TITLE:
Value Added in Undergraduate Business Education: An Empirical Analysis
AUTHORS:
Thomas P. Breslin, Subarna K. Samanta
KEYWORDS:
Learning Outcomes, ETS Study, Value-Added Measures, Major Field Test, Effective Learning
JOURNAL NAME:
Modern Economy,
Vol.5 No.12,
November
26,
2014
ABSTRACT: A substantial body of research since the
early fifties has been conducted addressing the economic benefits from higher
education. A more limited body of research has further demonstrated that there
exist important qualitative differences in the academic returns or academic
performances due to college education. It has been established that such
qualitative differences occur because of the choice of the major, quality of
institution and quality of the students. Although graduates from higher quality
institutions generally exhibit higher academic performance, this can explain
only a small proportion of the variability of student’s performance. The
present study attempts to address the institutional quality issue from a
value-added perspective. We investigate how the business school education from
an undergraduate institution can affect the academic performance of its
students. Data for this study were collected in a four-year college in the
northeast region of the United States. The School of Business in that
institution offers majors in Accounting, Business Administration (with five
specializations), and Economics. All business students must take a common core
of required courses including accounting, economics, finance, marketing,
management, information technology, and statistics prior to taking their
courses in the major discipline. Our sample size contains 415 graduating
students over two time periods: 2008 and 2012. Results suggest that
undergraduate business school education accounts for about 25% to 35% of the
variability of the academic performance for the students.