IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/amerec/v51y2007i2p61-71.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Foreign-Born Teaching Assistants and Student Achievement: An Ordered Probit Analysis

Author

Listed:
  • Akbar Marvasti

Abstract

This paper deals with a wide spread perception that foreign-born teaching assistants (FBTA) have an adverse effect on American undergraduate students. The maximum likelihood technique is used to arrive at an unbiased and efficient estimate of the grade function. It is demonstrated that while the FBTA appears to have an adverse effect on the academic performance of American students, the effect does not seem to be due to the lack of language proficiency of the FBTA. Furthermore, the adverse effect is not uniform among students with different performance levels in the course and is absent in more rigorous classes. (JEL A22, J00)

Suggested Citation

  • Akbar Marvasti, 2007. "Foreign-Born Teaching Assistants and Student Achievement: An Ordered Probit Analysis," The American Economist, Sage Publications, vol. 51(2), pages 61-71, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:amerec:v:51:y:2007:i:2:p:61-71
    DOI: 10.1177/056943450705100210
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/056943450705100210
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/056943450705100210?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Watts, Michael & Bosshardt, William, 1991. "How Instructors Make a Difference: Panel Data Estimates from Principles of Economic Courses," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 73(2), pages 336-340, May.
    2. George J. Borjas, 2000. "Foreign-Born Teaching Assistants and the Academic Performance of Undergraduates," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(2), pages 355-359, May.
    3. Belton Fleisher & Masanori Hashimoto & Bruce A. Weinberg, 2002. "Foreign GTAs Can Be Effective Teachers of Economics," The Journal of Economic Education, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 33(4), pages 299-325, December.
    4. Greene, William, 1999. "Marginal effects in the censored regression model," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 64(1), pages 43-49, July.
    5. Watts, Michael, 1987. "Student Gender and School District Differences Affecting the Stock and Flow of Economic Knowledge," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 69(3), pages 561-566, August.
    6. Watts, Michael & Lynch, Gerald J, 1989. "The Principles Courses Revisited," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 79(2), pages 236-241, May.
    7. William Bosshardt & Michael Watts, 2001. "Comparing Student and Instructor Evaluations of Teaching," The Journal of Economic Education, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 32(1), pages 3-17, January.
    8. Becker, William E & Watts, Michael, 1996. "Chalk and Talk: A National Survey on Teaching Undergraduate Economics," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 86(2), pages 448-453, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Oliver, Daniel & Fairlie, Robert & Millhauser, Glenn & Roland, Randa, 2021. "Minority student and teaching assistant interactions in STEM," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 83(C).
    2. Carlos J. Asarta & Austin S. Jennings & Paul W. Grimes, 2017. "Economic Education Retrospective," The American Economist, Sage Publications, vol. 62(1), pages 102-117, March.
    3. Lusher, Lester & Campbell, Doug & Carrell, Scott, 2018. "TAs like me: Racial interactions between graduate teaching assistants and undergraduates," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 159(C), pages 203-224.
    4. Akbar Marvasti, 2010. "Occupational Safety and English Language Proficiency," Journal of Labor Research, Springer, vol. 31(4), pages 332-347, December.
    5. Seah, Kelvin KC, 2018. "Immigrant educators and students’ academic achievement," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 152-169.
    6. Belayet Hossain & Laura Lamb, 2012. "The Impact of Human and Social Capital on Aboriginal Employment Income in Canada," Economic Papers, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 31(4), pages 440-450, December.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Seah, Kelvin KC, 2018. "Immigrant educators and students’ academic achievement," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 152-169.
    2. Long, Bridget Terry & Taylor, Eric S., 2016. "When inputs are outputs: The case of graduate student instructorsAuthor-Name: Bettinger, Eric P," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 52(C), pages 63-76.
    3. Bruce A. Weinberg & Belton M. Fleisher & Masanori Hashimoto, 2007. "Evaluating Methods for Evaluating Instruction: The Case of Higher Education," NBER Working Papers 12844, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Lusher, Lester & Campbell, Doug & Carrell, Scott, 2018. "TAs like me: Racial interactions between graduate teaching assistants and undergraduates," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 159(C), pages 203-224.
    5. Ehrenberg, R.G.Ronald G., 2004. "Econometric studies of higher education," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 121(1-2), pages 19-37.
    6. Hans Gremmen & Jan Potters, 1997. "Assessing the Efficacy of Gaming in Economic Education," The Journal of Economic Education, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 28(4), pages 291-303, December.
    7. George J. Borjas, 2004. "Do Foreign Students Crowd Out Native Students from Graduate Programs?," NBER Working Papers 10349, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. Tisha L. N. Emerson & Beck A. Taylor, 2004. "Comparing Student Achievement across Experimental and Lecture‐Oriented Sections of a Principles of Microeconomics Course," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 70(3), pages 672-693, January.
    9. Hamermesh, Daniel S. & Parker, Amy, 2005. "Beauty in the classroom: instructors' pulchritude and putative pedagogical productivity," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 24(4), pages 369-376, August.
    10. Höckel, Lisa, 2019. "Speaking the same language - The effect of foreign origin teachers on students’ language skills," VfS Annual Conference 2019 (Leipzig): 30 Years after the Fall of the Berlin Wall - Democracy and Market Economy 203638, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    11. Kelvin K. C. Seah, 2021. "Do you speak my language? The effect of sharing a teacher's native language on student achievement," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 88(1), pages 245-273, July.
    12. Wayne A Grove x & Stephen Wu, 2011. "Factors Influencing Student Performance in Economics: Class and Instructor Characteristics," Chapters, in: Gail M. Hoyt & KimMarie McGoldrick (ed.), International Handbook on Teaching and Learning Economics, chapter 33, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    13. Franklin G. Mixon & Richard J. Cebula (ed.), 2014. "New Developments in Economic Education," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 15538.
    14. Bridges, Deborah E. & Casavant, Kenneth L., 1999. "Does Gender, Class Standing, And High School Economics Influence Students' Economic Learning," 1999 Annual Meeting, July 11-14, 1999, Fargo, ND 35699, Western Agricultural Economics Association.
    15. Daniel Hamermesh & Amy M. Parker, 2003. "Beauty in the Classroom: Professors' Pulchritude and Putative Pedagogical Productivity," NBER Working Papers 9853, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    16. G. Thomas Sav, 2017. "Are American Universities Mismanaged?: Tenure vs Non-Tenure Faculty Employment Decisions," Information Management and Business Review, AMH International, vol. 8(6), pages 19-31.
    17. Feld, Jan & Salamanca, Nicolás & Zölitz, Ulf, 2019. "Students are almost as effective as professors in university teaching," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 73(C).
    18. Pia M. Orrenius & Madeline Zavodny, 2015. "Does Immigration Affect Whether US Natives Major in Science and Engineering?," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 33(S1), pages 79-108.
    19. Sterner, Thomas & Ewald, Jens & Sterner, Erik, 2024. "Economists and the climate," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 109(C).
    20. Sarah Brown & Karl Taylor, 2008. "Household debt and financial assets: evidence from Germany, Great Britain and the USA," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series A, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 171(3), pages 615-643, June.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • A22 - General Economics and Teaching - - Economic Education and Teaching of Economics - - - Undergraduate
    • J00 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - General - - - General

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:amerec:v:51:y:2007:i:2:p:61-71. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://journals.sagepub.com/home/aex .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.