Intervention(s)
This experiment involves all undergraduate courses at the University of San Andrés. Courses are randomly assigned to two groups, treatment and control, using a computer. This experiment aims to analyze the persistence of grades within courses. That is, we want to analyze whether students' grades on the second midterm are positively related to the grades they received on the first midterm.
Control Group: Teachers will have the following information about their students: full name, email, major, and student photo. In these courses, when taking the first and second midterms, students will write their full names on their papers. Thus, teachers can fully identify their students while grading the exams. When grading the second midterm, they can also fully identify the students. That is, both assessments in the course are traditional (or non-blind).
Treatment Group: In courses assigned to the treatment group, teachers will have access to a complete list of their students from the beginning of the semester with the following information: name, email, major, and photo. In these courses, when taking the first midterm, students will write their student ID number (identifier) on their papers. Thus, teachers cannot fully identify their students while grading the exams. When grading the second midterm, students will write a different ID number on their papers. Thus, teachers cannot identify their students during both assessment instances.
This analysis will include an examination of differences in grades based on observable student characteristics such as gender, age, financial aid status (full scholarship), and special educational needs (SEN). We will show econometric results for all courses and without math courses.