Thompson Rivers University

Who are the good and who the bad grade forecasters?

September 29, 2012

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Grades
Dr. Belayet and I have received notice that our research on grade expectations has been accepted for publication in the American Journal of Business Education. We study two groups of business students for their final course mark. We separate students that are, on average, “better” forecasters on the basis of them not making significant forecast errors during the semester from those students that are poor forecasters of their final grade. We find that the better forecasters are students that have a higher final grade, on average, than the poor forecasters. The sample evidence indicates that students’ are overconfident, as indicated by their initial grade expectations, irrespective of their ability to forecast; but these expectations change during the semester in the downwards direction as students accumulate information on their performance. As expected the poor forecasting students have much more sluggish expectations.

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