Does studying abroad enhance employability?

Over 200,000 European students study abroad under the Erasmus programme. It appears that studying abroad may impart skills which are helpful for professional careers after graduation. Approximately, 54% of European students report that participation in the Erasmus exchange programme helped them to obtain a first job; however, interestingly, those from Central and Eastern European countries report it much more often—in 73% of cases. The aim of this paper is to find out whether studying abroad enhances the employability of higher education graduates in Poland. Using the propensity score matching method and data from a nationwide tracer survey of Polish graduates, we find that Polish students who completed at least one semester of their studies abroad do not benefit in terms of a higher employment rate after graduation.     

The Lasting Effects of an Introductory Economics Course: An Exploratory Study

The author advocates the application of experiential learning in economics courses at the tertiary level. The author evaluates a range of learning methods, both passive and active, in a student survey that provides data on under-graduate attitudes to various class activities. The results indicate a clear student preference for learning activities in economics that can be described as experiential. Analysis of reported student preferences also detects differences according to gender and day or evening class attendance.     

Think Globally,Teach Locally: Experiencing the Foreign Aid Debate Through Service Learning

Abstract

Novel curricular strategies are required if institutions want all students to actively experience the benefits of global knowledge and civic engagement, as financial and practical commitments frequently make study abroad inaccessible to many students. In this paper, we outline an innovative service-learning course, where local action coupled with an international target, offered a parallel and novel learning strategy that capitalized on the strengths of experiential education, while providing a practical and more inclusive student engagement opportunity available to a larger subset of students. We also describe our teaching strategy, which emphasizes the social context of the classroom: discovery, self-exploration, and shared learning. Together, service learning and a critical pedagogy can better help students relate to the otherwise abstract processes of foreign aid. In 2013 and 2014, approximately 30 undergraduate students participated in a student-led outreach project soliciting bicycle donations to support human development efforts in Uganda and Ghana. In addition to making reasonable progress toward learning outcomes during the two-year pilot, we found that the everyday challenges our students encountered in their service-learning project were microcosms for some of the large-scale, global challenges that foreign aid delivery faces.     

Does reducing student support affect scholastic performance? Evidence from a Dutch reform

This paper investigates the impact of student support on performance and time allocation of students in Dutch higher education. In 1996 the maximum duration of grants was reduced by 1 year, and thereby limited to the nominal duration of the study program. This reform could have had substantial financial consequences for students. We evaluate the effects of the reform using a difference-in-differences approach. Our main findings are that after the reform, students early in their study (i) switched less to other programs, (ii) obtained higher grades, while (iii) they did not spend more time studying or working. In addition, for students not older than 20 years when they started their study we find larger effects on all performance variables (switching, percentage of completed courses, graduation in the first year and grade point averages). These findings are consistent with recent evidence on heterogeneous treatment effects for higher ability students.     

Does data matter? Statewide longitudinal data systems and student performance in the U.S.

Although many industries have benefited from advances in data-driven technology, education is making small steps in capitalizing on the huge potential of data systems. Since 2005, the U.S. Federal Government has been making large grants to help states build statewide longitudinal data systems (SLDS) with the goal of improving programme and teacher evaluation and engage in data-driven decision-making. We analyse whether the introduction of SLDSs improved student performance, measured using test scores for math and reading tests for 4th and 8th graders, as well as high school graduation rates. We find no effects of SLDSs on student performance up to 10 years from implementation. However, we find suggestive evidence that these systems may have long-run effects, emphasizing the long-run nature of educational data collection and policy analysis.     

SCHOOL CHOICE AND STUDENT SORTING: EVIDENCE FROM ADACHI WARD IN JAPAN*

We examine whether the school choice programme of public junior high schools in Adachi ward has caused student sorting and has thus increased the differences in scores between the schools. We find that students are sorted in the sense that the students living in the school attendance areas where there is a higher proportion of high‐status occupations are more likely to select private schools even after the introduction of the school choice programme, or they select public schools with higher scores. Adachi's average scores relative to the Tokyo average have improved, while the between school differences in scores have not expanded.     

Skills associated with employment positions in SMEs and favourable attitudes toward self-employment: Longitudinal evidence from students who participated in the shell technology enterprise programme

Successive British governments have encouraged young people to accumulate skills and attributes that would enable them to obtain jobs in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) as well as develop careers in enterprise. This article evaluates the contribution of the 1994 Shell Technology Enterprise Programme (STEP) that subsidised the placement of students in SMEs. In 1997, responses were gathered from STEP students as well as a control group of non-STEP students. The human capital profiles of students reporting full-time employment positions in smaller private firms as well as those reporting a favourable attitude towards self-employment or business ownership were ascertained. Participation in the programme was not found to be significantly associated with the selected outcomes. Skills and attributes honed by the programme were, however, significantly associated with the selected outcomes. Policy-makers need to appreciate that the skills and attributes reported by students associated with the propensity to obtain employment positions in smaller private firms are not the same as those associated with the propensity to report a favourable attitude towards self-employment or business ownership.     

