The Syllabus Evolved: Extended Graphic Syllabi for Economics Courses

An extended graphic syllabus is an artifact that contains limited jargon within a visual representation of a traditional course outline (i.e. a classic graphic syllabus) and incorporates visual elements into other parts of the traditional syllabus (e.g. course policies, assessments) in order to hold and focus the students’ attention on the document. Its purpose is to give students a sense of the course’s “big picture”, to make their initial encounter with the course topics more meaningful, and to induce them to actually read and reference the syllabus throughout the semester. In addition to providing rationale for using extended graphic syllabi, this paper provides examples of classic graphic syllabi, describes how to create them, and offers examples of elements of extended graphic syllabi. Student perceptions of traditional and graphic syllabi are assessed

Understanding Teachers: Sorting, Productivity, and Attrition in the Public School System

This dissertation is composed of three studies on public school teachers using data from the Schools and Staffing Survey and the Teacher Follow-Up Survey. The first chapter combines restricted-use data from the 2007-2008 SASS and a disaggregated measure of teacher quality based on undergraduate institutional quality to determine where high quality teachers choose to teach. Higher quality teachers are more likely to teach at charter schools versus public schools than are lower quality teachers. Among the youngest cohort of teachers, those who graduated from the Most Competitive colleges are 11 percentage points more likely to choose a charter school than their lower quality counterparts. These findings suggest that traditional public schools may be at a growing disadvantage in attracting teachers who graduate from the best universities. The second chapter investigates how teacher job satisfaction affects productivity as measured by the high school graduation rate and college enrollment rate. It uses an instrumental variables (IV) approach to purge the model of the endogeneity of satisfaction. The findings suggest teacher job satisfaction has a long-lasting effect on student outcomes. In particular, a one standard deviation increase in teacher job satisfaction increases the college enrollment rate by roughly 2.3-2.4 percentage points. The third chapter examines attrition and retention rates among teachers in charter and traditional public schools. It finds that among new teachers, teaching at a charter increases the odds of leaving teaching by a factor of 2.13. Among new teachers who voluntarily leave teaching or move schools, teaching at a charter increases the probability of leaving by a factor of 3.04. Charter status does not affect attrition among all teachers. The results also indicate that the average marginal effect of graduating from a top ranked college reduces the probability of moving schools among all teachers, though college competitiveness does not marginally affect the mobility decisions of new teachers

Does Teacher Happiness Matter? The Effect of Teacher Job Satisfaction on Productivity

Using data from the Schools and Staffing Survey, this study implements multiple estimation methods to determine the effect of teacher job satisfaction on the college enrollment rates. The findings indicate a positive relationship between the average level of teacher job satisfaction within a school and college enrollment rates. Teacher job satisfaction is inversely related to diversity in opinion regarding job attributes. Thus, the results suggest that reforms aimed at increasing teacher job satisfaction may improve student outcomes

Does Teacher Happiness Matter? The Effect of Teacher Job Satisfaction on Productivity

Using data from the Schools and Staffing Survey, this study implements multiple estimation methods to determine the effect of teacher job satisfaction on the college enrollment rates. The findings indicate a positive relationship between the average level of teacher job satisfaction within a school and college enrollment rates. Teacher job satisfaction is inversely related to diversity in opinion regarding job attributes. Thus, the results suggest that reforms aimed at increasing teacher job satisfaction may improve student outcomes

Effects of flipping the principles of microeconomics class: Does scheduling matter?

Flipping the principles of microeconomics classroom significantly improves student-learning outcomes compared to traditionally taught lectures; however, it remains unclear as to if the effect differs depending upon the spacing and scheduling of class meetings. This paper investigates if the quantitative effects of flipping on student outcomes differ by scheduling. It further evaluates if student perceptions about flipping vary depending on the spacing of class meetings. This paper shows that students in flipped classes scored significantly higher on final exams compared to those in a traditional setting, and the effect of flipping did not vary with class spacing. Students in the flipped class setting reported significantly more active learning and were significantly more likely to recommend the professor to other students than those in a traditional setting; however, those in the flipped class that met twice a week for 80 min reported significantly less active learning and were significantly less likely to recommend the professor than those in the traditional setting. The results documented in this study suggest that while the effects of flipping on student learning do not vary with class spacing, student satisfaction does differ with spacing. Therefore, when considering the scheduling of a flipped course, instructors need not worry about the impact of flipping on learning outcomes, but they should consider the importance of student satisfaction

