Johannes Wohlfart

Abstract

Findings in research in teaching and learning in higher education indicate that self-directed student learning improves learning outcomes (Ramsden, 2003), and that it is important for students to learn presentation skills (Dunbar et al, 2006). In this project I test a modification to the organization of exercise classes in a core course in the BA program in economics – Intermediate Microeconomics. Instead of having teaching assistants discuss solutions to the weekly take-home assignments, students could sign up to present the solutions themselves on a voluntary basis. I conducted surveys with both students and teaching assistants after the experiment. Both students and teaching assistants agree that the student presentations seemed to increase what students take away from the exercise class. Moreover, students and teaching assistants are in favor or permanently moving to a format where students voluntarily sign up to present the assignment solutions. However, among students there is opposition against the idea of making the presentations mandatory, while teaching assistants are strongly in favor. I also shed light on selection into sign-up, which seems to be driven by students who consider the material to be less challenging. Conditional on perceived difficulty, those who presented are more likely agree that learning outcomes are improved and are more likely to be in favor of both voluntary and mandatory student presentations. Open-ended text responses indicate that worries about overall workload are associated with lower demand to make student presentations mandatory.