We design and experimentally evaluate two low-cost, scalable interventions - an online preparatory module and a text-message coaching program - in a sample of over 3,000 undergraduate students at a large Canadian university. Supplementing administrative data on academic outcomes with a unique...

This paper presents the first experimental evidence on the effects of live versus internet media of instruction. Students in a large introductory microeconomics course at a major research university were randomly assigned to live lectures versus watching these same lectures in an internet...

We draw on administrative data from the country of Colombia to assess differences in student learning in online and traditional on-campus college programs. The Colombian context is uniquely suited to study this topic, as students take a compulsory exit examination at the end of their studies. We...

Recent studies show that programs offering structured, one-on-one coaching and tutoring tend to have large effects on the academic outcomes of both high school and college students. These programs are often costly to implement and difficult to scale, however, calling into question whether making...

There has been a proliferation of websites that warehouse instructional materials designed to be taught by teachers in a traditional classroom. While this new technology has revolutionized how most teachers plan their lessons, the potential benefits of this innovation are unknown. To present...

Balancing the demands of work and schooling is a challenging task for an increasing number of students who have to pay their way through college and for workers who intend to upgrade their skills. However, flexible learning and working environments could play an important role in easing many...

We use unique data to examine how college students from low income families form expectations about academic ability and to examine the role that learning about ability and a variety of other factors play in the college drop-out decision. From the standpoint of satisfying a central implication...

We explore the extent to which schools manipulate the composition of students in the test-taking pool in order to maximize ratings under Texas' accountability system in the 1990s. We first derive predictions from a static model of administrators' incentives given the structure of the ratings...