Robert L. Moore

The Effect of the Financial Aid Package on the Choice of a Selective College

Abstract This paper examines the effects of financial aid on the decision to attend a selective liberal arts college using data obtained from applicants accepted to Occidental College in 1989. Patterned after a similar empirical investigation by Ehrenberg and Sherman for accepted freshmen at Cornell in 1981, logit probabilities of enrollment equations are estimated based on (1) observable characteristics of the individual students, (2) the net costs of attending Occidental and the various alternative colleges under consideration (including the financial aid packages offered) and (3) other characteristics of these alternative colleges. The results, like Ehrenberg and Shermans, indicate that relative tuition and scholarships affect the probability of enrollment for financial aid applicants, but that loans and work study assistance have no statistically significant effect. Non-financial aid applicants — a group not investigated by Ehrenberg and Sherman — are much less sensitive to relative cost considerations.

Exploring the Gender Gap on the GRE Subject Test in Economics

The 50-point “gender gap” in the Graduate Record Exam scores in economics is explored. Little support is found for explanations based on the notion that men are simply better than women in quantitative areas.

Teaching Introductory Economics With a Collaborative Learning Lab Component

The collaborative learning lab is where students, usually working in groups of three or four, take a series of short, written quizzes (called unit tests) that cor respond to each of six units in the course . 2 When the class has completed the material in a particular unit, students are urged to attempt one of these unit tests, which are taken outside of class at pre-ar ranged times. A unit test usually con sists of about three or four questions or problems and takes appr oximately 20‐30 minutes to complete (samples are included in Appendix A). When a group of students goes to the CLL for a unit test, a specially trained CLL student tutor/mentor hands them one of several similar tests. After each student has had time to think about the questions and their ans wers, the students discuss their answers as a group. Then the group returns to the CLL student tutor. The tutor has a deck of cards, and for each question on the unit test, the tutor deals each student a car d, and the student with the highest card must orall y explain the group’s ans wers to that particular question. This random element was developed by Bartlett (1995b) to o vercome the free-rider problem in g roup work. 3 During the discussion, the student tutor may ask the r eporting student to clarify certain points or extend the ans wers. This random procedure is repeated for each question on the unit test. If the students in the g roup answer all the questions correctly, the tutor records a pass for that unit for each member of the group. If the students miss any portion of the unit test, an incomplete is recorded for each student in the group. There is no fail g rade on a CLL test. The tutor tries to explain the difficulty that the g roup was experiencing and encourages the group to take another similar test on that same unit either immediately or a t another time after more studying . The group can keep taking different variations

Regional Workshops to Improve the Teaching Skills of Economics Faculty

The Regional Workshop Program in Active Learning for College and University Teachers of Economics is the most recent version of a long line of support for college and university economics faculty. The founding program was the Teacher Training Program (TTP) initially funded by the Sloan Foundation (1973-1978), with continued support by the Lilly Endowment (1979-1983). Workshops were held at various major universities for faculty and graduate students, and resulted in the Resource Manual for Teacher Training Programs in Economics (Phillip Saunders et al., 1978). During 19921994, three-day residential TTP workshops were supported by another Lilly Endowment grant. Starting in 1996, the Calvin K. Kazanjian Economics Foundation supported a series of residential workshops on active-learning teaching methods at the ASSA annual meeting.