning and language development, reaching 0.61 and 0.33 standard 

deviations, respectively. Li et al. (2016) investigated the influence of preschool educa-



Gong & Li. Preschool and Non-cognitive Skills of Middle School Students 

Vol.3, No. 1, 2019 291 

tion on children’s language, mathematics, and social cognition ability and found a sig-

nificant relation between them. Chen and Liu (2017) used a sample of 5,177 students 

from the Program of International Student Assessment (PISA) Shanghai 2012 data and 

Propensity Score Matching and OLS estimation methods, they found that preschool 

education had a significant positive impact on the mathematics, reading and scientific 

literacy for 15-year-old students, and the academic achievements in those who received 

more than one-year preschool education were higher than those who received only one-

year preschool education. Gong et al. (2016) used assessed the long-term impact of pre-

school education on the development of rural children with the age over 10 on the basis 

of the “Chinese Family Panel Survey” (CFPS) data through fixed-effects model, OLS 

estimation method, and Propensity Score Matching, and found that preschool education 

had a substantial impact on the social and emotional skills, which were displayed as 

preschool attendees in a rural area tended to have 1.32–1.53 more friends and an 11%-

17% higher chance to be a school leader than the non-attendees. 

The above-mentioned studies focused on the influence of preschool education 

on students’ cognitive abilities such as mathematics, language, and reading, but rarely 

explored its effect on the non-cognitive ability. However, the impact of preschool edu-

cation on children’s development is a multi-dimensional, multi-level and multi-faceted 

complex system, and researchers and decision-makers should pay more attention to its 

impact on children’s non-cognitive development. This study evaluated the effect of pre-

school education from a new perspective and empirically tested the influence of pre-

school education on the development of the non-cognitive ability of middle school stu-

dents with a nationwide sample. 

Data 

This study used data from the China Education Panel Study (CEPS) baseline survey for 

the 2013-2014 academic year. The survey was designed and implemented by the Na-

tional Survey Research Center at Renmin University of China. The middle school (7th 

graders) and high school (9th graders) students were the objects, and multi-stage proba-

bility proportional to size (PPS) sampling method was used. After four sampling stages, 

the county (district), school, class, student/parent/teacher/main subject teacher/school 

leadership and other four sampling units were extracted. In the baseline survey, a total 

of 28 counties, 4 schools from each county, and 4 classes from each school were select-

ed, and a total of 19,487 seventh- and ninth-graders from 112 schools and 438 classes 

were sampled including 18,034 sample booklets with complete information on the pre-

school experience. 

Variables 

Outcome Variables 

The outcome variable of this study was the non-cognitive ability. At present, there is no 

unified standard for the definition and measurement of non-cognitive ability. It is gen-

erally believed that the non-cognitive ability is not a representative of a single ability, 



Gong & Li. Preschool and Non-cognitive Skills of Middle School Students 

Vol.3, No. 1, 2019 292 

but a combination of multiple abilities. In western, the concept of “non-cognitive skills” 

was defined as those that are different from calculation, reading or reciting and can be 

measured by personality traits. For example, curiosity, attention, grit, self-control, so-

cial-emotional ability, self-discipline, motivation, self-esteem, sociability, time prefer-

ence and so on (Borghans et al, 2008; Duckworth & Yeager, 2015; Gutman & Schoon, 

2013). In China, Yan (1988) divided “non-intelligence factors” into three levels: (1) in 

the broad sense, they refer to all psychological factors other than intelligence factors; (2) 

in the narrow sense, they mainly include motivation, interest, emotion, intention, char-

acter and other psychological factors; (3) specific non-intellectual factors, including 

achievement motivation, thirst for knowledge, and enthusiasm for learning; self-esteem, 

self-confidence, and competitiveness; sense of responsibility, obligation and honor; 

Self-control, tenacity and independence. In the past two decades, the “big five personal-

ities” measurement method developed by personality psychology has gradually been 

recognized and applied to measure the non-cognitive abilities that include extraversion, 

openness, emotional stability, agreeableness, and conscientiousness. Since no uniform 

measurement index exists, empirical researchers often reconstruct the proxy index of 

the non-cognitive ability according to specific questionnaire index and the characteris-

tics of the “big five personalities”. 

