Are changes of major major changes? The roles of grades,gender, and preferences in college major switching

The choice of college major is a key stage in the career search, and over a third of college students switch majors at least once. We provide the first comprehensive analysis of major switching, looking at the patterns of switching in both academic and non-academic dimensions. Low grades signal academic mismatch and predict switching majors - and the lower the grades, the larger the switch in terms of course content. Surprisingly, these switches do not improve students’ grades. When students switch majors, they switch to majors that “look like them”: females to female-heavy majors, and so on. Lower-ability women flee competitive majors at high rates, while men and higher-ability women are undeterred. Women are far more likely to leave STEM fields for majors that are less competitive – but still somewhat science-intensive – suggesting that leaving STEM may be more about fleeing the “culture” of STEM majors than fleeing science and math.     

Does student-teacher race match affect course grades?

A growing body of research has found that student-teacher race match is associated with higher test scores, teacher expectations, and teacher perceptions of students. This paper contributes to the student-teacher race match literature by investigating the effect of race match on course grades. To the extent that race match is associated with higher course grades for minority students, a more diverse teacher workforce is one mechanism that may help to narrow the achievement gap. Using a series of fixed effects models exploiting within-student variation across year and subject matter, I find that having a race-matched teacher is associated with a small but significant increase in course grade, on average. The positive effect of race match is driven largely by the experience of Black students.     

Does sibling gender affect personality traits?

This paper studies whether sibling gender affects personality traits. We use the idea that if parents decide to have a second child, it is random whether they will have a boy or a girl. Therefore, the relationship between the second-born sibling's gender and the first sibling's personality traits is causal. We employ longitudinal data from a large British cohort which is followed from birth onwards. The dataset includes personality traits at age 10 and 16. Our main result is that oldest boys in a household are more agreeable if their next-born sibling is a girl. This effect is robust across age (10 and 16), when controlling for among others family size, and when applying corrections for multiple hypothesis tests. Agreeableness is an important trait in life as it has been shown to correlate positively among others with being employed, having a skilled job, savings, and life satisfaction.     

Do clickers work for students with poorer grades and in harder courses?

We studied the impact of clickers, also known as electronic student response systems, on the performance of students on two undergraduate finance courses. Consistent with some of the recent literature, we found that clickers have very little impact on student performance, as measured by final course grades. Further, we found that clickers do not have a significant impact on course grades for students in relation to their designated performance ability (weak versus strong) or whether the course in question is less or more difficult. However, after simultaneously controlling for course difficulty and student aptitude, we found that clickers have a meaningfully positive impact on the performance of poorly performing students on more challenging quantitative courses. Our results suggest that the impact of clickers on student performance may depend on the type of student (academically weak, average or strong) and the type of course (average or difficult). This finding has particular implications for curriculum planners at the post-secondary level, although the findings may also have application at the secondary school level.     

Intended college enrollment and educational inequality: Do students lack information?

Despite increasing access to university education, students from disadvantaged or non-academic family backgrounds are still underrepresented in universities. In this regard, the economics literature has focused on the role of financial constraints as a cause of these observed differences in educational choices. Our knowledge of potential effects of other constraints regarding university education is more limited. We investigate the causal relationship between information and educational expectations using data from a German randomized controlled trial in which students in high schools were given information on the benefits of as well as on different funding possibilities for university education. We find that the provision of information increases intended college enrollment for students from a non-academic family background, both two to three months and one year after the intervention. In contrast, it leads students from academic backgrounds to lower their enrollment intentions in the short run. However, this effect does not persist. Our results suggest that educational inequality can be reduced by providing students from non-academic families with relevant information.     

Does attendance to a four-year academic college versus vocational college affect future wages?

Taiwan is one of the few countries in which bachelor degrees can be earned by attending either 4-year academic colleges or vocational colleges. This paper offers new evidence on whether returns to B.A. degrees are significantly different between academic and vocational 4-year colleges using the 1998–1999 Taiwanese College Graduate Survey. The multinomial logit model is applied to correct self-selection for employment status, and a wage equation is then estimated. The results suggest that the returns to 4-year academic colleges are 6% higher than those to 4-year vocational colleges. We also find a significant effect of college quality on wages. Moreover, public academic college graduates have the highest returns whereas those who attend private vocational colleges have the lowest returns.     

