Year: 2017
Type: dissertation
Study design: Clinical Trial
Abstract: Studies find that class attendance improves learning in universities, yet many students skip classes. Randomized field experiments show that mandatory attendance policies reduce absenteeism, but have little or no effect on learning. These findings indicate that even if we can force students to attend class, they may still not pay attention. In contrast, once students sit in the classroom and they actively participate in class questions/discussions, their learning can be improved. However, we still have very little understanding on who benefits the most from the active participation in class. Chapter 1 summarizes studies investigating student effort and learning in college classroom settings. Chapter 2 seeks to answer the question whether instructors can help students improve by frequently counting class participation for grades. If yes, who benefits the most? Moreover, will the students who would benefit from frequent marking choose it when they are given the choice, and can universities impose frequent marking on a large scale without significant increases in costs? An eight-month field experiment shows that (1) imposing frequent marking of class participation improves the performance of low-ability and low self-control students the most; (2) when students were given the choice, the ones who would benefit the most were no more likely to choose the frequent marking scheme than others, indicating they may be unaware of their problems or did not want to overcome them. Alongside the benefits, the costs of imposing frequent marking can be minimized by using classroom technologies. Chapter 3 investigates (1) whether providing grade incentives for class participation would help students, especially low-motivation students, to show up and actively participate in class questions, and (2) whether participating in the incentivized class improves exam grades more than participating in an un-incentivized class. An eight-month field experiment found that: on average, the randomly assigned grade incentive increased class-participation rates and class-participation grades. The effect on the class-participation rate was heterogeneous, the effect being larger for students with lower prior achievement. This study also found that the exam-score effect of participating in an incentivized lecture relative to an un-incentivized lecture was smaller for students with higher prior achievement.
Source: TSpace (University of Toronto)
Author: Lei Tang
Language: English
Subfield: Education
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
SDG: Quality education
Open Access status: green
Funder: University of Toronto
OpenAlex ID: W2623882235