IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/iza/izadps/dp15777.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Getting Students to Stick Around: The Effects of Completing an Introductory Course on Persistence for Community College Students

Author

Listed:
  • Gicheva, Dora

    (University of North Carolina, Greensboro)

  • Edmunds, Julie

    (University of North Carolina, Greensboro)

  • Hull, Marie C.

    (University of North Carolina, Greensboro)

  • Thrift, Beth

    (University of North Carolina, Greensboro)

Abstract

This paper studies the impacts of withdrawing from and failing a course, relative to successful completion, on persistence for community college students. We leverage random assignment of students to instructors for identification. Withdrawing from a course reduces the probability of persistence by about 20 percentage points, while the impact of failing is much smaller in magnitude and statistically indistinguishable from zero. Course withdrawals are highly correlated with full institutional withdrawal for the students in our sample, which is in turn linked to lower likelihood of returning the following semester. Our findings reinforce the importance of academic momentum: remaining in a course keeps students attached to college even if they earn a failing grade.

Suggested Citation

  • Gicheva, Dora & Edmunds, Julie & Hull, Marie C. & Thrift, Beth, 2022. "Getting Students to Stick Around: The Effects of Completing an Introductory Course on Persistence for Community College Students," IZA Discussion Papers 15777, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
  • Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp15777
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://docs.iza.org/dp15777.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Hoxby, Caroline M. & Stange, Kevin (ed.), 2019. "Productivity in Higher Education," National Bureau of Economic Research Books, University of Chicago Press, edition 1, number 9780226574585, December.
    2. Scott E. Carrell & James E. West, 2010. "Does Professor Quality Matter? Evidence from Random Assignment of Students to Professors," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 118(3), pages 409-432, June.
    3. Michela Braga & Marco Paccagnella & Michele Pellizzari, 2016. "The Impact of College Teaching on Students’ Academic and Labor Market Outcomes," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 34(3), pages 781-822.
    4. Caroline M. Hoxby & Kevin Stange, 2019. "Productivity in Higher Education," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number hoxb-2, March.
    5. William Bosshardt, 2004. "Student Drops and Failure in Principles Courses," The Journal of Economic Education, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 35(2), pages 111-128, April.
    6. Hsun-Yu Chan & Xueli Wang, 2018. "Momentum Through Course-Completion Patterns Among 2-Year College Students Beginning in STEM: Variations and Contributing Factors," Research in Higher Education, Springer;Association for Institutional Research, vol. 59(6), pages 704-743, September.
    7. Florian Hoffmann & Philip Oreopoulos, 2009. "A Professor Like Me: The Influence of Instructor Gender on College Achievement," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 44(2).
    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. Anne Boring, 2015. "Gender Biases in student evaluations of teachers," Documents de Travail de l'OFCE 2015-13, Observatoire Francais des Conjonctures Economiques (OFCE).
    2. Lusher, Lester & Campbell, Doug & Carrell, Scott, 2018. "TAs like me: Racial interactions between graduate teaching assistants and undergraduates," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 159(C), pages 203-224.
    3. Jack Mountjoy & Brent Hickman, 2020. "The Returns to College(s): Estimating Value-Added and Match Effects in Higher Education," Working Papers 2020-08, Becker Friedman Institute for Research In Economics.
    4. Coveney, Max & Oosterveen, Matthijs, 2021. "What drives ability peer effects?," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 136(C).
    5. Fischer, Stefanie, 2017. "The downside of good peers: How classroom composition differentially affects men's and women's STEM persistence," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 46(C), pages 211-226.
    6. Di Xu & Florence Xiaotao Ran, 2021. "The Impacts Of Different Types Of College Instructors On Students’ Academic And Labor Market Outcomes," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 40(1), pages 225-257, January.
    7. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/1seuirq4ak9b9bouu1j29ebui7 is not listed on IDEAS
    8. John Bound & Breno Braga & Gaurav Khanna & Sarah Turner, 2021. "The Globalization of Postsecondary Education: The Role of International Students in the US Higher Education System," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 35(1), pages 163-184, Winter.
    9. Jan Feld & Nicolás Salamanca & Ulf Zölitz, 2020. "Are Professors Worth It? The Value-Added and Costs of Tutorial Instructors," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 55(3), pages 836-863.
    10. Boring, Anne, 2017. "Gender biases in student evaluations of teaching," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 145(C), pages 27-41.
    11. Long, Bridget Terry & Taylor, Eric S., 2016. "When inputs are outputs: The case of graduate student instructorsAuthor-Name: Bettinger, Eric P," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 52(C), pages 63-76.
    12. Eble, Alex & Hu, Feng, 2020. "Child beliefs, societal beliefs, and teacher-student identity match," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 77(C).
    13. Modena, Francesca & Rettore, Enrico & Tanzi, Giulia Martina, 2022. "Asymmetries in the gender effect of high-performing peers: Evidence from tertiary education," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 78(C).
    14. Harold E. Cuffe & Jan Feld & Trevor O'Grady, 2021. "Returns to Teaching Repetition: The Effect of Short-term Teaching Experience on Student Outcomes," Education Finance and Policy, MIT Press, vol. 16(3), pages 516-532, Summer.
    15. Talia Bar & Asaf Zussman, 2012. "Partisan Grading," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 4(1), pages 30-48, January.
    16. Scott E. Carrell & Marianne E. Page & James E. West, 2010. "Sex and Science: How Professor Gender Perpetuates the Gender Gap," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 125(3), pages 1101-1144.
    17. Shao-Hsun Keng, 2018. "Tenure system and its impact on grading leniency, teaching effectiveness and student effort," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 55(3), pages 1207-1227, November.
    18. Marina Bassi & Lelys Dinarte-Diaz & Maria Marta Ferreyra & Sergio Urzua, 2023. "What Makes a Program Good? Evidence from Short-Cycle Higher Education Programs in Five Developing Countries," CESifo Working Paper Series 10255, CESifo.
    19. Barbara Biasi & Song Ma, 2022. "The Education-Innovation Gap," CESifo Working Paper Series 9653, CESifo.
    20. James V. Koch & Ziniya Zahedi, 2019. "The effects of role models on college graduation rates," Journal of Economics and Finance, Springer;Academy of Economics and Finance, vol. 43(3), pages 607-617, July.
    21. Beleche, Trinidad & Fairris, David & Marks, Mindy, 2012. "Do course evaluations truly reflect student learning? Evidence from an objectively graded post-test," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 31(5), pages 709-719.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    community college; persistence; course completion; instructor effects;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I21 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Analysis of Education
    • I23 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Higher Education; Research Institutions

    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:iza:izadps:dp15777. 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: Holger Hinte (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/izaaade.html .

    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.