“Undergraduate Economics Majors, Enrollments, and Related Departmental Issues”

“Undergraduate Economics: Majors, Enrollments, Research on Teaching, Related Departmental Policies, ETC.”* February 20, 2004 Mike Watts, Purdue University * First presented at Iowa State University, Department of Economics April 30, 2003 and last at the University of Richmond, February 20, 2004. Among other topics not covered in any detail are classroom assessment methods and specific methods of individual (vs. departmental) teaching innovations/methods. “Undergraduate Economics Majors, Enrollments, and Related Departmental Issues”

Economics Majors and Enrollments • How Many Are There? • What Affects Their Choice of • Majors and Courses?* • Who Are They?* • When Do They Decide to Take • Economics Courses or Major • in Economics? • * Including the Competing/Cooperative Relationship with the Business Major, and the Gender Question.

Economists as Teachers • What Else Do They Do? • What Departmental Incentives • and Constraints Do They Face? • How Are They Trained To Teach? • How Do They Teach? • Who Teaches Differently? • How Is Economics Teaching • Evaluated? • Do They Make a Difference?

DepartmentalPolicies • Course Requirements • How Is Economics Teaching Evaluated? • Attendance Policies • Grading Standards • Class Size • Technology • TA or Faculty Training/Support in Teaching • Dealing with Cheating • Miscellaneous (and mainly anecdotal) • 1. Distributional Requirements • 2. Quantitative and Non-Quantitative • Tracks for Different Types of Majors • 3. Minors • 4. Specializations/Certificates Within the • Major • 5. Senior “Experience” – capstone or • honors course/sequence • 6. Star or Teacher Specialists in • Principles Courses (Bait and • Switch?) and • 7. Differential Teaching Loads

Course, Curriculum, and Textbook Content • Sexy, Fulfilling, or Traditional? • Are Students Customers, • Outputs, or Both? • Departmental, Instructor, • Textbook Author (or Publisher) • Choice?

Economics Majors and Enrollments • How Many Are There? "How Departments Evaluate Teaching,” Becker and Watts, AER, May 1999.

"How Departments Evaluate Teaching Survey," Becker and Watts, AER, May 1999

"How Departments Evaluate Teaching Survey," Becker and Watts, AER, May 1999.

"How Departments Evaluate Teaching Survey," Becker and Watts, AER, May 1999. Undergrad Majors in Department Total Undergraduate Enrollment in department for academic year

"How Departments Evaluate Teaching Survey," Becker and Watts, AER, May 1999. Tenured Faculty in Department Undergrad Majors in Department

"How Departments Evaluate Teaching Survey," Becker and Watts, AER, May 1999. Total Faculty in Department Undergrad Majors in Department

Becker and Watts, "Chalk and Talk..." AER, May 1996.

Becker and Watts, "Chalk and Talk..." AER, May 1996. Econ Majors Total Enrollment on Campus

Becker and Watts, "...Still Chalk and Talk" AER, May 2001.

Becker and Watts, "...Still Chalk and Talk" AER, May 2001. Econ Majors Total Enrollment on Campus

Economics Majors and Enrollments • How Many Are There? Willis and Pieper, “The Economics Major: A Cross-Sectional View,” Journal of Economic Education, Fall 1996 21

Economics Majors and Enrollments • How Many Are There? William Becker, Undergraduate Choice: Sexy or Non-Sexy, Southern Economic Journal, Summer 2003 22

Economics Majors and Enrollments • How Many Are There? “The … loss of economic[s] majors in the early 1990s is primarily attributed to a 24 percent decline at public universities, but there is now a continuing increase in the total number of undergraduate degrees awarded in economics from a low in 1995-96.” John Siegfried, “Trends in Undergraduate Economics Degrees, 1991 to 2001,”Journal of Economic Education Summer 2002 23

Economics Majors and Enrollments • How Many Are There? “Although shocks to the number of economics bachelor’s degrees have persistent effects, the series eventually reverts to a stationary mean, which has been about 2.2 percent of the bachelor’s degrees in the United States from 1948 to 1993.” Margo and Siegfried, “Long Run Trends in Economics Bachelor’s Degrees,” Journal of Economic Education Fall 1996 24

Economics Majors and Enrollments • How Many Are There? • What Affects Their Choice • of Majors and Courses Falling numbers of economics majors in the early 1990s reflected “the coincidental decline in the demand for business majors and the falling rate of return to majoring in economics,” which reflected “slowdown in employment in the financial service industries” (finance, insurance, and real estate) after 1988; increased competition from business, business economics, and public policy programs; rising enrollments in other social studies majors (especially criminology, anthropology, and international relations), slowed or falling enrollments in business and law schools, and a weak market for professional degrees. Willis and Pieper, “The Economics Major: A Cross-Sectional View,” Journal of Economic Education Fall 1996 25

