IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/jeduce/v42y2011i4p338-353.html

How Much is That Exam Grade Really Worth? An Estimation of Student Risk Aversion to Their Unknown Final College Course Grades

Author

Listed:
  • Lanier Nalley
  • Andrew McKenzie

Abstract

This study created an experimental design with which students can empirically assess their risk behavior with respect to exam grades within an expected utility framework. Specifically, the authors analyzed students’ risk preferences associated with taking exams and earning a “risky” unknown grade versus not taking exams and instead obtaining a “sure” grade. Students have grade-choice decisions in nonhypothetical situations that impact their actual exam grades. Estimates indicate that the more risk-averse a student is, the more willing he or she is to accept a lower certain grade and not take an exam than to run the risk of actually taking it. We believe that this experimental setup and its binding results make it an easy but effective way of teaching the obtuse concept of risk aversion.

Suggested Citation

  • Lanier Nalley & Andrew McKenzie, 2011. "How Much is That Exam Grade Really Worth? An Estimation of Student Risk Aversion to Their Unknown Final College Course Grades," The Journal of Economic Education, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 42(4), pages 338-353, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:jeduce:v:42:y:2011:i:4:p:338-353
    DOI: 10.1080/00220485.2011.606085
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/00220485.2011.606085
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/00220485.2011.606085?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to

    for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Daniel Kahneman & Amos Tversky, 2013. "Prospect Theory: An Analysis of Decision Under Risk," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Leonard C MacLean & William T Ziemba (ed.), HANDBOOK OF THE FUNDAMENTALS OF FINANCIAL DECISION MAKING Part I, chapter 6, pages 99-127, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    2. Charles A. Holt & Susan K. Laury, 2002. "Risk Aversion and Incentive Effects," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 92(5), pages 1644-1655, December.
    3. Don L. Coursey & John L. Hovis & William D. Schulze, 1987. "The Disparity Between Willingness to Accept and Willingness to Pay Measures of Value," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 102(3), pages 679-690.
    4. Hayes, Dermot J. & Shogren, Jason F. & Fox, John A. & Kliebenstein, James, 1996. "Test Marketing New Food Products Using a Multi-Trial Nonhypothetical Experimental Auction with Market Discipline," Staff General Research Papers Archive 5227, Iowa State University, Department of Economics.
    5. Matthew Rabin & Richard H. Thaler, 2013. "Anomalies: Risk aversion," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Leonard C MacLean & William T Ziemba (ed.), HANDBOOK OF THE FUNDAMENTALS OF FINANCIAL DECISION MAKING Part I, chapter 27, pages 467-480, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Schleich, Joachim & Gassmann, Xavier & Faure, Corinne & Meissner, Thomas, 2016. "Making the implicit explicit: A look inside the implicit discount rate," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 97(C), pages 321-331.
    2. James Alm & Antoine Malézieux, 2021. "40 years of tax evasion games: a meta-analysis," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 24(3), pages 699-750, September.
    3. Roger Hartley & Gauthier Lanot & Ian Walker, 2014. "Who Really Wants To Be A Millionaire? Estimates Of Risk Aversion From Gameshow Data," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 29(6), pages 861-879, September.
    4. Shane Frederick & Amanda Levis & Steven Malliaris & Andrew Meyer, 2018. "Valuing bets and hedges: Implications for the construct of risk preference," Judgment and Decision Making, Society for Judgment and Decision Making, vol. 13(6), pages 501-508, November.
    5. Frode Alfnes & Kyrre Rickertsen & Øydis Ueland, 2008. "Consumer attitudes toward low stake risk in food markets," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 40(23), pages 3039-3049.
    6. Adam Eric Greenberg, 2013. "When imagining future wealth influences risky decision making," Judgment and Decision Making, Society for Judgment and Decision Making, vol. 8(3), pages 268-277, May.
    7. Dohmen, Thomas, 2014. "Behavioral labor economics: Advances and future directions," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(C), pages 71-85.
    8. Pennings, Joost M.E. & Garcia, Philip, 2004. "Strategic Risk Management Behavior: What Can Utility Functions Tell Us?," 2004 Annual meeting, August 1-4, Denver, CO 20388, American Agricultural Economics Association (New Name 2008: Agricultural and Applied Economics Association).
    9. Shi Yingnan & Xinghao Li, 2017. "The Time Preference of Chinese Tend to be Less Affected by Positive Emotions: As Proved by an Experimental Study," Journal of Economics and Behavioral Studies, AMH International, vol. 9(4), pages 201-216.
    10. Kavitha Ranganathan, 2018. "Does Global Shapes Of Utility Functions Matter For Investment Decisions?," Bulletin of Economic Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 70(4), pages 341-361, October.
    11. Hwang, In Do, 2021. "Prospect theory and insurance demand: Empirical evidence on the role of loss aversion," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 95(C).
    12. Camille Cornand & Frank Heinemann, 2018. "Experiments on macroeconomics: methods and applications," Working Papers 1810, Groupe d'Analyse et de Théorie Economique Lyon St-Étienne (GATE Lyon St-Étienne), Université de Lyon.
    13. Shi, Haijiao & Chen, Rong & Xu, Xiaobing, 2021. "How reward uncertainty influences subsequent donations: The role of mental accounting," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 132(C), pages 383-391.
    14. Burton, Michael P. & Rigby, Dan, 2012. "The Market for Essays," 2013 Conference (57th), February 5-8, 2013, Sydney, Australia 152195, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society.
    15. Rigby, Dan & Burton, Michael & Balcombe, Kelvin & Bateman, Ian & Mulatu, Abay, 2015. "Contract cheating & the market in essays," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 111(C), pages 23-37.
    16. repec:imp:wpaper:12579 is not listed on IDEAS
    17. E. Elisabet Rutstrom & Glenn W. Harrison & Morten I. Lau, 2004. "Estimating Risk Attitudes in Denmark," Econometric Society 2004 Australasian Meetings 201, Econometric Society.
    18. Miraldo, M & Galizzi, M & Stavropoulou, C, 2013. "In sickness but not in wealth: Field evidence on patients’ risk preferences in the financial and health domain," Working Papers 31053, Imperial College, London, Imperial College Business School.
    19. Franziska Ziegelmeyer, 2010. "Elterliche Stellvertreterentscheidungen und frühkindliche Humankapitalbildung," Vierteljahrshefte zur Wirtschaftsforschung / Quarterly Journal of Economic Research, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research, vol. 79(3), pages 57-77.
    20. David Blake & Edmund Cannon & Douglas Wright, 2021. "Quantifying loss aversion: Evidence from a UK population survey," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 63(1), pages 27-57, August.
    21. Camille Cornand & Frank Heinemann, 2018. "Experiments on macroeconomics: methods and applications," Working Papers halshs-01809937, HAL.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:taf:jeduce:v:42:y:2011:i:4:p:338-353. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/VECE20 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.