Research

Major Research Grants

NSF Grant DUE-2021094 "Estimating the Long-term Effects of Active Learning on Undergraduate Student Learning Outcomes in Microeconomics Courses" ($298,324).

I am Co-Project Leader with Douglas McKee (Only full-time faculty are permitted to act as PIs).

Publications 

"Explaining Heterogeneity Across Departments in Diversity of Economics Students " (with Anna McDougall and Douglas McKee) (Forthcoming in the Journal of Economic Education)

The field of economics is lacking in diversity, lagging behind other STEM fields that have improved on this front in the past decades. However, there is little consensus on the underlying causes of or most effective solutions to this problem. In this paper, we combine data from the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) with data from our own survey of economics departments to identify characteristics of institutions and departments that are associated with observed variation in diversity of undergraduate students across departments. We explore four avenues that the existing literature suggests departments could pursue to improve the gender and racial diversity at the undergraduate level: student support, role modeling, course content, and the use of active learning pedagogy in the classroom. While we find no significant associations between student support characteristics and gender or racial diversity, we find that racial diversity in departmental faculty correlates positively with both gender and racial diversity of undergraduate students. We further find positive associations between course content (economics courses with feminist theory) and gender diversity and between the use active learning pedagogy and gender diversity. This study is purely descriptive and therefore is not meant to be used to advise departments on proper courses of action to increase diversity; rather, it identifies areas where further experimental study is warranted.

"The Economic Statistics Skills Assessment (ESSA)" (with Douglas McKee) (International Review of Economics Education, 44 (2023): 100272)

In this paper, we document the design, development, and validation of a new multiple-choice assessment created to test student knowledge and understanding of probability and statistics concepts used in economics. High quality measures of student skills and understanding are useful for course and program evaluation, analysis of pedagogical innovation, and identifying misconceptions and gaps in students’ prerequisite knowledge in more advanced courses. Alternatives such as student evaluations of teaching (SETs) and final examinations often do not provide the desired coverage and are difficult to compare across terms and institutions. Until now, the only standard assessment appropriate for undergraduate economics courses was the Test of Understanding College Economics (TUCE), which tests introductory economics knowledge. 

"Econ-assessments.org: Automated Assessment of Economics Skills" (with Douglas McKee and Steven Zhu), (Eastern Economic Journal, 49 (2023), pp. 4–14)

Standard assessments can give instructors reliable objective measures of student skills at the beginning of and end of a term. We describe seven standard assessments that we have developed for commonly taught economics courses, and introduce a new website, econ-assessments.org, that allows instructors worldwide to set up any of our assessments for their students. Instructors get a link to their chosen assessment that can be shared with students, and students take the timed assessment when they follow the link. At the end of the test-taking period, instructors receive a report that summarizes performance in aggregate and by learning goal.

"Learning During the COVID-19 Pandemic: It Is Not Who You Teach, but How You Teach" (with Douglas McKee, James Berry, Austin Boyle, Thomas DiCiccio, Tyler Ransom, Alex Rees-Jones, and Jörg Stoye), (Economics Letters, 202, 109812)

We use standardized end-of-course knowledge assessments to examine student learning during the disruptions induced by the COVID-19 pandemic. Examining seven economics courses taught at four US R1 institutions, we find that students performed substantially worse, on average, in Spring 2020 when compared to Spring or Fall 2019. We find no evidence that the effect was driven by specific demographic groups. However, our results suggest that teaching methods that encourage active engagement, such as the use of small group activities and projects, played an important role in mitigating this negative effect. Our results point to methods for more effective online teaching as the pandemic continues.

