Final Blog


It's been a good semester blogging for Prof. Arvan's class, we've covered a lot of interesting topics and for the last prompt we've been asked to evaluate some course policies, specifically attendance and mobile devices.
The way that I often tend to approach situations like attendance in classes is starting with the pre-supposition that adults are rational. We’re taught starting in Econ 102 that we make the assumptions of rationality and ranked preference before we can begin any sort of analysis on behavior. When it comes to attendance, I think it would be silly not to continue to hold them.

So, if a student is able to make rational choice, and is able to properly rank their preferences, then the discussion really hinges on whether attendance is a behavior which needs to be incentivized. Part of me thinks its really an issue of free association, the student should be free to choose where they go and what they do at all points, with whomever they so choose. From an instructing standpoint, I understand that that is likely a frustrating argument. The class as a whole is made better by having active participants, I for one certainly appreciate when I’m not having to throw out a majority of the answers or face a room of crickets. It also depends on if, at the beginning of the semester, there were people who wanted to attend this class, but couldn’t due to it being full. If that’s the case, then people who attend less frequently have a lower marginal benefit to class time than people who could’ve made it in, and make the whole class worse off by their lack of attendance. It makes sense to incentivize attendance in this case, they’ve been afforded the ‘gift’ of being able to attend these sections, and should exchange that with their presence.

I don’t think the extra credit was a proper incentive to attend class, though I attended as frequently as a could. However, on some occasions, like when I had a midterm immediately following our class, I’d rank my time in such a way that I’d stay home and use that time to study instead. I think that’s what non-mandatory attendance is really built for. You shouldn’t be rewarding shirking, but students also act as an agent to a great many principals, and allowing for some way for them to self-regulate how they answer to them all is a great boon. Overall, I think that is enough to keep the current policy in place, but I wanted to examine the full argument.

On the second issue, I’m a little more conflicted. I don’t personally like laptops in class. I think they’re distracting, and it harms the class as a whole. I understand that many people like to actually use them for class work, but the potential for needless ‘multitasking’ is very high, and is an option that is utilized excessively to the detriment of all of the people around them. I personally prefer to take notes on pad and paper anyways, so whatever policy change happens wouldn’t affect someone like me all too much.

Keeping the distinction between lecture and discussion mode in regards to usage of devices seems unnecessary to me. I found that during the discussion section the same five, ten people would interact, to varying degrees, and those that didn’t could be heavily correlated with the people using laptops during the lecture section. I think this correlation isn’t random—full attention in the lecture section provides a more solid grasp on course concepts and the ability to think about them in the abstract during the discussion. If I were to recommend policy, I’d simply have no laptops at all during class, I think they’re more detrimental than helpful here, especially since most students took sparse notes at best.

Comments

  1. Professor ArvanDecember 8, 2017 at 2:54 PM

    In response to - if a student is able to make a rational choice...

    When I started as an assistant professor back in 1980, I had a colleague who was the daughter of the Belgian Ambassador to the U.S. at the time. She taught me many things, among them this phrase.

    With ifs you can put Paris in a bottle.

    I seem to recall that we critiqued rationality some in our class and talked about behavioral economics as the new way to think about these matters. In particular, much of our behavior is habit and habits are pretty fixed. They can be changed, and then there clearly is choice involved. But when the habit seems to be governing behavior, it is less evident that is about choice.

    Given that, some students seem to have the habit to come to class all the time while other students have the habit of skipping class. If we could observe their behavior in their other classes we might be able to pin down their habits more precisely. It appears that some students react to hard and fast rules one way and to looser guidelines in quite a different way. The thing is, I really did want gift exchange and being a good citizen to come through as a message of this class. Hard and fast rules would run counter to that goal. That's the issue.

    On the portable devices, I'm inclined to agree with you most of the time. Sometimes it would be nice i students Googled a particular term or some idea mentioned in class to show how others consider it. But that sort of on the spot research is not an all the time thing, and at other times I believe it is more diversion than anything else. So I might modify the rule as you suggest, if I teach the class again.

    Here's one other remark. I don't every remember skipping a class because I had an exam in another class. This now seems like a common practice. I accept that it is happening, but I don't get why. I do have a general sense that cramming is common, when it is far better to learn at more or less an even pace over the semester. If it is cramming that explains the skipping of the class, there is something else that should be done to change it. You'll recall we talked about taking fewer courses at one time. I wonder if that thought should be advocated for with greater force.

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  2. Susan Athey Econ 490 fall 2017December 8, 2017 at 4:24 PM

    Reading through your opinions on attendance and electronics echoed many of the same thoughts I wrote about in my own final post. While we seem to both agree on Professor Arvan’s attendance policy and hint at a ban on electronics in the classroom, what’s interesting is the rationale that got us to those conclusions differs.

    In response to your connection between rationality and attendance, economic rationality seems to stipulate that individuals have complete information and will always make the choice which results in their greatest level of utility. Your argument that students skip class to cram for exams is not something I deny, but I’m not sure we can conclude this decision is based on rationality. When that student chose to put off studying until the last moment, they were exhibiting their irrational nature by valuing the present moment more than the future. This is just an example, but something to consider.

    In regard to your comments on electronics, I fully agree. It’s interesting to consider the future implications of university policies toward electronics in the classroom as we progressively became a more and more techy society.

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