ERIC Number: ED672086
Record Type: Non-Journal
Publication Date: 2022-Nov
Pages: 63
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: N/A
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Available Date: 0000-00-00
Opening the Black Box of College Major Choice: Evidence from an Information Intervention. EdWorkingPaper No. 22-666
Fulya Ersoy; Jamin D. Speer
Annenberg Institute for School Reform at Brown University
We study the importance of job-related and non-job-related factors in students' college major choices. Using a staggered intervention that allows us to provide students information about many different aspects of majors and to compare the magnitudes of the effects of each piece of information, we show that major choices depend on a wide set of factors. While students do not change their choices when given information about earnings, they do update their choices when told about other aspects of majors. The non-job-related factors, such as a major's course difficulty and gender composition, are important to students but not well-known to them. We also find that male and female students value different major characteristics in different ways. Lower-ability females flee from majors that they learn are more difficult than they had believed, while other students do not. On the other hand, male students are averse to being taught by female faculty, while female students are not. Overall, our results show that a variety of factors are important for students' major choices and that different factors matter for male and female students.
Descriptors: Undergraduate Students, Majors (Students), Course Selection (Students), Student Educational Objectives, Career Choice, Gender Differences, Employment Potential, Difficulty Level, Salary Wage Differentials, Student Attitudes, Decision Making, Women Faculty
Annenberg Institute for School Reform at Brown University. Brown University Box 1985, Providence, RI 02912. Tel: 401-863-7990; Fax: 401-863-1290; e-mail: annenberg@brown.edu; Web site: https://annenberg.brown.edu/
Publication Type: Reports - Research
Education Level: Higher Education; Postsecondary Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: Annenberg Institute for School Reform at Brown University
Identifiers - Location: California (Los Angeles)
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Author Affiliations: N/A