Why Are Women and Minorities Less Likely to Choose Economics and STEM Majors/Fields?
Paper Session
Friday, Jan. 7, 2022 12:15 PM - 2:15 PM (EST)
- Chair: John A. List, University of Chicago
How Adolescent Skills and Preferences Shape Economics Education Choices
Abstract
Why are women and minorities less likely to major in Economics? We study the early determinants of Economics college major choice in two potential pools of talent: A sample drawn from a low-income minority population in the South suburbs of Chicago, and a large representative sample from Sweden. We show that self-selection into the Economics college major is largely driven by more math-intensive course choices in high school and in middle school. Despite no gender differences in math performance in middle school, women and minorities state a stronger subjective dislike for math and are less likely to choose more advanced math courses. This suggests that diverging preferences and choices during middle school make the economics education pipeline leak much earlier than college. Therefore, the middle school years could be a sensitive period for interventions to attract talented women and minorities into math-intensive majors such as Economics.Can (Online) Mentoring Change Perceptions and Interest in Economics?
Abstract
We randomly match middle school students in the Chicago area with volunteer college student mentors/tutors. Mentoring takes place online. As part of the program, mentors shared with students’ information about their college major and what kinds of topics you can study in their field. We collect a range of measures including engagement with the mentoring program, academic performance, preferences and expectations related to education and career, perceptions of what Economists do, and various measures of the student-mentor relationship. We examine the impact of being randomly assigned to a mentor with a particular major. In particular, we focus on the extent to which mentors who are Economics majors change students’ perceptions and foster interest in studying economics. We also shed light on which aspects of the mentor and student-mentor relationship are important for the information delivery to have an impact on the students’ perceptions and aspirations.Do Experiments Teach Basic Economics Lessons Better than Traditional Teaching Techniques?
Abstract
This study examines whether in-class experiments help students learn important Economics lessons better than traditional methods. To address this question, we conduct an experiment in undergraduate Introductory Microeconomics and Macroeconomics classes. In each section of a class, we randomize two lessons out of four potential candidates into treatment or control. Treatment lessons are taught using an in-class experiment that is designed to illustrate the topic. Control lessons are taught using traditional techniques. Our design follows the recommendations of Wozny et al. (2018) by randomizing across lessons within a given course, increasing the power of our statistical tests. For each of these four lessons, the instructors give a multiple choice quiz after they have finished teaching the topic. We also ask several multiple choice questions on the course final exam related to each of these lessons. This allows us to measure both whether the experiments help students learn key lessons better than traditional techniques in both the short term and the long term. The classes in our sample are taught mostly by instructors who are inexperienced in the use of experiments as a teaching tool, so our results should be generalizable to schools that have not commonly used this technique.Discussant(s)
Stephanie Cheng
,
Edgeworth Economics
Mikael Lindahl
,
University of Gothenburg
Yana Gallen
,
University of Chicago
Xiaoyue Shan
,
University of Pennsylvania
JEL Classifications
- A2 - Economic Education and Teaching of Economics
- J1 - Demographic Economics