Economics Majors and Enrollments • How Many Are There? “North American university departments of agricultural economics were surveyed [in 1997] regarding enrollment, curricula, budget and related issues. Average undergraduate enrollments declined over the last eleven years, reversing the upward trend of the previous decade. Graduate enrollments have remained remarkably stable over the past two decades. In response to declining enrollments and budgets, many departments have changed their name and/or curriculum to attract domestic students who are not interested in production agriculture. Colleges of agriculture have, on average, increased their total enrollments by diversifying their programs. This reverses a trend of declining enrollment that had existed for nearly two decades.” Steven Blank, “A Decade of Decline and Evolution in Agricultural Economics Enrollments and Program, 1985-96,” Review of Agricultural Economics Spring-Summer 1998 26

Economics Majors and Enrollments • What Affects Their Choice of Majors • and Courses? Willis and Pieper, “The Economics Major: A Cross-Sectional View,” Journal of Economic Education Fall 1996 27

Economics Majors and Enrollments • What Affects Their Choice of Majors • and Courses? “Schools that offer an economics minor or incorporate more economics electives in their economics programs appear to have been at less risk than those that do not. Economics departments that did not face competition from a business program at the same institution also may have been at more risk than those that had to compete with a business program… It appears that the economics programs at these schools are business/management substitutes, and therefore they are more likely to have experienced a decline in economics majors during the declining interest in business education.” Brasfield, Harrison, McCoy, and Milkman, “Why Have Some Schools Not Experienced a Decrease in the Percentages of Students Majoring in Economics?” Journal of Economic Education Fall 1996 Also support for interest in minors in Gelles and Johnson, “An Overlooked Opportunity: Instituting a Formal Economics Minor,” Journal of Economic Education Summer 1994

Economics Majors and Enrollments • What Affects Their Choice • of Majors and Courses? In 1979 the UNC Business School announced the first round of higher admission standards [via overall GPA and grades in core courses], leading to an increase in economics majors – the most popular major choice of those who did not meet the higher requirements. Salemi and Eubanks, “Accounting for the Rise and Fall in the Number of Economics Majors with the Discouraged-Business Major Hypothesis,” Journal of Economic Education Fall 1996

Economics Majors and Enrollments • What Affects Their Choice • of Majors and Courses? Stat 23 is a course on probability and statistics for business students, not required by any other UNC degree program. Salemi and Eubanks, “Accounting for the Rise and Fall in the Number of Economics Majors with the Discouraged-Business Major Hypothesis,” Journal of Economic Education Fall 1996

Economics Majors and Enrollments • What Affects Their Choice of Majors and Courses? Key differences between DBM and OEM suggest differences in why they majored in economics, and what they planned to do with the degree. Salemi and Eubanks, “Accounting for the Rise and Fall in the Number of Economics Majors with the Discouraged-Business Major Hypothesis,” Journal of Economic Education Fall 1996

Economics Majors and Enrollments • What Affects Their Choice of Majors and Courses?* • Who Are They?* • When Do They Decide to Take Economics Courses or Major in Economics? Economists as Teachers • Do They Make a Difference? Departmental Policies • Class Size • Grading Standards At Florida State University, “(m)athematical aptitude and major choices made prior to taking a principles courses are important determinants of whether students complete the two-semester principles sequence and take additional economics courses. Small classes with TAs are associated with an increased probability that a student will complete principles, take upper-division economics, and major in economics. Lenient grading policies increase the likelihood a student will take upper-division economics courses but do not affect the probability of majoring in economics. Measured quality of instructors has no impact on curriculum choices. Women are less likely than men to complete principles or take additional economics courses. The authors found no evidence that gender differences can be ameliorated by employing female instructors in principles classes.” Fournier and Sass, “Take My Course, Please: The Effects of the Principles Experience on Student Curriculum Choice,” Journal of Economic Education Fall 2000

Economics Majors and Enrollments • What Affects Their Choice • of Majors and Courses? • Who Are They? “Approximately 120 majors are categorized by the LSAT Council. Among the 14 majors that had more than 2,000 students taking the exam, economics students received the highest average scores in [1991-92 and 1994-95]. Among the 29 majors that had more than 400 students taking the exam, economics students received the third highest average score [behind only physics/math and philosophy/religion majors]. Michael Nieswiadomy, “LSAT Scores of Economics Majors,” Journal of Economic Education Fall 1998

Economics Majors and Enrollments • What Affects Their Choice of Majors • and Courses? • Who Are They? In the mid-1970s, 25 percent of undergraduate degrees in economics were awarded to women. This surged to 35 percent in the mid-1980s, but fell to under 30 percent in the early 1990s. John Siegfried, “Trends in Undergraduate Economic Degrees: A 1993-94 Update,” Journal of Economic Education Summer 1995.