"Racial and Gender Achievement Gaps in an Economics Classroom" (with Daria Bottan, Douglas McKee, and Anna McDougall) (International Review of Economics Education, 40 (2022): 100239)

In this paper, we document gender and race/ethnic achievement gaps over four semesters of an intermediate-level economics course. We find that male under-represented minority (URM) students earned lower final exam scores than male non-URM students, but this gap disappears when we control for differences in prior preparation. In contrast, female URM students performed significantly worse than female non-URM students, even after controlling for prior preparation. We analyze scores on low-stakes assessments and surveys about study behavior and find that the theory of stereotype threat most consistently explains our results.  As these issues are unlikely to be unique to our classroom, we offer several potential pedagogical solutions to address differences in prior preparation and stereotype threat that underlie observed achievement gaps.

"Identifying Students-at-Risk Using a New Math Skills Assessment" (with Douglas McKee, Irene Foster, Daria Bottan, and Stephanie Thomas) (AEA Papers & Proceedings, 111, pp. 97-101)

Math skills are critical for success in economics courses. Introductory courses require students to be comfortable with arithmetic and algebraic operations and working with graphs. Intermediate level courses add calculus to this list. Students with weak math skills usually perform poorly or drop their economics courses midway through the semester. 

If students-at-risk can be identified early on, they can be given the support they need to succeed. This support may take the form of a nudge to attend office hours regularly or use a department tutoring service. It may involve enrolling students in a supplemental course during the term or even postponing the economics course until they take an alternative dedicated to significantly improving their math skills. All students therefore receive the needed support from the very beginning of the semester, and faculty can dedicate their scarce classroom time to teaching economics instead of basic math. 

In this paper we present two new assessments that economics instructors can use to evaluate students and identify those with weak math skills early in the semester. The MESA-Foundations (Mathematics for Economics Skills Assessment - Foundations) instrument tests explicitly defined learning goals in arithmetic, graphs, and algebra. MESA-Intermediate shares the MESA-Foundations questions on algebra and graphs and adds a set of questions that evaluate calculus skills. Both assessments are multiple choice and are designed to be completed in under 45 minutes without a calculator. 

We show how our assessments, given at the beginning of the term, predicted performance of students in an introductory and intermediate microeconomic theory classes. We use LASSO logit estimation to identify optimal thresholds for interventions described above. 

"Teaching Students to Read Journal Articles Critically" (Journal of Economic Education, 52(4), pp. 308-315)

In this paper, the author describes the use of primary literature readings in an upper-division undergraduate field course. One of the two main learning goals of the course was to teach students how to read academic articles in economics with a critical eye. This was accomplished through providing students with a structured framework for summarizing the main methods and results of each paper and feedback provided on short paper reports and during in-class discussion activities. Based on his experiences in this course, the author offers observations and suggestions to instructors wishing to integrate non-textbook academic readings in their teaching.

"Crime, Apprehension and Clearance Rates: Panel Data Evidence from Canadian Provinces" (with Philip A. Curry and Anindya Sen), (Canadian Journal of Economics, 49(2), pp. 481-514)

The Becker (1968) model of crime establishes the importance of the probability of apprehension as a key factor in a rational individual’s decision to commit a crime. In this respect, most empirical studies based on US data have relied on variation in the number of police officers to estimate the impact of the probability of apprehension or capture. We measure the probability of apprehension by clearance rates and study their effects on crime rates, employing a panel of Canadian provinces from 1986 to 2005. OLS, GMM, GLS and IV estimates yield statistically significant elasticities of clearance rates, ranging from −0.2 to −0.4 for violent crimes and from −0.5 to −0.6 for property crimes. These findings reflect the importance of police force crime-solving productivity.

"Using Invention Activities to Teach Econometrics" (with Douglas McKee), (Journal of Economics Teaching, 5(3), pp. 64-82)(Appendix)

An invention activity is a teaching technique that involves giving students a difficult substantive problem that cannot be readily solved with any methods they have already learned. The work of Dan Schwartz and colleagues (Schwartz & Bransford, 1998; Schwartz & Martin, 2004), suggests that such activities prepare students to learn the “expert's solution” better than starting directly with a lecture on that solution. In this paper we present six new invention activities appropriate for a college econometrics course. We describe how we introduce each activity, guide students as they work, and wrap up the activity with a short lecture.

