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The authors examine student cheating based on implicit and explicit definitions of cheating. Prior to being provided a definition of cheating, students reported whether they had cheated. Students were then provided a definition of cheating and asked to rereport their cheating behaviors. Results indicate that students do not understand what constitutes cheating and are much more likely to report cheating postdefinition. In addition, both pre- and postdefinition cheating behaviors are more prevalent for students with lower GPAs and for those who perceive more cheating by student peers. Alcohol consumption, seeing another student cheat, fraternity/sorority membership, and athletic membership also increase the likelihood of cheating. These findings are consistent with previous studies. On the basis of a sample of students who provided cheating data after a definition of cheating is communicated, the authors find that students who believe that punishment for cheating is relatively severe are less likely to report cheating and that students at institutions with well-publicized honor codes are less likely to admit to cheating compared with students at nonhonor code institutions.

The authors apply a regression-discontinuity design to identify the causal impact of letter grades on student effort within a course, subsequent credit hours taken, and the probability of majoring in economics. Their methodology addresses key issues in identifying the causal impact of letter grades: correlation with unobservable factors, such as motivation, and direction of causation. They find no evidence that letter grades influence undergraduate students' course-taking behavior or decision to major in economics. They find that, within a course, the first exam letter grade can affect student performance on the second exam.

In this article, the authors describe a field experiment in the classroom where principles of micro- economics students are randomly assigned into homework-required and not-required groups. The authors find that homework plays an important role in student learning, especially so for students who initially perform poorly in the course. Students in the homework-required group have higher retention rates, higher test scores (5 to 6 percent), more good grades (Bs), and lower failure rates. The authors also study the relationship between endogenous homework submission and test performance using instrumental variable estimation and find that homework submission has a large positive effect on test performance.

Convincingly establishing the determinants of student evaluation of teaching (SET) scores has been elusive, largely because of inadequate statistical methods and a paucity of data. The author uses a much larger time span than in any previous research-607 economics classes over 17 semesters. This permits a proper treatment of unobserved heterogeneity. Results indicate that instructors can buy higher SET scores by awarding higher grades. In principles classes, the level of experience of the instructor and the class size are found to be significant determinants of SET scores. In upper-division classes, the type of student and the response rate matter. In both types of classes, factors specific to courses, instructors, and time periods are important; adjustments of scores to remove these influences may be warranted.

How have authors of widely used U.S. introductory economics textbooks responded to the traumatizing financial crisis? The answer interests textbook authors as well as the users. An encompassing quantitative and qualitative text analysis that applies new methods demonstrates that in general, the financial crisis is described in a few sporadically added lines or is dealt with in boxes, separate sections, or specific isolated chapters. This is no great surprise, as it would be a monumental task to change textbooks significantly in the short run. Yet the analysis also indicates small, innovative changes already being made that could inspire future editions. Against this background, the author discusses how any introductory textbook could integrate the financial crisis more adequately into the general presentation, thereby enhancing students' interest.

Students often exhibit overconfident grade expectations and tend to overestimate the actual course grade at the completion of a course. Current theories of student motivation suggest such overconfidence may lead students to study less than if they had accurate grade perceptions. The authors report the findings of a survey of students enrolled in economics and quantitative courses at a large public university. They analyze the difference between a student's expected and actual grade and how teacher pedagogies can influence student overconfidence. They find male students and those with lower GPAs exhibit greater overconfidence. Students in lower division classes have a greater tendency to be overconfident than do those in upper division classes. The findings also indicate that grading practices influence overconfidence.

The author describes a teaching method that uses powerful contemporary media, movie and television clips, to demonstrate the enormous breadth and depth of economic concepts. Many different movie and television clips can be used to show the power of economic analysis. The author describes the scenes and the economic concepts within those scenes for a number of movies.

A central theme of this article is that economics instructors should spend more time teaching about economic growth and development at the undergraduate level because the topic is of interest to students, is less abstract than other macroeconomic topics, and is the focus of exciting research in economics. Facts and data can be presented to describe the economic growth problem facing nations, both rich and poor. Instructors can then use key elements of the Solow growth model and discuss the importance of technology to explain economic growth to students. Recent research in economics can be used in the classroom to discuss the reasons why some countries are rich and others are poor.

Incorporating currents events into an economics curriculum is a goal of many dedicated instructors. The benefits of doing so are obvious. Unfortunately, the costs associated with implementation are nontrivial. In the following, the authors introduce an experiential writing assignment, called the MacroJournal, which streamlines the process of incorporating current events into a macroeconomics course. The costs for the instructor are mitigated by a repeated structure of questioning and a well-defined grading rubric. By completing the assignment, students have an opportunity to become practitioners and link current events to classroom theory.

Multiple-choice questions are the basis of a significant portion of assessment in introductory economics courses. However, these questions, as found in course assessments, test banks, and textbooks, often fail to evaluate students' abilities to use and apply economic analysis. The authors conclude that multiple-choice questions can be used to measure some but not all elements of indepth understanding of economics. The authors interpret in-depth understanding as ability to reason through logical steps when those steps and the relevant economic concepts are not explicitly stated. They present examples of multiplechoice questions that do and do not measure in-depth understanding.