Class length and student performance: An extended study

Many accounting educators believe that the student learning of accounting is better facilitated over a longer period of time, rather than a shorter period of time. This study examined the results of student performance in two introductory accounting courses, comparing student performance results of four-week summer classes with the results of traditional 16-week courses. In this research, the same professor taught the spring and summer ACC 201 courses, and two other professors taught both the spring and summer ACC 211 courses. Also held constant were the lecture material, course assignment, and test content. The results of the study indicate that in general, students taking introductory accounting over four weeks fare about as well as students who take introductory accounting over a traditional 16-week period. These results have potential importance beyond accounting education and provide support to universities offering more block courses to better serve individual student needs.     

高校思想政治理论课教学中两种视角的转换

思想政治理论教学的最终目的,不是传授一套抽象的理论化知识体系,而是提高学生的政治素养和道德行为能力。当前,在高校思想政治理论教学中,由于偏重于宏观视角下的理论教育和知识学习,缺乏微观视角下的个体认知和情感培养,结果容易导致学生政治理论知识学习与提高实际政治素养和道德行为能力的脱节。这就有必要在思想政治理论课教学中辩证运用宏观视角和微观视角,在帮助学生获得抽象政治理论知识的同时,也促进其个体情感的丰富和道德敏感性的增强,最终有助于提高学生在社会实践中的政治素养和道德行为能力。     

The value of health interventions: evaluating asthma case management using matching

Despite large public investments in asthma interventions, there are few rigorous assessments of these programmes and little understanding of what comprises an effective intervention. There is a lack of appropriate data, little technical support is provided, and the programs themselves have little incentive to conduct these analyses. In this study, we apply optimal full matching using propensity scores to estimate the impact of an asthma intervention programme across a range of health outcomes. Our participation model is derived using the Deletion, Substitution and Addition (DSA) algorithm, a method used in epidemiology for model selection. We find that the asthma programme in question has no significant effect on participants that distinguishes them from matched nonparticipants, but it is not clear whether this is due to the effectiveness of the programme, heterogeneity of effects or barriers outside the programme's control. Our findings do show how current programmes could be modified to increase their effectiveness and better inform future research.     

Factors influencing producers' perceptions about the importance of government support programmes in agriculture: application of a semi-parametric ordered response model

This article examines factors affecting producers’ perceptions towards the relative importance of government support programmes in agriculture. Specific attention is placed on determining the effect of crop insurance usage on farmers’ views about the importance of government programme payments. Results from a semi-parametric ordered response model shows that producers who use yield- or revenue-based crop insurance products also tend to view government programmes with higher importance, suggesting that crop insurance and direct government support programmes tend to be complements rather than substitutes.     

Classroom experiments: Teaching specific topics or promoting the economic way of thinking?

The authors' data contain inter- and intra-class variations in experiments to which students in a principles of microeconomics course were exposed. These variations allowed the estimation of the effect on student achievement from the experimental treatment generally, as well as effects associated with participation in specific experiments. The authors find that students exposed to the experimental treatment enjoyed significantly higher positive learning gains than those in the no-experiment control group. The productivity experiment was associated with significantly more positive learning, the minimum wage experiment with less negative learning, and the externality experiment with less positive learning. The authors further find that some experiments affect student learning on the demonstrated topics, while others affect student learning on unrelated topics.     

Student employment and academic performance: an empirical exploration of the primary orientation theory

This study empirically assesses the thesis that student employment only hurts academic performance for students with a primary orientation towards work (versus school). To this end, we analyse unique data on tertiary education students’ intensity of and motivation for student employment by means of a state-of-the art moderation model. We find, indeed, only a negative association between hours of student work and the percentage of courses passed for work-oriented students. This finding may explain the contradictory results in the literature neglecting this factor.     

New insights into an old problem – enhancing student learning outcomes in an introductory statistics course

Many students enrolled in first year introductory statistics courses believe learning statistics is a waste of time and fear they will fail. In this study, we explored the impacts on learning outcomes for students in an introductory statistics course by allowing students to arbitrarily choose their own sequence of learning from three key learning activities, namely tutorials, Peer-Assisted Study Sessions and Computer-Managed Learning quizzes. Unlike the old regime where the learning activities followed a strict, rigid sequence, a new regime allowed students to freely choose when, where and how they engaged with the course learning activities. This allowed increased opportunities for students to receive relevant and timely feedback. Using a total of 1187 students enrolled in semester 2 of 2011, 2012 and 2013, data were collected on students’ scores from 7 assessment tasks. Our experimental design ensured as many course features as possible remained constant between the control cohorts (of 2011 and 2012) and the experimental cohort (2013), thereby avoiding potential sample selection problems. The findings showed student learning outcomes in the new regime improved significantly. Interestingly, the effects were found to be greatest in the lower percentile of the score distribution.     