Working Papers

"The Effect of Peers on Effort and Achievement: Evidence from Random Group Assignments in Multiple Classrooms" (with Douglas McKee)

While existence of peer effects in a variety of educational settings is well-established in the literature, the channels through which peer effects arise are less explored. However, understanding the root causes of peer effects is essential for effective education policy design. In this paper, we identify causal effects of peers on effort and achievement using data on 382 students randomly assigned to 107 groups within three undergraduate economics courses with active use of small-group activities and discussions. To quantify the degree of in-class exposure students have to one another, we use unique attendance data based on in-class polling questions. In-course study effort is measured using student reports of weekly and dedicated pre-exam study hours submitted as a part of each midterm and the final exam. Final exam scores and performance on low-stakes standard assessments serve as measures of student learning. Student data collected via end-of-semester surveys is further enhanced by administrative data, providing essential information such as start-of-semester GPA and demographic characteristics. We find that female peers both decrease female students' study hours and improve their performance on final exams. Further, we see the importance of heterogeneity in peer effects. High-GPA students assigned to groups with higher proportions of low-GPA peers, see a reduction in weekly effort levels and large gains in test performance, explained through learning-by-teaching. This effect is not symmetric, though low-GPA students in groups with more high-GPA peers are less likely to exhibit high weekly effort without detriment to their assessment performance. Finally, high-GPA grouped together seem to improve the learning experience for each other, performing better on low-stakes assessments and final exams, for the latter, at least partially through increasing each other’s study effort.

"Student Stress and Its Impact on Learning During the COVID-19 Pandemic" (with Douglas McKee and Anna McDougall)

In this project, we use unique data collected in Spring 2020, Fall 2020, and Spring 2021 to determine how the learning of economics students was affected by perceived stress and how different groups of students experienced different kinds of stress. We find that stress related to living conditions and access to internet and technology was negatively associated with performance on end-of-term standardized assessments.

"The Impact of Language Training on the Transfer of Pre-Immigration Skills and the Wages of Immigrants" (PDF)

In this paper, I estimate the impact of language courses on the wages of new immigrants. I develop a model of immigrants' investment in language skills which affect wages directly, but also increase the proportion of pre-immigration skills transferred into the host-country economy. I estimate the model, employing instrumental variables to address the endogeneity of language course participation. Attending language courses for six months leads to an average wage increase of 11.3 percent. The trans- fer of pre-immigration cognitive skills into the host-country economy accounts for 6.1 percentage points of this increase and the direct channel - for 5.2 percentage points.

"Understanding Traditional School Choice and Student Achievement: Evidence from the United States"

For any school choice policy to be successful, parents have to select schools based on characteristics that have a positive effect on the students' academic achievement. Therefore, understanding how parents select schools for their children in the absence of reforms is essential for implementing school choice policy changes. In this paper I examine the determinants of school choice and its effect on student outcomes. Using ECLS-K data I identify those parents who move in order to place their child at a specific school and parents whose children switch schools due to purely residential moves. Surprisingly, I find that those who move for academic reasons suffer a decline in their math performance while the purely residential movers do not. I estimate a random utility model of parental school choice and a test score production function to provide an explanation for the poor performance of school movers. School movers seem to select schools based on their socio-economic attributes while ignoring attributes important for test score production. Potentially, this results in worsened academic performance of their children.

Work in Progress

"Improving Math Skills Using a Concurrent Support Course for Introductory Microeconomics: A Fuzzy RD Design Study" (with Douglas McKee) 

"Total Recall? Short- and Long-Term Retention of Statistics and Econometrics Skills" (with Douglas McKee) 

"Developing a Concept Inventory for Econometrics: Applied Econometrics Skills Assessment (AESA)" (with Douglas McKee)

"Who Goes to Office Hours?" (with Douglas McKee, Anna McDougall, Jessica Chen, and Jennifer Wissink)

Standardized Assessments

Please, visit https://econ-assessments.org/ where you can learn about the Cornell Suite of Economics Skills Assessments.