Economics Majors and Enrollments • What Affects Their Choice of Majors and • Courses? • Who Are They? “Using micro-data from student records, transcript records, and faculty records, …the proportion of classes taken with a faculty member ‘like-you’ positively affects the probability that you will choose that particular major, thus supporting the idea that faculty members can exert a role- model effect on undergraduate choice of major.” Rask and Bailey, “Are Faculty Role Models? Evidence From Major Choice in an Undergraduate Institution,” Journal of Economic Education Spring 2002

Economics Majors and Enrollments • What Affects Their Choice of Majors and Courses ? • Who Are They? There are several hypotheses offered to explain the under-representation of women among undergraduate economics majors, including: 1) women may be inherently less interested in economics than men, 2) women may be less willing or able to acquire math skills necessary in the coursework, 3) women are deterred by the lack of female role models, and 4) women are discouraged by an unappealing classroom environment. Using survey and registrar data from Harvard University, it was found that women began the introductory course in economics with a weaker math background, but that did not appear to explain much of the gender difference in choosing to major in economics. Neither did class environment or the presence or absence of role models. But women did relatively worse in the economics class than in other courses, and controlling for that difference significantly reduces the gender gap in choice of major, leaving “an economically large, but statistically insignificant, difference…. The remaining gender gap may be due to differing tastes or information about the nature of economics. …(W)omen who were considering majoring in economics when they began the introductory course were about as likely to choose economics as were men. Dynan and Rouse, The Underrepresentation of Women in Economics: A Study of Undergraduate Economics Students,Journal of Economic Education Fall 1997

Economics Majors and Enrollments • What Affects Their Choice of Majors and Courses? • Who are They? Instructors Gender, Student Interest in Subject and Career Plans, Course and Grading Rigor Conjoint analysis is used to study college student’ choices of elective courses, given six course or instructor attributes. Results suggest that choices are largely a function of the perceived interest in course topic, the applicability of course material to future career opportunities, and the time of day the course is offered. A relative preference for low levels of course and instructor rigor may suggest that students also place a high premium on expected grade. Instructor gender does not appear to affect registration choices in later courses for most students…. K. McGoldrick & W. Schumann, Education Economics, 2002 (10, 2), pp. 241-260.

Economics Majors and Enrollments • What Affects Their Choice of Majors • and Courses? • Who Are They? There are persistent gender differences in the economics major. After controlling for relative economics grades and cumulative economics credit hours, “the hazard profiles of female economics majors are indistinguishable from the hazard profiles of their male counterparts.” John Chizmar, “A Discrete-Time Hazard Analysis of the Role of Gender in Persistence in the Economics Major” Journal of Economic Education Spring 2000

Economics Majors and Enrollments • What Affects Their Choice of Majors • and Courses? • Who Are They? In a large, multi-school sample, students with a predisposition to major in economics, who found economics relevant, believed they understand economics as well as their classmates, and who expected higher grades in economics relative to their other classes were more likely to take courses beyond principles and major in economics. “(W)omen and men pursue further study in economics at different rates because of different interests and career aspirations and because women perform less well in economics relative to other courses than do men.” “Teaching techniques associated with students who were more likely to give their economics abilities higher relative ratings included group problem solving when the class had more female students, grading on a curve, and discussion of topics traditionally considered to be of interest to women by female instructors.” Jensen and Owen, “Pedagogy, Gender, and Interest in Economics,” Journal of Economic Education Fall 2001

Economists as Teachers • How Do They Teach? Devoting a smaller portion of class time to lecture and a larger portion to discussion, including group problem solving, is found to be effective for all types of students, but magnitudes vary for different groups. Assessment methods (exams vs. participation points) may also be important. Good students seem better able to learn from lecture, than others, but are especially encouraged by greater use of non-lecture methods. E.J. Jensen and A.L. Owen, “Appealing to Good Students in Introductory Economics,” Journal of Economic Education, Fall 2003 (34,4) pp. 299-325.

