Classroom Experiments: Is More More?

Over the last 20 years, a considerable literature on the efficacy of classroom economics experiments in promoting student achievement has developed. Researchers find that student achievement is generally enhanced (or at least unharmed) by exposure to a pedagogy utilizing classroom experiments. While these findings have encouraged the adoption of classroom experiments, questions remain perhaps most notably regarding the appropriate number of experiments. In the current study we attempt to determine whether more intensive use of classroom experiments is associated with greater student achievement. Our data, collected between 2002 and 2013, contains variation in the number of experiments administered in a principles of microeconomics course. This variation allows us to estimate the impact on student achievement associated with exposure to different numbers of experiments.