Raising College Students’ Grades: A Controlled Experiment in Peer Effects

Scott Carrell

Using peer effects, this study will examine whether a fixed set of students can be sorted into peer groups in such a way as to improve student academic outcomes. To do so, we will identify nonlinear peer effects in academic performance at the United States Air Force Academy (USAFA) and create optimally designed peer groups using linear programming techniques. Using controlled experimental design; we will sort the entire freshman cohort of students entering USAFA over a two-year period. One-half of the incoming freshman class will be randomly assigned to the control peer groups while the other half will be optimally sorted into the treatment peer groups. Academic performance differences will then be measured between the treatment and control groups. To our knowledge, this will be the first peer effects controlled experiment in which performance differences are measured.

About Scott Carrell

Scott Carrell joined the faculty in the UC Davis Economics Department in 2007. Professor Carrell received his BA from the US Air Force Academy in 1995, an M.A. in Economics and an M.S. in Management from the University of Florida in 2002, and a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Florida in 2003. He previously taught at Dartmouth College and the U.S. Air Force Academy and served as the Senior Economist for Public Finance and Labor Economics on the staff of the President's Council of Economic Advisers during the summer of 2004. He is a Faculty Research Fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research in the Economics of Education group. He spent ten years as an active duty officer in the U.S. Air Force and is currently a Major in the Air Force Reserves. He specializes in the fields of labor economics, economics of education, and public economics.