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Last Published June 02, 2015 01:16 PM October 28, 2015 01:13 PM
Intervention (Public) The study will provide grant money ($12,500 total) and guidance to schools/departments to implement various intervention programs aimed at recruiting more women into the economics major. Each school/department will design their own intervention program, although some elements may be similar between schools/departments. Interventions can be classified into one or more of the following three categories depending on the area that they target: - Better Information: Without accurate information about the broader application of economics (e.g., beyond finance and consulting), women are more likely to major in less rigorous fields, often within the social sciences or humanities, that seem to provide more application to the theory behind economics. - Mentoring and Role Models: Women are more sensitive to their grades in introductory courses when choosing their major than are men. The creation of networks among students within the department and showing support for their decision to major in the field has been effective in recruiting underrepresented minorities. - Content and Presentation Style: On average, female undergraduates are less confident about their quantitative skills than are men even if they are equally able and prepared. Their lack of confidence may diminish their belief that economics fits their personal strengths and abilities. Actual interventions can include, but are not limited to: - inviting to lecture alumni/guest speakers who work in diverse fields other than finance and consulting; - increasing the number of female TAs/graduate students/older undergraduate mentors; - helping students find summer jobs that value economics, are dynamic, and include human contact; - Having informal lunches with professors and TAs; - supporting independent/group projects in various sub-fields such as health, poverty, crime, inequality, sports, and others; - making sections more conductive to learning for students with different skill levels, styles of learning, and interests, and many more. The study will provide grant money ($12,500 total) and guidance to schools/departments to implement various intervention programs aimed at recruiting more undergraduate women into the economics major. Each school/department will design their own intervention program, although some elements may be similar between schools/departments. Interventions can be classified into one or more of the following three categories depending on the area that they target: - Better Information: Without accurate information about the broader application of economics (e.g., beyond finance and consulting), women are more likely to major in less rigorous fields, often within the social sciences or humanities, that seem to provide more application to the theory behind economics. - Mentoring and Role Models: Women are more sensitive to their grades in introductory courses when choosing their major than are men. The creation of networks among students within the department and showing support for their decision to major in the field has been effective in recruiting underrepresented minorities. - Content and Presentation Style: On average, female undergraduates are less confident about their quantitative skills than are men even if they are equally able and prepared. Their lack of confidence may diminish their belief that economics fits their personal strengths and abilities. These three areas were identified based on discussion with a board of experts, consisting of economics educators and experts in economics pedagogy, at the November 2014 Planning Group Meeting, as well as focus groups conducted with students at some of the treatment institutions. Actual interventions can include, but are not limited to: - inviting alumni/guest speakers who work in diverse fields other than finance and consulting for a lecture series or a panel discussion about the application of economics in their work; - increasing the number of female TAs/graduate students/older undergraduate mentors; - helping students find summer jobs that value economics, are dynamic, and include human contact; - having informal lunches with professors and TAs; - supporting independent/group projects in various sub-fields such as health, poverty, crime, inequality, sports, and others, or supplementing introductory and intermediate theory economics courses with modules in these sub-fields; - making sections more conductive to learning for students with different skill levels, styles of learning, and interests, and many more.
Primary Outcomes (End Points) The key outcome variable is the undergraduate students’ major at the time of graduation. The study will also look at: - the number of students by gender with a minor or secondary in economics, - student enrollment by gender in principles economics course(s), - student enrollment by gender in intermediate theory economics course(s), - potentially, student enrollment by gender in upper level courses, even among students who do not ultimately major in economics. The key outcome variable is the number of students graduating with a major in economics, by gender. If such data is available, the study will account for the number of economics majors who transferred to the institution after their sophomore year: these students would have taken their introductory and intermediate econ courses at a separate institution, and departmental interventions are less likely to have a full effect on their choice of major. The study will also collect the following information from the schools. - the number of students graduating with a minor in economics, by gender; - the number of students enrolled in the principles of economics sequence, by gender by class year; - the number of students enrolled in the intermediate theory sequence, by gender by class year.
Planned Number of Observations At least 55 schools/Economics departments. Economics departments at least 55 schools (universities and liberal arts colleges in the United States).
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms 20 treatment schools and at least 35 control schools (out of the schools that expressed an interest in the Challenge). Other schools can be added into the control group by using publicly available IPEDS data on majors. 20 treatment schools and at least 35 control schools (selected out of the schools that expressed an interest in the Challenge). Other schools can be added into the control group by using publicly available IPEDS data on majors, provided they passed the initial selection criteria for graduating a sufficient number of economics majors every year.
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