Openness 

According to the four related questions in the questionnaire, they can express opinions 

clearly, respond quickly, learn new knowledge swiftly, and be curiosity about new 

things (1 = completely disagree to 4 = completely agree). Through factor analysis, this 

study found that these four items naturally stayed together to form one factor value (α = 

0.72). Combined with the “big five grid” model, we define this factor value as “open-

ness”, and set it up as a measure of non-cognitive ability to keep consistent with the 

method used by Li et al. (2017). 

Negative Emotionality 

The CEPS questionnaire asked students if they felt dispirited, depressed, unhappy, list-

less, or sad in the past seven days, using a five-point scoring system (1 = never to 5 = 

always) to measure the frequency of these feelings. Factor analysis showed that these 

five measures had a high similarity and could be naturally aggregated into one factor 

value (α = 0.85). Combined with the negative emotionality in the temperament type of 

children, we define this factor value as “negative emotionality”. The higher the factor 

score is, the stronger the negative emotionality would be. 

Self-Discipline 

According to the CEPS questionnaire, whether students often skip classes or late, a fac-

tor value (α = 0.69) was obtained by factor analysis. Referring to the research idea of 

Cawley et al. (2001) that took truancy, lateness and other behaviors as proxy variables 

of “self-discipline”, our study reversed scores of the above-mentioned factor value (1 = 



Gong & Li. Preschool and Non-cognitive Skills of Middle School Students 

Vol.3, No. 1, 2019 293 

completely agree to 4 = completely disagree) and defined it as “self-discipline”. The 

higher the factor score is, the stronger the self-discipline would be. 

Sociality 

We took the number of students’ self-reported good friends as a social indicator. In pre-

vious studies, the number of friends has been used as a proxy indicator of social com-

munication skills. For example, Gong et al. (2016) used “the number of good friends 

they have” and “whether they are class cadres” as proxy indicators of non-cognitive 

social skills. Some western studies also took the number of good friends as the proxy 

variable of social communication (Kingery et al., 2011; Pettit et al., 2011). In addition, 

studies have shown that people who have more friends as childhood had better social 

and emotional well-being in adolescence and adulthood. Kingery et al. (2011) found 

that students who had more friends showed reduced loneliness and increased self-

esteem. Wentzel et al. (2004) found a positive correlation between the number of 

friends and various adaptive indicators. Above-mentioned studies indicated that the 

larger the number of friends, the stronger the transitional adaptability from one stage of 

development to the next. In addition, our study added a reflection of the quality of 

friends that was composed of friends’ academic performance, effort, educational expec-

tations and discipline.
1
 

Independent Variables 

The key independent variable of our study is preschool education experience. The 

CEPS questionnaire asks a student whether he or she has attended preschool or a one 

year preschool class before grade 1 after the age of 3, and we construct a binary variable 

(yes = 1, no = 0) based on the student’s answer whether he or she has received pre-

school education (79.8%).
2
 

Control Variables 

On the basis of the literature reviewed above, this study controlled for the other factors 

that may affect both preschool education acquisition and the non-cognitive ability of 

middle school students, including: 

 At the personal level, gender (female = 1, male = 0) and grade are used (nine 

grade = 1, grade 7 = 0), nationality (Han = 1, minority = 0), household registra-

tion (agricultural as the reference), one-child (one-child = 1, non-only child = 

0), birth weight (low birth weight or birth weight less than 2.5 kg = 1, normal 

birth weight = 0), illness before elementary school (severe illness = 1, not se-

vere = 0), and other variables. 

 At the family level, two variables are included: the years of education of the 

parent; the subjective evaluation of the family economic status before the chil-

dren enters elementary school, including “family economic status is medium” 

and “family economic status is rich” two binary variables, taking “family eco-

nomic status is difficult” as the reference.
3
 



Gong & Li. Preschool and Non-cognitive Skills of Middle School Students 

Vol.3, No. 1, 2019 294 

 At the regional level. A region of the average level of teaching education to a 

certain extent reflects the local social and economic development. To observe 

the influence of regional social, economic and cultural level on preschool edu-

cation and the development of the cognitive ability, we selected students in the 

county level with average education years as a regional social, economic and 

cultural development level proxy variable.
4
 

Method 

First, we used descriptive statistical methods to analyze whether there were differences 

between students with or without preschool education in terms of individual characteris-

tics and family background, so as to understand whether the basic characteristics of 

both groups matched. On this basis, the logit method was used to investigate the factors 

that affect the preschool attending. 

