On October 9, 2018 at 4:15 pm in Pettengill G21, “Grading Practices in Higher Education and Persistence in STEM” was presented by Talia Bar from the Department of Economics, University of Connecticut.

Paper Topic:
> Do grading practices affect students’ persistence in Science Technology Engineering and Math (STEM) fields?

Abstract:  Paper by Talia Bar and Stephen Ross
We examine how grading practices affect students’ persistence in Science Technology Engineering and Math (STEM) fields, using a larger dataset from a mid-sized, northeast public university. We employ a novel, quasi-experimental empirical strategy – students in the fall of their freshmen year are exposed to instructors with varying grading practices in the same course. We find that students are likely to take more courses and graduate with degrees in the same STEM field when their instructor assigns on average higher grades, but no support to the common belief that female students are more discourage by low grades than male students.

Sponsored by The Casey Lecture Fund for Economics