Under pressure: How faculty gender and contract uncertainty impact students’ grades

Although rising average grades appear to be common at post-secondary institutions in the U.S., there is still little work examining mechanisms driving this increase in grades. This paper uses data from a public research university to examine one mechanism in particular: instructor level incentives that are linked to gender and contract status. We hypothesize that instructors with more job uncertainty due to their rank will be most incentivized to award higher grades, as this may lead to better evaluations of teaching and an increase in retention probability. Our results indicate that students receive higher grades when their class is taught by a female instructor with more job uncertainty than if the class were taught by a tenured female faculty member. These higher grades appear to reflect more lenient grading rather than better preparation for follow-on courses. However, for students taking classes with male instructors, there is no significant difference across instructor rank in grades received. Our results have important implications for thinking about the role faculty contracts may play in affecting grading distributions.     

Diversifying the faculty across gender lines: Do trustees and administrators matter?

Our paper focuses on the role that the gender composition of the leaders of American colleges and universities - trustees, presidents, and provosts - play in influencing the rate at which academic institutions diversify their faculty across gender lines. Our analyses make use of institutional level panel data that we have collected for a large sample of American academic institutions.     

Do age and gender make a difference in the relationship between intellectual styles and abilities?

This article reports two studies that aim at further distinguishing intellectual styles from abilities by taking into account the confounding effects of age and gender on the relationship between these two constructs. Two independent groups of secondary school students responded to the Thinking Styles Inventory-Revised and took the Sternberg Triarchic Abilities Test (Level H). Both sets of results suggested that although statistically significant relationships could be identified between thinking styles and abilities, when age and gender were put under control, styles and abilities became fundamentally independent. Implications of this finding for students and teachers are discussed.     

Do charismatic presidents influence college applications and alumni donations? Organizational identity and performance in US higher education

The effect of charismatic leadership on organizational performance is contested. Yet despite the lack of consistent evidence of the value of charismatic leadership to organizations, presidential searches have increasingly favored charismatic candidates. This study shows how organizational identity mediates the relationship between charismatic leadership and organizational performance. Among religious colleges, but not among private colleges considered overall, there is a positive relationship between presidents’ charismatic leadership and the number of applications for enrollment and the amount of financial donations colleges receive. This suggests that among organizations with atypical identities, charismatic leadership can be interpreted as a meaningful signal of organizational performance.     

Do hostile attributions and negative affect explain the association between authoritarian beliefs and harsh parenting?

The present study examined the associations between authoritarian parenting beliefs, attributions of hostile intent, negative affect, and harsh parenting practices. General population parents (N = 183; 31.1% fathers) completed self-report measures of authoritarian parenting beliefs and read vignettes describing children engaging in transgressions. Following each vignette, parents indicated the extent to which they would attribute hostile intent to the child, feel negative affect, and respond with harsh parenting practices (e.g., yelling, hitting). As hypothesized, parents who subscribed to higher levels of authoritarian beliefs attributed more hostile intent to the child and expected to feel more negative affect in response to the transgressions. In turn, higher levels of hostile attributions and negative affect were associated with increased likelihood of harsh parenting practices. Results from a path analysis revealed that the association between authoritarian parenting beliefs and harsh parenting practices was fully explained by attributions of hostile intent and negative affect.     

Do stricter high school math requirements raise college STEM attainment?

This paper examines the impact of stricter high school math requirements on the likelihood of completing a degree in STEM fields. Exploiting cross-state variation in the timing of math reforms, I find that stricter math curriculum requirements significantly increased the proportion of the college-educated population earning a STEM degree. Within STEM, the increases in degree completion are concentrated in math and science while there is little discernible impact in technology and engineering. Further analysis suggests that high school graduation, college attendance, and overall degree completion are largely unaffected by the implementation of math reforms. Instead, stricter math curriculum requirements appear to have shifted some students away from non-STEM fields into STEM fields.     

Do performance‐based research funding systems affect research production and impact?

