Selecting Strategies to Foster Economists’ Critical Thinking Skills: A Quantile Regression Approach

We consider three models of teaching strategies and their effect on developing economics graduates’ ‘analysis’, ‘deduction’ and ‘induction’ skills. For each model we compute quantile regression estimates for total sample, male, and female graduates separately. Results show that enriched lectures have a different effect on each critical thinking skill, while their effect differs for low, medium and high quantiles. Student-engaging strategies help more low-to-medium achievers. The third model is more explanatory, especially for low and high achievers. Male and female graduates respond differently to the use of each model. In conclusion, suggestions for strategy selection and further research are made.