Do Students Know Best? Choice, Classroom Time, and Academic Performance

Ted Joyce, Sean Crockett, David Jaeger, Onur Altindag, Stephen O'Connell and Dahlia K. Remler

No 21656, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: We compare student academic performance in traditional twice-a-week and compressed once-a-week lecture formats in introductory microeconomics between one semester in which students were randomly assigned into the formats and another semester when students were allowed to choose their format. In each semester we offered the same course with the sections taught at the same times in the same classrooms by the same professors using the same book, software and lecture slides. Our study design is modeled after a doubly randomized preference trial (DRPT), which provides insights regarding external validity beyond what is possible from a single randomized study. Our goal is to assess whether having a choice modifies the treatment effect of format. Students in the compressed format of the randomized arm of the study scored -0.19 standard deviations less on the combined midterm and final (p

JEL-codes: I20 I23 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015-10
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-edu and nep-exp
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