Second, in order to accurately evaluate the influence of preschool education on 

children’s non-cognitive ability, we adopted the OLS estimation and the Propensity 

Score Matching (PSM) methods. Conventional OLS estimation roughly assumes that 

the observed value of the treatment group is the influence after receiving preschool edu-

cation, which will lead to biases of the estimation results. It is not a natural process if 

receive preschool education or not or how long preschool education lasts, but generally 

is influenced by factors such as students’ individual characteristics and family socioec-

onomic background. So it is impossible to observe the outcomes of the same individual 

in the two states of both preschool and non-preschool education at the same time. Selec-

tive bias is a problem we need to take care of in order to accurately estimate the effect 

of preschool education on the non-cognitive ability. Compared with OLS, PSM can 

match the background of both groups more effectively and reduce the selective bias. 

Therefore, our study was based on the estimation of PSM. 

PSM was first proposed by Rosenbaum and Rubin, and has been increasingly 

recognized and widely used in recent years. The basic feature of PSM is its good match 

of the control group with the treatment group to balance the data of the probability 

(propensity score). It degrades the multidimensional standard of both groups into one 

dimension to greatly improve the matching degree and guarantee the comparability of 

both groups, and to get a better estimation of the intervention effect of the treatment 

group. The net effect of preschool education on the non-cognitive ability of middle 

school students was recorded as Average Treatment Effect on the Treatment group 

(ATT) in the PSM model, and the model was as follows, 

 

ATT = E {E [Y1i - Y0i | Di = 1, p (Xi)]} 

 

where Y1i and Y0i represent the scores of the non-cognitive ability of individual student 

in preschool and non-preschool education, respectively. Di is the processing variable, 

which represents the dummy variable of whether students receive preschool education. 

If student i receives preschool education, Di = 1; otherwise, Di = 0. P(Xi) is the propen-

sity score value, which represents the conditional probability of student i receiving pre-



Gong & Li. Preschool and Non-cognitive Skills of Middle School Students 

Vol.3, No. 1, 2019 295 

school education under the control of sample characteristic covariate X. PSM is gener-

ally divided into four steps: (1) select appropriate covariates. Based on the previous 

research experience, we selected a group of variables that have an influence on both 

preschool education participation and children’s non-cognitive abilities (see Control 

Variables above); (2), calculate propensity scores. The propensity score was calculated 

by logit regression; (3), match samples according to propensity scores. In this study, the 

nearest neighbor matching method is used, and the radius matching and kernel matching 

methods were used to test the robustness of the estimated results; (4) by comparing the 

estimation results of various matching methods, the net effect of preschool education on 

the non-cognitive ability of middle school students is obtained. 

Results 

Descriptive Picture 

Table 1 shows significant differences between preschool attendees and non-attendees in 

terms of individual and family background. Specifically, among the samples receiving 

preschool education, non-agricultural households account for 43.5% of the total sample, 

which was significantly higher than the proportion of non-rural households in the group 

without preschool education (30.2%). In addition, compared with non-preschool at-

tendees, the proportions of individuals with low birth weight and serious illness before 

elementary school were much lower in students who received preschool education, and 

the proportion of only children was higher. From the point of family economic back-

ground, the parents of preschool attendees have more years of education, with a differ-

ence of 1.27 years than the non-attendees, and the proportion of moderate and rich 

family in the preschool attendees was significantly higher than the comparisons. Finally, 

there was a significant difference in the average length of education (~0.68 yrs). In sum, 

obvious difference exists in individual characteristics and family background between 

preschool attendees and non-attendees. 

Factors Affecting Individual’s Acceptance of Preschool Education 

On the basis of above-mentioned descriptive analysis, we found significant differences 

between the two groups in terms of individual characteristics and family background. In 

order to observe the factors that influence individual acceptance of preschool education, 

we used logit regression analysis method to analyze the specific factors affecting indi-

vidual acceptance of preschool education, and the estimation results are shown in Table 

2. Since most independent variables in the model are discrete variables, the table pre-

sents both odds ratio and the original non-standardized coefficient of the model. 

Table 2 shows that factors such as gender, ethnic group, grade, individual 

health status, family economic status and years of education of parents all had signifi-

cant influences on individual’s acceptance of preschool education. Specifically, only-

child families were more likely (22.9%) to receive preschool education than non-only 

children. Seventh-graders were 12%more likely than ninth-graders to receive preschool 

education, which may be related to the development of preschool education. Students in 



Gong & Li. Preschool and Non-cognitive Skills of Middle School Students 

Vol.3, No. 1, 2019 296 

Table 1. Sample Characteristics. 

