Università degli studi di Modena e Reggio Emilia

In the contemporary academic system, a substantial body of literature emphasizes the central role of active learning in fostering inclusion. This study compares two different teaching approaches focused on the active engagement of students: challenge-based learning (CBL) and team-based learning (TBL). These two teaching methodologies have several similarities including the fact that students work in small heterogeneous groups to solve problems and brainstorm together. In a nutshell, in the CBL application analysed in this paper each team deals with a specific spinoff project in order to get an in-depth understanding of and empathise with real user/customer needs and prototype impactful service experiences, whereas with the TBL application, the analysed students attending a Macroeconomics undergraduate course address problems in small teams as the final step of a sequence of tests involving both individual and team work. The study analyses the impact of these teaching methodologies on three bachelor-degree classes in different economics courses by focusing on students’ satisfaction with the teaching activity and their perceptions about it. Preliminary results confirm an overall general satisfaction with the experience which differs in its sub-components according to the students’ characteristics and the teaching methodology. The inclusive dimension of the experimented active learning strategies can be found in the greater satisfaction shown by students in minority groups (in terms of gender, ethnicity or lower previously acquired hard skills) with a different statistical significance and size in the courses analysed.

This paper analyses the benefits of introducing team-based learning (TBL) teaching methodology, an active learning method that promotes group work, in university classrooms. The study compares two classes of macroeconomics with the same curriculum and teaching hours, but one class uses TBL while the other follows traditional teaching methods. The study goes beyond comparing students’ performance at the individual level and assesses the potential of TBL to foster inclusion through the sense of belonging. The sense of belonging refers to an individual’s subjective experience or perception of being connected, accepted, and included in a particular group, community, or social setting. It encompasses the feeling of being valued, respected, and integrated into a social context that in our case is the macroeconomic class/community. Comparisons between groups were made using econometric and statistical analysis on a database composed of administrative sources and data collection originated through teaching activities which allow controlling of student socio-demographic characteristics and their academic careers. The econometric analysis started with a multivariate regression to estimate the TBL’s effect on students’ sense of belonging. Subsequently, it employed the propensity-score matching technique to match similar students and estimates: the average treatment effect (ATE), the average treatment effect on treated students (ATET) and the potential outcome mean (POM). Finally, it refined the estimates through the augmented inverse probability weighting. All techniques used confirm a positive and highly significant effect of treatment on students’ sense of belonging. In addition, multivariate analysis showed that those effects are higher for categories most at risk because they are more distant from the macroeconomic environment (females, low performers, repeat students, etc...). The findings contribute to understanding the benefits of active learning approaches in terms of individual student success and promoting inclusivity for weaker groups in higher education.

This paper evaluates the impact of a faculty development (FD) programme implemented in an Italian university during the 2022/2023 academic year. The programme consisted of a series of lectures and workshops focused on the implementation of innovative and inclusive teaching practices for university professors and secondary school teaching staff. The initiatives covered a wide spectrum of topics, including educational tools to address learning barriers, innovative and inclusive teaching methodologies, interactivity enhancement, and the use of digital technologies in teaching. To assess the impact of the training sessions on university professors, the evaluation model proposed by Kirkpatrick was employed. Kirkpatrick’s model is an internationally recognized tool that provides a conceptual framework for analysing the results of educational, training and learning programmes, focusing on four levels of evaluation: Reaction, Learning, Behaviour, and Results. In line with the reference literature, we evaluated the impact of training sessions on the basis of a questionnaire that was submitted to all participants of training events and that was explicitly aimed at reproducing the four levels of evaluation of Kirkpatrick’s model. The questionnaire included a plurality of indicators that were then aggregated into the four levels creating distinct variables of high internal consistency (as detected by their respective Cronbach’s alpha). Our results show a positive impact of training on university teachers for all four levels of evaluation. More specifically, the highest values arise for the first and second levels of evaluation (Reaction and Learning), while lower values arise for the third and fourth levels (Behaviour and Results). Different effects also emerge according to the career stage of the participants (young researchers, associate professors, full professors) and changes in adopted teaching methodologies arise between pre and post training activities.

