Teachers’ administrative positions and students’ non-cognitive abilities in China: evidence from a quasi-natural experiment

This research investigates the causal relationship between teachers’ administrative positions and students’ non-cognitive abilities (NCAs) in China using a quasi-natural experiment of random student-classroom assignment. The results suggest that headteachers’ administrative positions significantly improve students’ NCAs, especially the extraversion and neuroticism. This positive effect is more pronounced in headteachers with higher administrative positions, middle titles, and more teaching experience. Meanwhile, girls and urban students benefited more from headteachers’ administrative positions. Furthermore, the mechanism analysis indicates this positive effect can be explained by the improvement of teachers’ job satisfaction, higher frequency of using more advanced teaching equipment, more parental respect, increased sense of belonging to the class, and peer effects. Our findings further enrich the impact of teacher characteristics on students’ NCAs and highlight the potential benefits of teachers’ administrative positions on student human capital. Also, this paper had policy implications for promoting students’ human capital development by optimizing teacher assignment and allocation.