2018 - The effects of a high school curriculum reform on university enrollment and the choice of college major

Attribution: Görlitza, Katja and Gravert, Christina
Researchers: Christina GravertKatja Görlitza
University Affiliation: Freie Universität Berlin
Email: katja.goerlitz@fu-berlin.de
Research Question:
This paper presents evidence on the short-run effects of a high school curriculum reform on university enrollment and the choice of college major. Estimate the effect of the high school curriculum on educational choice and college major choice by exploiting a state-level curriculum reform.
Published: Yes
Journal Name or Institutional Affiliation: Education Economics
Journal Entry: Vol. 26, No. 3, 321-336
Year: 2018
Findings:

– The results show that the reform increased university enrollment rates for both genders.
-The reform increased students’ willingness to enroll at university for males and females alike. The reform effect of university enrollment can be assessed as meaningful with 1.3 and 1.2 percentage points for females and males, respectively.
– With regard to choosing STEM as college major, the authors find a
robust positive effect of the high school curriculum reform on males.
– While the results for males indicate that the reform made them more like to choose a STEM major on a statistically significant level, this is not true for females.
– A likely mechanism for the gender difference in major choices is the underlying preferences of men and women.

Scholarship Types: Journal Article Reporting Empirical ResearchKeywords: Choice of MajorCurriculumGenderHigh SchoolInternationalSTEMUniversitiesRegions: GermanyInternationalMethodologies: QuantitativeResearch Designs: Administrative DataAnalysis Methods: Difference in Difference Regression Sampling Frame:All first time students enrolled in a university in Germany full-time
Sampling Types: Non-Random - PurposiveAnalysis Units: StateStudentYearData Types: Quantitative-Cross Sectional
Data Description:

– The main data source is a register of all students enrolling in university in Germany (approximately 6 million students).
– The data set contains students’ information on demographics (e.g., gender and age), study choices (e.g., the year and university of first enrollment, the choice of university major), and high school (e.g., the year and state of high school graduation, the type of high school).
– For the analysis, the data from the high school graduation cohorts 1999–2006 are used.
– The analysis is conducted on students who are enrolled at university for the first time in their life and who participate as full-time students. This analysis only considers high school graduates from academic high schools who have enrolled at university within two years after school graduation.
– The synthetic control group is defined as a weighted combination of the 12 German states that were already used for the difference-in-differences approach.
– The data set contains students’ information on demographics (e.g., gender and age), study choices (e.g., the year and university of first enrollment, the choice of university major), and high school (e.g., the year and state of high school graduation, the type of high school).

-The curriculum reform reduced the freedom of choice in course selection which, in turn, increased mandatory instruction hours in German, a foreign language, math and science for the average student. Graduation requirements were also raised.

– Ivs: High school curriculum reform, gender
– Dvs: Probability to enroll at university, probability to choose STEM as a major

 

Theoretical Framework:
Relevance:STEM Interest/Pursuit/Aspirations/Intent
Archives: K-16 STEM Abstracts