We combine class performance data from an undergraduate management course with students' personal records to examine how group diversity affects group work performance and individual learning. Students are exogenously assigned to groups. We find that, on average, male-dominant groups performed worse in their group work and learned less (based…

Economic tradeoffs students place on location, salary, distances to natural resource amenities, size of the city where the job is located, and commuting times for their first college graduate job are estimated using a mixed logit model for a sample of Texas A&M University students. The Midwest is the least preferred area having a mean salary…

There is a large literature on the influence of institutional characteristics on student academic achievement. In contrast, relatively little research focusses on student time allocation and its effects on student performance. This paper contributes to the literature by investigating the effect of student time allocation on the average grade of…

The present paper determines whether community college transfer students have higher baccalaureate rates when they enroll in four-year colleges and departments that have larger shares of transfer students. Transfers attending non-technical campuses with larger shares of transfers have higher eight-year baccalaureate rates, but within-campus…

Prior research suggests that student evaluations of teaching may depend on the average grade expected in a class. We hypothesize that, because of risk aversion, student ratings also depend on the distribution of expected grades. As predicted, student ratings at the University of Puerto Rico at Bayamon are significantly and negatively related to…

The institutional framework for the funding of higher education in the United Kingdom is discussed. In England, much of the financial support for teaching and learning, especially of "home and European Union" undergraduates, is channelled through the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE). The HEFCE operates a formula funding…

A sample of 347 students, enrolled in principles of economics classes during the period 1997-2001, is used to examine the relation between class attendance and student performance on examinations. Among the questions examined are: Is attendance related to performance, with and without controls for other factors? Do only substantial levels of…

The Department of Economics at Duke University has endeavored to increase participation in undergraduate honors thesis research while ensuring a high-quality learning experience. Given the faculty-to-student ratio in the department (approximately 1:16), increasing research participation required the creation of a stable, replicable framework for…

The authors apply a regression-discontinuity design to identify the causal impact of letter grades on student effort within a course, subsequent credit hours taken, and the probability of majoring in economics. Their methodology addresses key issues in identifying the causal impact of letter grades: correlation with unobservable factors, such as…

Using 1994-95, 2002-3, and 2008-9 data, the author found that economics majors scored well on the LSAT® (1998, 2006, 2010). These results are often posted on university economics (and other) department Web sites. The author, who updates the prior studies using current data for law school applicants for the 2012-13 class of students entering law…

Although the concept of the sampling distribution is at the core of much of what we do in econometrics, it is a concept that is often difficult for students to grasp. The thought process behind bootstrapping provides a way for students to conceptualize the sampling distribution in a way that is intuitive and visual. However, teaching students to…

The authors describe their experience with integrating a semester-long economic analysis project into an intermediate macroeconomic theory course. Students work in teams of "economic advisors" to write a series of nested reports that analyze the current state of the economy, and propose and evaluate policies for a decision-maker. The…

In experiential education, the student learns through experience by observing a concept or phenomenon and applying this knowledge in a real-world context. A research project conducted by undergraduate students at a U.S. private liberal arts college is described in this article. The project provided opportunity for students to think about their…

In this article, the author presents a way of using in-class debates to discuss contentious issues and help students develop critical thinking skills. Three elements were incorporated into an undergraduate public finance course: a presentation of ethical approaches in order to formally discuss normative issues, class debates which required…

Instructors often debate the merits of alternate grading policies such as dropping the lowest exam or offering an additional exam to replace the lowest score. To date, there has been little research conducted on the impact of these policies on performance. In this study, the author investigates student performance in intermediate macroeconomics…