The effect of school entry age on children’s later performance is a long-debated topic without any convergence. Besides, existing studies have mostly limited themselves to examining the impact of entry age on children’s cognitive achievements. In Germany, where different entry-age regulations exist across federal states and academic tracking takes place very early, it is crucial to investigate whether these differential school entry ages affect children’s outcomes. This study, based on the longitudinal data available from the National Educational Panel Study, investigates the possible entry-age effect on children’s willingness to make an effort and their school enjoyment in the German elementary school context. The study found a positive entry-age effect only for willingness to make an effort but not for school enjoyment, and the existing entry-age effect decreases over time. Therefore, empirical evidence confirms that, in Germany, the entry-age effect persists in the short run and some child outcomes seem more sensitive to entry age than others. These are important findings in the German context where students’ academic tracking starts from lower secondary schooling and entry-age effects may significantly influence it.

入学年龄对儿童以后表现的影响是一个长期争论的话题，但没有任何共识。此外，现有的研究大多局限于考察入学年龄对儿童认知成就的影响。在德国，各联邦州存在不同的入学年龄规定，并且学业跟踪很早就进行，因此调查这些不同的入学年龄是否影响儿童的成绩至关重要。这项研究以国家教育小组研究提供的纵向数据为基础，调查了德国小学背景下入学年龄对儿童努力意愿和学校享受可能产生的影响。研究发现，积极的入职年龄效应仅对努力的意愿产生，但对学校的享受却没有影响，而且现有的入职年龄效应会随着时间的推移而减弱。因此，经验证据证实，在德国，入学年龄效应在短期内持续存在，一些儿童的结局似乎比其他孩子对入学年龄更敏感。这些都是在德国背景下的重要发现，学生的学业跟踪从初中开始，入学年龄效应可能会对其产生重大影响。