Foreign GTAs Can Be Effective Teachers of Economics

Abstract

The authors assess the impact of foreign graduate teaching associates (GTAs) on undergraduate economics instruction where the standard language for the majority of students is English. They find little evidence that foreign GTAs adversely affect grades in economics principles courses or students' choices of additional economics courses. In some cases, the impact of a foreign GTA is significantly positive. The authors consider a range of definitions of foreign, including nationality, language, and political background, and find the nonnegative foreign GTA effect to be robust. Their findings suggest that when foreign GTAs are properly screened and trained in spoken English and in teaching skills, they are at least as effective in providing economic education as GTAs from the United States.

Key Words:

• economic education
• foreign GTAs
• GTA (graduate teaching associates)
• spoken English
• teaching skills JEL codes: A22
• A23

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Belton Fleisher

Belton Fleisher (e-mail: [email protected]) and Masanori Hashimoto are professors of economics, and Bruce A. Weinberg is an associate professor of economics; all are at Ohio State University. Able research assistance was provided by Lianfa Li and Teresa Schoellner. The authors are grateful to Susan Sarwark of the English as a Second Language Program and Bob Van Dyne and Linda Katunich of the University Registrar's Office at Ohio State University for providing them with some of the data. The authors benefited from comments made by David Colander, Stephen Cosslett, Guillaume Frechette, W. Lee Hansen, Rick Percy, Craig Swan, participants at the Ohio State University Economics Luncheon Colloquia, participants at the Midwest Economic Association 2001 Meeting, Peter Kennedy, and two anonymous referees.