Pedagogy, gender, and interest in economics

Using a large multi-school sample, the authors examined how the characteris tics and attitudes of students interact with the pedagogy and attributes of the instructor to influence students' decisions to study economics beyond the first semester. They found that students who have a predisposition to m ajor in economics, who find economics relevant, who believe they understand economics as well as their classmates, and who expect higher grades in eco nomics relative to their other classes are more likely to continue. They fo und evidence that teaching techniques and evaluation methods influence all of these factors except for the predisposition to major in economics. Some, but not all, of these techniques are particularly successful in influencin g the decisions of female students.