My Professor Cares: Experimental Evidence on the Role of Faculty Engagement

Scott Carrell and Michal Kurlaender

No 27312, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: Despite a growing body of literature that instructors “matter” in higher education, there is virtually no evidence about how their actions influence student outcomes. We provide experimental evidence on the impact of specific faculty behaviors aimed at increasing student success. We test the effect of professor feedback on student success in higher education classrooms though a "light-touch" randomized intervention. We present results from a small pilot in an introductory-level microeconomics course at a comprehensive research university, and the scale-up conducted in over 43 classrooms and nearly 4,000 students at a large broad-access university. The intervention consisted of several strategically-timed E-mails to students from the professor indicating keys to success in the class, the students’ current standing in the course, and a reminder of when the professor is available. Results from the pilot show that students in the treatment group scored higher on exams, homework assignments, and final course grade. Results from the scaled-up experiment are more mixed—we find significant positive effects on student perceptions of the professor and course for all students. However, we only find positive achievement effects for our target population, first year students from underrepresented minority groups. Finally, we replicated the pilot to test the robustness of these results and again find positive effects on student achievement. We conclude that in certain settings and with some students, targeted feedback from professors can lead to meaningful gains in achievement.

JEL-codes: I20 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020-06
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-edu and nep-exp
Note: ED LS PE
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Published as Scott E. Carrell & Michal Kurlaender, 2023. "My Professor Cares: Experimental Evidence on the Role of Faculty Engagement," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, vol 15(4), pages 113-141.

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.nber.org/papers/w27312.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: My Professor Cares: Experimental Evidence on the Role of Faculty Engagement (2023)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nbr:nberwo:27312

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
http://www.nber.org/papers/w27312

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc National Bureau of Economic Research, 1050 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02138, U.S.A.. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().