Does Morning Class Improve Student Learning in Microeconomics Principles?

This article analyzes the impact of section time on students’ grades by using data from the Office of Institutional Effectiveness, Planning, and Research (IEPR) at Middle Tennessee State University (MTSU). Differences in the performances of students with different class times may arise because of student characteristics and differences in the selection mechanisms for morning, afternoon, and evening classes. The data cover a period of six years and are based on a sample of 5,803 individuals who enrolled in 133 sections of the course Microeconomics Principles (MICRO). Methods include ordinary least squares estimate and ordered probit regressions. To identify the causal impact of the section time on students’ grades, I used registration time as an instrumental variable. For males, the estimated coefficients are negative and statistically significant at the 10 percent level, and the coefficients suggest that a male student in an afternoon class could expect to earn a letter grade that is 0.316 worse than he would have done by taking the class in the morning. For females, the estimated coefficients are negative and statistically significant at the 10 percent level, and the coefficients suggest that a female student in an evening class could expect to earn a letter grade that is 0.552 worse than she would have done by taking the class in the morning. A possible explanation for these results, and the one that I consider most likely, is that females display a more developed attitude toward learning. The results may give rise to a question about how to improve males’ non-cognitive skills and create an alternative method of instruction to communicate more effectively with males who have different non-cognitive skill sets. By studying the impact of section time on average student grades, universities will be able to make important decisions regarding section times.