We study the potential impact of introducing performance‐based funding systems (PBFS) on national research systems, using information on the number of publications and their scientific impact (citations or publications in top‐ranked journals) for 31 countries over the period 1996–2016. The analysis is performed both at the aggregate level and looking separately at each of the six main scientific areas identified according to the Organisation for Economic Co‐operation and Development (OECD) classification. On average, PBFS are found to increase the number of publications, though the effect is only temporary and fades after a few years. Looking at the scientific impact, PBFS are found to have a negligible effect on excellence as measured by the share of articles published in the top journals, irrespective of the type of assessment adopted. On the contrary, PBFS have some influence on average research quality, as measured by the number of citations per paper normalised with respect to the field.     

Are college costs worth it? How ability,major, and debt affect the returns to schooling

This paper examines the financial value over the course of a lifetime of pursuing a college degree under a variety of different settings (e.g. major, student loan debt, individual ability). I account for ability/selection bias and the probability that entering freshmen will not eventually graduate.I find the financial proposition of attending college is a sound investment for most individuals and cost scenarios, although some scenarios do not pay off until late in life, or ever. I estimate the present discounted value of attending college for the median student to vary between $85,000 and $300,000 depending on the student’s major. Most importantly, the results of this paper emphasize the role that risk (e.g. the nontrivial chance that a student will not eventually graduate) plays in the cost-benefit analysis of obtaining a college degree.     

Do college admissions counselors discriminate? Evidence from a correspondence-based field experiment

I design and implement a correspondence based field experiment to test for race and gender discrimination among college admissions counselors in the student information gathering stage. The experiment uses names to identify student race and gender, and student grade, SAT score, and writing differences to reflect varying levels of applicant quality. I find that counselors do not respond differently by race in most cases, but there are measurable differences in response/non-response and in the type of correspondence sent that favor female students. I also find that the quality of the student induces large differences in the type of response.     

A course on gender equity in education: Does it affect gender role attitudes of preservice teachers?

The aim of this study is to investigate if a semester-long course on gender equity in education has an impact on the attitudes of preservice teachers toward gender roles. To this end, a pretest–posttest analysis is carried out in a state university in Ankara, Turkey, employing a sample of 133 preservice teachers; 33 of whom had taken the course and 100 of whom had not. The results reveal that the course has a substantial impact on the attitudes of the preservice teachers. Indeed, the attitudes of the teacher candidates taking the course change considerably at the end of the semester, developing more favorable attitudes toward gender issues.     

Do students space their course study? Those who do earn higher grades.

We examined students’ naturalistic decisions about spacing their study in an undergraduate course (N = 185) and whether self-selected spacing predicted course performance. Usage of two study tools – an online textbook and quiz tool – was recorded daily. We operationalized spacing as how often the tools were used and the timing of their use relative to exams. We found that students increased their study near deadlines and exams, used the textbook more often than the quiz tool, and used the tools infrequently when they were optional (vs. required). Importantly, spaced retrieval practice (via quiz tool) predicted course performance and GPA, whereas spaced reading (via textbook) was a weaker predictor. That is, when students opted for more frequent and early quizzing, they earned higher grades, even controlling for time spent quizzing. Thus, self-selected spaced study – especially spaced retrieval practice – supports student achievement.     

Do emotion regulation difficulties explain the association between executive functions and child physical abuse risk?

This study examined the associations between executive functioning problems, emotion regulation difficulties, and risk for perpetrating child physical abuse (CPA). It was hypothesized that: (a) poor executive functions (i.e., working memory problems and inhibition/switching problems) would be associated with higher levels of emotion regulation difficulties and CPA risk; (b) emotion regulation difficulties would be positively associated with CPA risk; and (c) emotion regulation difficulties would partially explain the association between executive functions (i.e., working memory problems and inhibition/switching problems) and CPA risk. To examine these predictions, a sample of 133 general population parents (31% fathers) completed self-report measures of CPA risk, emotion regulation difficulties, working memory problems, and a performance-based measure of inhibition/switching skills. Results revealed that executive functioning problems were linked with emotion regulation difficulties, which in turn were associated with CPA risk. Moreover, emotion regulation difficulties explained the relationship between executive functions (working memory, inhibition/switching) and CPA risk. The final model accounted for 41% of the variance in CPA risk. Although additional research is needed, the present findings suggest that enhancing parents’ executive functioning and teaching them effective emotion regulation skills may be important targets for CPA prevention efforts.