Developmental Policies • Course Requirement Student scores on math portion of ACT, a course in calculus, whether the student was required to take remedial math, and score on a test of very basic math concepts are significant in explaining performance in an intro micro course. C.L. Ballard and M.F. Johnson, “Basic Math Skills and Performance in an Introductory Economics Course,” Journal of Economic Education, Winter 2004 (35,1), forthcoming.

Economics Majors and Enrollments • What Affects Their Choice of Majors • and Courses? • Who Are They? “Female students fare worse in economics than do male students controlling for measured ability and background. Moreover, fewer females continue in economics than do males, even conditioning on first year performance. We find no indication that the gender of instructor made any difference to the probability of continuation (persistence) in economics.” Robb and Robb, “Gender and the Study of Economics: The Role of Gender of the Instructor,” Journal of Economic Education Winter 1999

Economics Majors and Enrollments • What Affects Their Choice of Majors • and Courses? • Who Are They? Using data collected at Indiana University from the fall of 1984 to the spring of 1990 for associate instructors teaching introductory microeconomics and macroeconomics courses, and the TUCE III data set. Results do not support a positive gender-match role model effect concerning student learning and instructor ratings. This effect appeared only in some years for the IU micro data set but not at all in the IU macro data or either the micro or macro TUCE III data sets. Saunders and Saunders, “The Influence of Instructor Gender on Learning and Instructor Ratings,” Atlantic Economic Journal December 1999

Economics Majors and Enrollments • What Affects Their Choice of Majors • and Courses? • Who Are They? Cross-section data on secondary level student choices provide evidence on factors influencing the decision to study economics. Such evidence makes a key contribution to the broader debates on why student numbers have been falling in economics and why women are reluctant economists. Greater mathematical aptitude and prior knowledge of the subject influence the decision to study economics, and a significant effect is attributable to relative underachievement in economics. There are also significant peer group and teacher effects. Female students are more likely to study economics when there is a critical mass of women studying the subject. There is a positive role model effect of female teachers – although this does not carry over to the decision to continue with economics at the university. Ashworth and Evans, “Modeling Student Subject Choice at Secondary and Tertiary Level: A Cross-Section Study,” Journal of Economic Education Fall 2001

Economics Majors and Enrollments • What Affects Their Choice of Majors and • Courses? • Who Are They? Using data from the National Educational Longitudinal Study of 1988 (NELS), the authors find that the match between teachers' race, gender, and ethnicity and those of their students had little association with how much the students learned, but in several instances it seems to have been a significant determinant of teachers' subjective evaluations of their students. For example, test scores of white female students in mathematics and science did not increase more rapidly when the teacher was a white woman than when the teacher was a white man, but white female teachers evaluated their white female students more highly than did white male teachers. Ehrenberg, Goldhaber, and Brewer, “Do Teachers' Race, Gender, and Ethnicity Matter? Evidence from the National Educational Longitudinal Study of 1988,” Industrial and Labor Relations Review April 1995

Economics Majors and Enrollments • What Affects Their Choice of Majors • and Courses? • Who Are They? “(E)xpected earnings …[are] essential in the choice of a major. There are, however, significant differences in the impact of expected earnings by gender and race.” Calculating expected earnings requires information on a students’ perceived probability of success (estimated here using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth), the predicted earnings of gradates in all majors, and expected earnings if the student fails to complete a college program. Montmarquette, Cannings, and Mahseredjian, “How Do Young People Choose College Majors?” Economics of Education Review December 2002

Economics Majors and Enrollments • What Affects Their Choice of Majors • and Courses? • Who Are They? Using data on ratings of instructors of introductory economics classes from a sample of students at 53 different colleges and universities in the United States, and controlling for other characteristics of the instructor and students, no difference in the ratings of male and female instructors of introductory macroeconomics was found. However, on all instructor dimensions, women receive higher ratings than men in introductory microeconomics. Women students have more difficulty with, and less interest in economics than men. Anderson and Siegfried, “Gender Differences in Rating the Teaching of Economics,” Eastern Economic Journal Summer 1997

Economics Majors and Enrollments • What Affects Their Choice of Majors and • Courses? • Who Are They? “(T)here appear to be no gender differences in student performance on tests of understanding intermediate microeconomic and macroeconomic theory. Further, there is little evidence of significant influence being exerted by instructor gender on such student understanding. Nor did we find much support for the view that there is significant student-instructor gender interactions as concerns student understanding of economics at the intermediate theory level.” Waldauer, Duggal, and Williams, “Gender Differences in Economic Knowledge: A Further Extension of the Analysis,” Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance Winter 1992

“Undergraduate Economics Majors, Enrollments, and Related Departmental Issues”