Introduction

Welcome to episode 3 of the podcast “talking texts”. In this episode “skipping class – Is attendance, the solution for good grades?”, Jimmy and Luisa explain the main results of the scientific paper “Skipping class in college and exam performance: Evidence from a regression discontinuity classroom” and discuss their own experiences with skipping.

Time cues

00:00 Introduction

00:45 Opener for episode

01:50 Study design and facts

04:22 Results

05:40 Conclusion and own experiences

08:01 Closing words

09:45 Outro

Guests

Celina Depiereux

Christopher Klemmer

Resources and links

Dobkin, C., Gil, R., & Marion, J. (2010). Skipping class in college and exam performance: Evidence from a regression discontinuity classroom experiment. Economics of Education Review, 29(4), 566-575. link

Link to website https://talkingtexts.de/episode-3/

Word list

Midterms – important exams in the middle of an academic year

Attendance rate – percentage of how many students actually visited the class in average.

Mandatory – a class is mandatory when you have to attend all the classes dates of a course.

Regression discontinuity – scientific tool to compare pretest and posttest performance after implementing a specific policy

Credit:

Cover art: Anna Mahendra

Music Bela Bartok, Irene Damert, Felix Spieß