How do Transfer Students Perform in Economics? Evidence from Intermediate Macroeconomics

Abstract

For students taking intermediate-level economics, does it matter where they studied principles of economics? Does transferring college credit influence subsequent academic performance in economics? With a sample covering 1999–2008, the authors analyze in this article a group of nearly 1,000 students taking intermediate macroeconomics at a prominent state university. Despite seemingly impressive-looking grades from the principles of macroeconomics course, community college transfer students significantly underperformed their peers in the intermediate macroeconomics course, unlike transfer students from four-year institutions. Moreover, students who transferred other course work from community college (that is, other than the principles course) were relatively less likely to succeed in intermediate macroeconomics.

Keywords:

• course selection and sequencing
• transfer student performance
• undergraduate economics

Keywords:

• JEL codes A20
• A22

Notes

1. For discussion of transfer issues and citations, see Hossler and Hoezee (2004, 2006). On community college enrollment trends, see Jaschik (2009), LeBard (1999), Moltz (2009), and Provasnik and Planty (2008).

2. A similar finding is reported by Arias and Walker (2004), who studied a smaller sample of students from Georgia College & State University.

3. A study of Clemson University students by Dills and Hernández-Julián (2008) examined the impact of transferring an introductory-level course on performance in an intermediate-level course. Their analysis, however, aggregated across disciplines and did not focus specifically on the discipline of

economics.

4. In a study of 2,000 Florida State University students over the 1981–93 period, Laband and Piette (1995) examined whether transferring principles credit affected performance in “upper-level” economics courses (i.e., both intermediate theory courses and advanced-level courses). Thus, their analysis does not distinguish whether transferring principles credit affects performance at the next level of study (i.e., intermediate economic theory).

5. Prerequisites for this course are (1) principles of macroeconomics, (2) principles of microeconomics, (3) introductory statistics, and (4) introductory calculus. The principles courses are not required to be taken in a particular order.

6. It has been suggested that transfer students could be less likely to complete the course and earn a grade, which means any transfer effect might be understated. To address this possibility, we examined the student records to identify every student who withdrew from the course, a total of 80 students. Of the 80 students who dropped, 60 had not transferred credit for principles of macroeconomics. Given that the number of course droppers is only 8 percent of the number of students who completed the course, and that only one-fourth of those course droppers were transfer students, we are confident that our estimates do not substantially underestimate the transfer effect.

7. Specifically, the data begin with the spring semester of the 1998–99 academic year (spring 1999) and continue through the fall semester of the 2008–9 academic year (fall 2008). Prior to spring 1999, the professor used different grading instruments so there would be a break in continuity if the sample began earlier than spring 1999.

8. A student's lowest quiz score was omitted.

9. When teaching the course during a summer session, the professor maintained a similar pedagogical approach and used the same grading instruments. There was one difference in the summertime regarding homework assignments: Students worked on their written assignments individually, not in homework groups.

10. Throughout the 1999–2008 sample period, course grades were based on a weighted average of (1) attendance, (2) quiz average, (3) homework average, and (4) final exam score. Over the sample period, the professor did make some minor adjustments to the weights attached to these grading instruments. At first, the respective grading weights were 10 percent, 30 percent, 25 percent, and 35 percent. In fall 2002, he shifted some weight from the homework assignments to the final exam, with the respective weights becoming 10 percent, 30 percent, 20 percent, and 40 percent. In fall 2003, he shifted some weight from the attendance score to the quiz average, so the respective grading weights were 5 percent, 35 percent, 20 percent, and 40 percent. In fall 2007, he shifted even more weight from the homework average to the quiz average, making the respective grading weights as follows: 5 percent, 40 percent, 15 percent, and 40 percent. Therefore, it was always the case that a student's course grade depended overwhelmingly on the quizzes and final exam.

11. Students earning a grade of A at the university earn a score of 4.0 for their grade-point average, as do students earning a grade of A+. Because A and A+ have the same consequences for a student's grade-point average, we combined A and A+.

12. It has been argued that the use of a single variable to proxy for student ability, like GPA, tends to result in very large differences in the estimates of learning gains (see Grove, Wasserman, and Grodner 2006). Further, Univ GPA may be influenced by grading rigor in the academic major (see Yang and Raehsler 2005). Thus, we also included ACT Math, which reflects a key aptitude prior to college entrance and is independent of variability in GPA.

13. As shown in table 1, 12.3 percent of the students in the sample took the course in the summertime.

14. We performed a likelihood ratio test to determine the joint significance of including the academic year variables as controls, obtaining a χ²-statistic of 78.08, which supports inclusion of these dummy variables in the specification.

15. Some researchers have reported a gender gap, with males outperforming females (e.g., Bolch and Fels 1974; Siegfried 1979; Williams, Waldauer, and Duggal 1992). More recent studies, however, have found no gender gap across the economics curriculum or on tests of economic knowledge (see Swope and Schmitt 2006; Ziegert 2000).

16. The insignificant impact of credit hours attempted is consistent with a finding by Hasnat and Didia (1996), who analyzed the performance of transfer students in an economics statistics course at the State University of New York, College at Brockport.

17. This finding is consistent with past research in economic education (e.g., Ballard and Johnson 2004; Barr and Carr 1980; Becker 1997; Wetzel, O’Toole, and Millner 1991; and Yang and Raehsler 2005).

18. It has been suggested that transferring credit for principles of microeconomics might affect performance in intermediate macroeconomics, yet we did not find evidence of a significant association.