Variables 
Overall 

Sample 

Preschool 

Attendees 

Preschool 

Non-attendees 
t-test 

Preschool Attendance 0.798 1 0 - 

Female 0.485 0.490 0.470 0.020* 

Han Ethnicity 0.910 0.924 0.857 0.067*** 

Grade 9 0.473 0.464 0.505 -0.041*** 

Non-Agricultural Household 0.409 0.435 0.302 0.133*** 

Low Birth Weight 0.322 0.295 0.433 -0.138*** 

Had Major Illness before Enter-

ing Elementary School 
0.091 0.083 0.126 -0.043*** 

The Only Child 0.434 0.468 0.300 0.168*** 

Parent’s Education 10.767 11.082 9.793 1.273*** 

Family Economy Medium 0.731 0.749 0.652 0.097*** 

Family Economic Affluence 0.056 0.060 0.041 0.019*** 

Average Number of Years of 

Education in the County 
9.485 9.481 8.938 0.543*** 

Note: *p<0.05, **p<0.01, ***p<0.001. The value in the table is the mean value of each varia-

ble. Since most of the result variables are standardized factor score values, the mean value 

of the result variables is not shown here. 

 

 

 

poor physical condition before elementary school were significantly less likely (25.7%) 

to receive preschool education than those in good physical condition. In comparison, 

students came from families with economic difficulties had a 43.3% of preschool edu-

cation acceptance, but those from family with good economic status had a 63.1% of the 

preschool education acceptance, this is mainly because of poor families are unable to 

afford the high cost of preschool education. In addition, the level of local education lev-

el had a statistically significant impact on students’ access to preschool education. 

Therefore, the analysis confirmed that students in a better position were more likely to 

receive preschool education. Moreover, the family’s economic status is the most signif-

icant factor influencing students to receive preschool education. 

Influence of Preschool Education on Non-Cognitive Ability of Middle School Stu-

dents 

We first used the OLS regression method to estimate whether preschool education had a 

significant impact on students’ non-cognitive ability after controlling other confounding 

factors. Then, the PSM method was used for further analysis. The results are shown in 

Table 3. 

The PSM results showed that a stable and significant relationship exists be-

tween preschool education and students’ non-cognitive abilities such as thinking open-

ness, negative emotionality, and self-discipline and friend quality. After controlling the 



Gong & Li. Preschool and Non-cognitive Skills of Middle School Students 

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Table 2. Influencing Factors of Preschool Education: Logit Re-

gression Results. 

Variables 
Preschool Attendance 

Coef Odds Ratio 

Female 
0.082* 

1.086 
(0.039) 

Grade 9 
-0.128*** 

0.880 
(0.039) 

Han Ethnicity 
0.195** 

1.217 
(0.065) 

Non-Agricultural Household 
0.033 

1.034 
(0.469) 

Low Birth Weight 
-0.291*** 

0.743 
(0.041) 

Had Major Illness before Entering Elementary School 
-0.131* 

0.872 
(0.062) 

The Only Child 
0.206*** 

1.229 
(0.046) 

Parent’s Education 
0.064*** 

1.070 
(0.012) 

Family Economy Medium 
0.355*** 

1.433 
(0.043) 

Family Economic Affluence 
0.487*** 

1.631 
(0.112) 

Average Number of Years of Education in the County 
0.198*** 

1.219 
(0.017) 

N 18,034  

Note: *p<0.05, **p<0.01, ***p<0.001. 

 

 

 

personal and family factors, the thinking openness in students who had received pre-

school education were 0.04-0.05 standard deviations higher than those who had not re-

ceived preschool education, that is, students who have received preschool education 

were better than those who had not received preschool education in terms of curiosity 

and ability to accept new things. Regarding the negative emotionality, students who 

have received preschool education showed less negative emotions such as depression, 

sadness and unhappiness indicating that in terms of emotional regulation, students who 

had received preschool education were stronger than those who had not received pre-

school education. In addition, on self-discipline, students who had received preschool 

education rarely ran away from school and late when compared with those who had not 

received preschool education. Finally, in terms of the quality of friends, students who 

had received preschool education showed better performance. Among the friends they 

mentioned, most were students who learnt hard, achieved outstanding results and per- 



Gong & Li. Preschool and Non-cognitive Skills of Middle School Students 

Vol.3, No. 1, 2019 298 

Table 3. Influence of Preschool Education on Non-cognitive Abil-

ity of Students. 

