Exam scheduling can have a long-term impact on both students’ choice of majors and their future earnings. The finding comes from “Persevere or Pivot? The Causal Impact of Grade Shocks on the College Major Decision,” a new paper by Annabel Thorton, a PhD candidate with the Department of Economics. Thorton’s research project looked at random variations in exam timetable characteristics to estimate the effect of grade shocks on students’ major choices. She found that when students write two exams close together, they tend to do more poorly on the second one, resulting in a student’s course grade to drop by approximately 1%. That 1% drop in grade value, a grade shock, then reduced the likelihood of a student majoring in that subject by 11%. Thorton’s data comes from all first-year Faculty of Arts and Sciences students at the University of Toronto. [Read more…]