Student Drops and Failure in Principles Courses

Abstract

Many studies have identified factors that contribute to success in economics principles courses, but few have examined the causes and effects of student drops and failure. The author follows 239 students through their economic principles course and tracks the students in the year after the course. The author constructs a model predicting student noncompletion of the course (drops) to identify factors that may reduce student drops. The fate of these students is important to instructors who are concerned about the large number of students who drop or do not make the grade and wonder what impact the students' failure will have on their immediate future. The issue also may be viewed as one of efficiency—why should students who are struggling bother continuing in a course. To investigate this issue, the author compared students who were at risk but did not drop to those who dropped in terms of their academic performance after the principles course.