Outcome 

Variable  
OLS 

PSM 

Nearest 

Neighborhood 

Matching 

Radius 

Matching 

Kernel 

Matching 

Openness 
0.036** 0.042** 0.036** 0.045*** 

(0.015) (0.019) (0.017) (0.017) 

Negative Emotion 
-0.071*** -0.071*** -0.073*** -0.071*** 

(0.017) (0.022) (0.020) (0.019) 

Self-Discipline 
0.028* 0.011 0.032* 0.034* 

(0.014) (0.019) (0.017) (0.017) 

Number of Good 

Friends 

0.547
+
 0.278 0.149 0.198 

(0.279) (0.344) (0.307) (0.301) 

Quality of Friends 
0.151*** 0.176*** 0.197*** 0.206*** 

(0.037) (0.052) (0.047) (0.046) 

Note: 
+
p<0.1, *p<0.05, **p<0.01, ***p<0.001. Other control variables are included in both 

OLS and PSM estimates. In PSM estimation, the nearest neighbor matching (K=4), radius 

matching (caliper= 0.01), kernel matching and other matching methods were adopted. The 

standardized mean differences of almost all variables after matching were less than 10%, 

and the standardized mean differences of most variables were significantly reduced. ATT 

was reported in the table. 

 

 

 

formed well. In addition to preschool education, parents’ education level and the status 

of family economy were also important factors affecting these non-cognitive abilities.
5
 

Chinese scholars have analyzed the important role of preschool education in 

cultivating children’s curiosity from the theoretical point, but no corresponding empiri-

cal study was conducted. Our study demonstrated that preschool education has a signif-

icant positive effect on the development of students’ curiosity that provides an empiri-

cal evidence for the theoretical analysis mentioned above. In addition, this study found 

that preschool education has a significant positive impact on the self-discipline of mid-

dle school students, which is consistent with the conclusion of Sammons (2010). Dif-

ferent from Gong et al. (2016), they found that preschool experience had no significant 

effect on the number of students’ friends, which may be related to the differences in the 

samples used in the two studies, Gong et al took rural students as the research objects, 

whereas this study covered students from both urban and rural areas, and this variable 

was given priority, and therefore may exist a certain difference. Although the conclu-

sions were inconsistent in terms of the number of friends, our study found that the stu-

dents who received preschool education were more likely to have good academic per-

formance, learn hard and perform well with their best friends, which supplemented the 

study of Gong et al. These two studies verified the significant influence of preschool 



Gong & Li. Preschool and Non-cognitive Skills of Middle School Students 

Vol.3, No. 1, 2019 299 

education on the development of the non-cognitive ability of elementary and middle 

school students from different aspects. 

Matching Effect Analysis 

The propensity score matching method was used to satisfy two basic assumptions: (1) 

equalization of covariate distribution in the post-match treatment and control groups; (2) 

the propensity scores of both treatment and control groups with common support areas. 

Our study focused on the balance of variables that also affect the preschool enrollment 

and the non-cognitive abilities of children. The balanced variables include parents’ edu-

cational attainment, family economic status before elementary school, household regis-

tration, and only-child family. The balance test found that these variables matched well 

and standardized mean differences were less than 5%. Meanwhile, the standard mean 

difference of the other control variables was less than 10%. According to the distribu-

tion map of propensity scores between the treatment and the control groups, there were 

overlapping areas of propensity scores between the preschool attendees and non-

attendees indicating that the matching reduced the initial difference of characteristic 

variables between both groups. 

Conclusions and Suggestions 

Given the prominent role of the non-cognitive ability in personal growth and develop-

ment, it is increasingly recognized that “ability” in the human capital model includes 

not only cognitive ability, but also the non-cognitive ability. It has become the latest 

trend of world education practice to try new teaching methods to develop children’s 

non-cognitive abilities in social emotion, curiosity, and thirst for knowledge, self-

discipline, and initiative. In this context, it is particularly important to explore the role 

of preschool education in the development of children’s non-cognitive ability. Based on 

the national sample of the 2013-2014 baseline data of the CEPS, this study empirically 

investigated the effect of preschool education on the non-cognitive ability of middle 

school students in China using the propensity score matching method, and attempted to 

answer the following questions: What factors affect the access to preschool education? 