Modeling farmer participation in agri-environmental nitrate pollution reducing schemes

Why do farmers choose to participate in agri-environmental programmes and how do they choose the amount of land they allocate to such programmes? This paper examines the determinant factors influencing farmers' adoption of the EU-financed agri-environmental Nitrate Reduction Programme (NRP) in Greece and the extent of the programme's adoption, in terms of land allocation. The decision to adopt the NRP is modeled as a two-step procedure. First, farmers decide whether to participate in the agri-environmental programme and second, the extent of participation is determined. We employ Heckman's self-selection bias correction model to derive unbiased estimates. Based on farm level data, we develop the profile of farmers who choose to adopt the agri-environmental programme and the characteristics of their farms. The results of the analysis provide valuable policy insights decomposed into the main factors determining first, the adoption of the agri-environmental programme and second, the extent of adoption. By decomposing the determining factors, policy makers can employ this information to design effective agri-environmental programmes, desirable to farmers and more targeted towards specific environmental and agricultural development goals.     

The Committee on Economic Education: Its Effect on the Introductory Course and Women in Economics

The percentage of women economics majors has stagnated for decades. This is creating a bottleneck in the pipeline of female economists. The Committee on Economic Education (CEE) of the American Economic Association (AEA) is charged with fostering economic understanding and effective teaching. An examination of its structure, membership and activities over the past 35 years, however, suggests that it has narrowed the scope of economic ideas presented in introductory economics and has not convinced instructors of the benefits of a more active learning environment. The task of engaging students in the search for greater knowledge has largely been left to heterodox “visionaries,” members of the profession who have tried to find ways to make economics courses more interesting and inviting to all students, and especially to under-represented groups. We conclude that the CEE’s membership and structure contribute to the small percentage of the increasingly female undergraduate population who major in economics.     

Measuring heterogeneity,survey engagement and response quality in preferences for organic products in Nigeria

The identification of the market potentials of organic products is important in the drive towards a sustainable agricultural development in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). However, available evidence shows that valuing attributes of credence goods (such as organic products) while using stated preference methods faces additional obstacles compared to other normal goods. In this study, we examine consumers’ preferences and willingness-to-pay (WTP) for health and environmental attributes of organic products in Nigeria. We employ an approach that allows us to adequately capture the value of organic products by linking part of the heterogeneity across respondents to differences in scale, while making use of indicators of survey engagement, without risks of endogeneity bias and measurement error that arise from the deterministic methods. The empirical results show that market for organic products exists in Nigeria, with reduction in pesticide residues attribute attracting the highest value, followed by the certification programme. Furthermore, we observe that increases in the latent engagement variable lead to a greater probability of agreement with statements relating to survey understanding and realism, and hence more substantive output.     

创业失败态度、创业失败学习与连续创业

围绕创业失败学习,分析创业失败态度对创业失败学习的影响及创业者的控制点对两者关系的调节作用,并根据经验学习理论,探究创业失败学习对连续创业意向和连续创业绩效的不同影响.对有过创业失败经历的创业者进行问卷调查,基于问卷数据进行实证分析,结果表明:创业者的创业失败态度与创业失败学习有显著的正向关系,创业者的控制点对两者关系的调节作用不显著;创业失败学习对连续创业意向的影响不显著,但能够显著提高连续创业绩效.研究结论丰富了对创业失败学习的前因和结果变量的研究,有助于加深对创业失败学习价值的认识.     

Political favoritism by powerful politicians: Evidence from chief ministers in India

We study whether in single-member-district legislative systems, powerful politicians engage in political favoritism towards their constituents. The focus is on the chief ministers of Indian state governments. Using night light intensity as a measure of economic activity, we find that a constituency represented by a sitting chief minister exhibits about 13 percentage increase in luminosity relative to all other constituencies. The effect comes predominantly from the cases where the chief minister's constituency lies outside their birth region. Neighboring constituencies, particularly those with strategic political value, also benefit from this windfall, suggesting the mechanism at play is likely to be political expediency rather than in-group favoritism.     

A Reappraisal of the Virtues of Private Sector Employment Programmes*

This paper evaluates the employment effects of active labour market programmes for Danish welfare benefit recipients, focusing on private sector employment (PSE) programmes. Using a latent variable model that allows for heterogeneous treatment effects among observationally identical persons, we estimate commonly defined mean treatment effects and the distribution of treatment effects. We find no significant mean treatment effect of PSE programme participation as compared to participation in other programmes for PSE programme participants. However, we find substantial heterogeneity in the treatment effects, and those most likely to participate in PSE programmes are those who benefit the least from such programmes.