Which teaching practices improve student performance on high-stakes exams? Evidence from Russia

• We estimated the impact of teacher practices on Russian students’ college entrance exam scores.
• We made these estimates separately for students in basic and advanced academic tracks.
• Of three practices aimed at increasing scores, only high amounts of homework are effective.
• The effective type of homework differs in the basic and advanced tracks.

This study examines the relationship between student achievement and teaching practices aimed at raising student performance on a high stakes college entrance examination—the Russian Unified State Exam (USE). Data come from a survey of 3000 students conducted in 2010 in three Russian regions, and the analysis employs a student fixed effects method that estimates the impact of mathematics and Russian language teachers’ practices in advanced and basic tracks on students’ exam results. The study finds that the only practices positively affecting test outcomes are greater amounts of subject-specific homework, and that the most effective type of homework differs across tracks.