Enrollment Patterns in Higher Education

ABSTRACT This paper investigates enrollment patterns in college courses using various explanatory variables such as instructor gender, time of day and student ratings from the site RateMyProfessors.com. Empirical results from this study suggest no gender preference and the expected time preferences (middle of the day and evening as desirable and an avoidance of Friday classes). Beyond these expected results, there is evidence that some of the website ratings do hold explanatory power for enrollment patterns for my university. In particular, the rating 'ease' is statistically significant while ratings for 'overall quality,' 'clarity,' and the measure of sexual attractiveness are not. (JEL A22, A11) (ProQuest: . denotes formulae omitted.) INTRODUCTION Enrollment patterns have long been assumed to exist, as any current or former department chair in charge of scheduling can tell you, but have not been formally studied in the literature. Among the assumptions commonly made at this university, are timing preferences against early morning and Friday classes, for instance. Those timing preferences may vary slightly from region to region or among student cohorts, but anecdotal evidence suggests that students prefer classes in the middle of the day more than at any other time, with additional preference for evening courses, although the 'evidence' for such a pattern can only be found in defacto section offerings. Indeed, there are so many courses offered in the middle of the day that departments at the university under study are not allowed to create more than 10% of their sections to begin between the hours of 9:10 and 11:30, though this may reflect teaching preferences rather than student preferences. Aside from preferring these peak hours, both students and faculty may attempt to avoid Friday classes in order to facilitate longer weekends. A few students, perhaps non-traditionals or those that work full time, may have a slight preference for early sections or evening sections so they can be 'shoehorned' into already busy lives. There has been little documentation of these effects however. This paper seeks to examine enrollment patterns exploring both timing issues as well as information regarding individual teacher characteristics, using an original data set drawn from a single, Mid- Western, State University of approximately 11,000 undergraduates. In the past, teaching characteristics other than gender have been difficult, if not nearly impossible, to obtain in any standardized way, with the possible exception of some fraternity/sorority informal ratings available only to members. With the existence, and rapid growth, of the various professor ratings sites on the internet, ratings of individual professors have become easily available and standardized. The largest of these internet sites is www.RateMyProfessor. com. One of the unique aspects to this website information is its ease of access to students planning course and section enrollments. Traditional student survey results are difficult to access and few students are even aware of how to do so. Indeed, what stimulated the idea for this project was the overwhelming student response to a pre-class discussion on how students choose classes/instructors. An overwhelming majority of students reported that they "always" or "often" checked www.Ratemyprofessors. com (henceforth referred to as the website) before they enrolled for classes and not one student reported checking on campus rating results. Granted this 'evidence' is very anecdotal and in no way can be construed as proof of student behavior, the results of this particular pre-class discussion caused this researcher to begin considering carefully the power of the website on class enrollments The information from this website is far easier to obtain and has fewer (and more direct) categories than our on-campus surveys. Furthermore, these ratings are completely uniform, unlike the college- and even discipline- specific surveys used in some instances at our University. …