Immediate Feedback Assessment Technique (IF-AT) Quizzes and Student Performance in Microeconomic Principles Courses

In this study, the authors investigate the impact of the Immediate Feedback Assessment Technique (IF-AT) on student learning outcomes in principles of microeconomics classes. The IF-AT enables students to receive immediate feedback and to retry questions for partial credit. The authors use a randomized experiment to evaluate the effect of the IF-AT versus a traditional Scantron quiz on student learning as measured by exam performance. The randomization enables a student-fixed effects estimation of the effect of the IF-AT. There is no significant impact of the IF-AT on multiple choice exam questions; however, students scored 2.1 percentage points higher on short answer questions relating to units for which they received an IF-AT quiz relative to other units. Finally, students responded favorably to the IF-AT format

Food for thought: the birth-order effect and resource allocation in Indonesia

Despite the large literature linking birth order to socio-economic outcomes, research uncovering the mechanisms that drive these effects has been rare. We construct a unique measure of nutritional variety to examine whether differential resource allocation among siblings explains the birth-order effect on cognitive ability. We document birth-order differences among children and young adults, showing that second and third borns perform worse on cognitive assessments compared to their firstborn siblings. We find further evidence suggesting that second- and third-born children frequently eat a smaller variety of food than their first-born counterparts. However, this differentiation in food allocation does not appear to drive the differences in cognitive ability in our sample. To our knowledge, this article is the first both to confirm the presence of a birth-order effect on cognition in a developing country and to test empirically whether a difference in food allocation contributes to this effect

Immediate Feedback Assessment Technique (IF-AT) Quizzes and Student Performance in Microeconomic Principles Courses

In this study, the authors investigate the impact of the Immediate Feedback Assessment Technique (IF-AT) on student learning outcomes in principles of microeconomics classes. The IF-AT enables students to receive immediate feedback and to retry questions for partial credit. The authors use a randomized experiment to evaluate the effect of the IF-AT versus a traditional Scantron quiz on student learning as measured by exam performance. The randomization enables a student-fixed effects estimation of the effect of the IF-AT. There is no significant impact of the IF-AT on multiple choice exam questions; however, students scored 2.1 percentage points higher on short answer questions relating to units for which they received an IF-AT quiz relative to other units. Finally, students responded favorably to the IF-AT format

The Syllabus Evolved: Extended Graphic Syllabi for Economics Courses

An extended graphic syllabus is an artifact that contains limited jargon within a visual representation of a traditional course outline (i.e. a classic graphic syllabus) and incorporates visual elements into other parts of the traditional syllabus (e.g. course policies, assessments) in order to hold and focus the students’ attention on the document. Its purpose is to give students a sense of the course’s “big picture”, to make their initial encounter with the course topics more meaningful, and to induce them to actually read and reference the syllabus throughout the semester. In addition to providing rationale for using extended graphic syllabi, this paper provides examples of classic graphic syllabi, describes how to create them, and offers examples of elements of extended graphic syllabi. Student perceptions of traditional and graphic syllabi are assessed

Flipping out about the flip: All hype or is there hope?

The flipped classroom was founded on student-centered pedagogy, with the idea that students retain more information by using active learning techniques during class compared to sitting in a lecture-based course. We implement a randomized experiment to quantify the effect of flipping on the learning outcomes of economics students. We compare standardized exam scores of students who experienced a flipped classroom to those who experienced a traditional classroom in principles of microeconomics courses. OLS regression results show that, following a negative adjustment period, students who experienced the flipped classroom scored significantly higher on midterm and final exams than did the control group. The magnitude of these effects suggests improvements in the students’ scores of a lower bound of two-thirds to an entire a letter grade