 Effects of workload allocation per course on students’ academic outcomes: Evidence from STEM degreesCarmen Aina, Koray Aktaş and Giorgia Casalone Labour Economics, 2024, vol. 90, issue C Abstract: We investigate how the allocation of workload across university courses affects students’ outcomes. Using a difference-in-differences design, we provide novel evidence that reducing the number of courses in a degree, while keeping the total course work unchanged, strongly reduces students’ performance and increases first-year dropout rates. We show procrastination accounts for these effects, suggesting that students struggle to adjust their study time to handle the intensified courses. We also show that the adverse impacts on dropouts are significantly stronger for students from less affluent families, indicating that the reform likely increases inequality. On the other hand, post-reform graduates exhibit better labor market outcomes. The discussion on potential mechanisms suggests that the reform enhanced the skills of the graduates who successfully navigated the unified exams. Keywords: Number of courses; University dropout; Graduation; Credits per course; Intensity of workload; Procrastination (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:labeco:v:90:y:2024:i:c:s092753712400054x DOI: 10.1016/j.labeco.2024.102559 Access Statistics for this article Labour Economics is currently edited by A. Ichino More articles in Labour Economics from Elsevier |
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