Does preschool education affect the non-cognitive ability of the middle school students? 

The main research conclusions are: 

First, there is inequality in access to preschool education. Our study found that 

students’ physical condition before elementary school, family economic condition, par-

ents’ years of education and local economic level all possess role in affecting students’ 

access to preschool education. In comparison with students from poor families, students 

from middle and wealthy families are 43.3% and 63.1% more likely to receive pre-

school education. 

Second, preschool education has a significant impact on the non-cognitive abil-

ity of middle school students. We found that students who have received preschool edu-

cation had a strong curiosity and ability to accept new things, less negative emotions, 

better self-discipline, and less truancy and lateness. In addition, in terms of the quality 

of friends, students with preschool education had more good friends who are more like-



Gong & Li. Preschool and Non-cognitive Skills of Middle School Students 

Vol.3, No. 1, 2019 300 

ly to get good academic and other school performance. Therefore, preschool education 

can improve the non-cognitive ability of human capital and play a positive role in pro-

moting individual’s future development. 

Based on these findings, we strongly suggest that the government should con-

tinue to pay attention to and invest in the preschool education. Meanwhile, because 

children from poor families with poor health are significantly less likely to receive pre-

school education, so the government’s financial expenditure on preschool education 

should incline to vulnerable children to guarantee the right of the disadvantaged chil-

dren to receive preschool education. 

We need to point out the limitations that our study has. First, the two methods 

we used in this study are non-experimental ones. Although the PSM method can reduce 

the selective bias to some extent, it only controls the influence of observable variables. 

If there is an unobservable endogenous variable, so “hidden bias” cannot be avoided. 

Second, we observed a number of non-cognitive indicators such as self-discipline, nega-

tive emotionality, and thinking openness, but most of these indicators are self-reported 

measures. So they were more subjective. With the development of measurement tech-

nology, more objective indicators can be investigated in the future. Finally, future stud-

ies can observe the impact of preschool education with different types and quality on 

the development of children’s non-cognitive ability. 

 

 

 

 

 

Note: 

1. The CEPS questionnaire asks the following questions: “do some of the good friends 

mentioned above have the following situations: good academic performance, hard 

study, and want to go to college”, then the answer is “no such” (1) “one or two” (2) 

and “many such” (3) Another related question is: “good friend mentioned above have 

the following situation: skipping classes, truant, kip, in violation of the rules being crit-

icized, disposition and fight back and learned”, because the behavior such as skipping 

classes and grades excellent performance, such as is on the contrary, to facilitate re-

search, do the reverse score here, answer “no such assignment 3,” answer “one or two” 

assignment 2, answer “many of these” assignment 1. On this basis, the index of “friend 

quality” (a = 0.80) was synthesized by principal component analysis. 

2. The preschool education here is mainly for children aged 3-6, but not limited to this. In 

the CEPS survey, no matter how old a child is enrolled in kindergarten or pre-school, 

or how many preschools he or she has received, the figure is better than the three-year 

gross enrollment rate reported by the national statistics. 

3. During the survey, the hospital asked parents and students for subjective evaluation of 

the economic status of the family before elementary school. We give priority to the par-

ents’ questionnaire data, and then use the students’ questionnaire data when the par-

ents do not answer, and finally generate derived variables that reflect the family eco-

nomic status of students before they enter elementary school. 



Gong & Li. Preschool and Non-cognitive Skills of Middle School Students 

Vol.3, No. 1, 2019 301 

4. Based on the data of the sixth national census, the CEPS project works out the average 

years of schooling in the samples’ districts and counties. 

5. Limited by space, other control variables from the results of omission. 

 

 

 

 

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The Chinese version of this article has been published in Edu Econom 2018; 34(4):37-45. The 

English version has been authorized for being publication in BECE by the author(s) and the 

Chinese journal. 

龚欣, 李贞义. 学前教育经历对初中生非认知能力的影响: 基于 CEPS的实证研究. 教育与

经济, 2018; 34(4): 37-45. 


	Article-Title-BECE_V3N1_30Sep2019-ZYL
	Article-Maintext_BECE_V3N1_30Sep2019-ZYL

