Date of Award
2013
Document Type
Honors Thesis (Colby Access Only)
Department
Colby College. Economics Dept.
Advisor(s)
Dan LaFave
Second Advisor
Debra Barbezat
Abstract
Using a unique panel data set constructed from registrar and admissions data, I examine peer effects on course grades in two disciplinary areas, Social Sciences, and Math and Sciences, for students who attended Colby College between the Fall of 2004 and the Spring of 2008. Simultaneously controlling for student, professor and course fixed effects, thereby easing endogeneity concerns posed by nonrandom assignment, I estimate peer effects on academic performance by examining the composition of an individual's classmates based on SAT scores, own gender, and peer gender, using a nonlinear, proportions-based two-way interaction model. I find strong evidence that students of high ability are positively influenced by having high ability classmates in Social Science classes, and suggestive evidence that these individuals may only be positively influenced by having high ability male classmates.
JEL Classification: I21, I23, J24
Keywords
Peer Effects, Education, Spillovers, Higher Education, Nonlinear
Recommended Citation
Jones, Peter C., "Classroom Peer Effects in Higher Education: Evidence from Colby College" (2013). Honors Theses. Paper 688.https://digitalcommons.colby.edu/honorstheses/688
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Comments
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