College major choices are highly segmented by gender and generate persistent inequalities in the labour market at the disadvantage of women. The literature has underlined the role of gender stereotypes on college major choices and the costs both at individual and society level of the resulting mismatch of talents and wrong fields of education choices. Determinants of college major choices from a gender perspective are at the core of this paper which has also a special focus on the impact of gender stereotypes (implicit and explicit) and on the choice of economics as a college major. Microdata are generated by a field experiment involving different high schools in the last year of attendance when students are close to the college major choice. The schools are located in two Northern districts of Italy a country characterized by a very high gender gap in the labour market at the disadvantage of women. Activities include role models, board game addressing gender stereotypes in professional choices and documentaries highlighting the impact of gender stereotypes in the labour market. A questionnaire including Implicit association tests has been submitted to the sample exposed to the treatment and to the control groups to measure gender stereotypes, individual and household characteristics and the impact of the treatment on college major choices and their determinants. We find evidence of gender stereotypes among students, and – differentiating by gender –female students appear to have a higher level of implicit stereotypes than males. Female students participating in the experiment appear to increase their awareness concerning college major choice and their propensity for STEM and for finance over marketing within the economics courses whereas male students taking part in the activities appear to be more interested in pursuing higher education instead of looking for a job, are more uncertain about their future field of studies and increase their interest in humanities while showing a higher propensity for marketing instead than finance when compared to the male students’ control group.

.This paper analyses the impact on students’ performance of the introduction of team-based learning (TBL, for short) teaching methodology. TBL has proven to be a powerful and versatile teaching strategy that enables teachers to take small group learnings to a new level of effectiveness according to the empirical evidence of its implementation worldwide since 2020. The analysis involves various cohorts of macroeconomics students at the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia Marco Biagi Department of Economics (DEMB). We exploit the structural break in the academic year 2017/2018 in which TBL was introduced in the Macroeconomics Course at the second year of the Bachelor Programme in Business and management to test the impact of TBL teaching methods in learning outcomes also considering students’ heterogeneity. Within this perspective of inclusiveness, special attention is given to gender bias in TBL effectiveness and outcomes in Macroeconomics measured by using Macroeconomics exam grades. Comparisons between groups were made using econometric and statistical analysis on a rich and self-constructed database. The latter, composed using multiple administrative and primary data sources, allows controlling for student socio-demographic characteristics and their academic careers. The econometric analysis starts with a multivariate regression to estimate the TBL’s effect on grades in macroeconomics, then moves to a probit analysis that returns the probability of passing the exam and concludes with a Cragg model (two-part Hurdle model) which offers improved estimates by correcting for the censored dependent variable. Regardless of gender, a positive impact of TBL on students’ performance is detected. Treated, especially if female, improves macroeconomic scores, and this is consistent with the literature reviewed. On the other hand, males benefit more from the treatment through a significant increase in the likelihood of passing the exam.

Home-based telework is becoming more and more common and with it the dematerialization of the work-life boundary. If from one side this working form increases the worker’s discretion, on the other hand it could seriously damage his/her well-being. This paper explores the influence of organizational conditions on work-related stress of a sample of home-based teleworkers drawn from the 2015 European Working Conditions Survey. It also uses the 2020 Living, Working and COVID-19 Survey to analyse the evolution of the gender differences in telework from 2015 to 2020. We find that the perceived stress of the home-based teleworkers is mainly due to the forms of working time arrangements and work intensification, for example the lack of discretion over work pace, working with tight deadlines and at high speed, working during free time to meet work demands. Female teleworkers also perceive that the lack of discretion in the working time arrangement and the lack of recovery time increase their stress. The analysis also documents a sharp increase in the perceived level of stress from 2015 to 2020 and higher levels of stress in women mainly due to work-life balance problems. This gender stress differential is reasonably constant in the two periods and hence both in the emergency and in normal telework. The general agreement in the literature that telework is as a way of promoting better wellbeing and work-life balance for workers especially for women is not supported by our findings.