Behavior and Performance in the Economics Classroom

The relationships between classroom performance and student characteristics such as grade point average and gender have been the subject of much analysis in economic education. Heretofore, student behavior in the economics classroom has not been among the characteristics studied. Using newly collected data, this paper presents empirical evidence regarding two sets of student behaviors: "inattentiveness" and "boorishness." Controlling for other factors, a significant, negative relationship was found between inattentiveness and performance. Although boorishness was not significant, estimated coefficients for gender and grade point average were significant and consistent with the economic education literature. Our results suggest the potential fruitfulness of future research on classroom behavior.