SHAPING TODAY
THOSE WHO WILL
SHAPE TOMORROW
Differentiation in Higher Education:
Does a Background in Economics
improve performance?
Dr Chris Jones & Anne Wheeler
LSE: Developments in Economics Education Conference
Tuesday 6th September 2011
Introduction & Background
Objective of paper:
Does past study in Economics and Math's improve exam
performance for students who do a 1st year undergraduate
module?
This is a large module 400+ students.
10 Credits, 20 hours of lectures and 5 hours of classes.
If past study of Economics improves performance should
pedagogy be differentiated by streaming students by ability?
This is controversial at Secondary level – have people ever
considered it for Higher Education?
Literature
Carol Tomlinson’s definitions of differentiation:
“Differentiation is simply attending to the learning needs of a particular
student or small group of students rather then the more typical pattern
of teaching the class as though all individuals are the same”
There is almost no literature on differentiation in Higher Education. Why?
There are studies that look at the determinants of degree performance:
e.g. Smith & Naylor (2001) Oxford Bulletin:
• Age, Marital Status, Higher A-Level Score, social class have a +ve impact.
Simple Predictions
H1: Students who have studied Economics at A-Level (or
an A-Level Equivalent) prior to joining Aston University
perform better in Introductory Economics than
students who have not studied Economics before.
H2: Students who have studied Mathematics at A-Level (or
an A-Level Equivalent) prior to joining Aston University
perform better in Introductory Economics than
students who have not studied Mathematics before.
H3: Demographic factors have a significant impact on
performance in Introductory Economics.
Data
Data Discussion
> All of the data is from Student Information System
> We have 3 separate cross sections – this is not panel data.
> 2007-2009
> On average there are approximately 400 observations per year.
> We have data on: past study in economics and maths, sex, age,
home vs. overseas, school type and parent occupational class.
> Students participate in a number of different degrees. None of
them study single honours Economics.
Descriptive Statistics
Grade Distributions
Econometric Model
Mark i   0  1 Economicsi   2 Mathsi 
 3 Agei   4 Homei   5 Malei   6 SchoolTypei   7 ParOccup i   i
Model estimated by OLS and a Tobit specification because the data is
censored at 40% (these are the people who pass and get given 40%).
Our primary interest is beta 1 and beta 2
SchoolType = 0,1 Dummy
ParOccup = 0,1 Dummy
(independent school vs. the rest)
(higher managerial class vs. the rest)
Baseline Results
Results including Class
Discussion
Results & Conclusion
> Past study in Economics improved test scores by between 5-8 percent
> Past study in maths improved test score by between 1-3 percent
> Age, sex, school type and parental class has little impact on performance.
> For 2007 home students performed better by 3% on average, in 2008 &
2009 this disappeared.
Should class teaching be
differentiated by ability?
Questions?