Senior Grace Foster’s honors thesis was selected as the best paper of the undergraduate sessions at the 2012 Midwest Economics Association annual meeting.
Foster, an economics major, was one of twelve undergraduate students selected to present her work at the meeting held March 30-April 1 in Evanston, lll.
In her thesis, “The Effects of Single-Sex Education on Short and Long Term Extracurricular Participation,” Foster uses data from the National Educational Longitudinal Study of 1988 and advanced econometric techniques to examine the effect of single-sex education on a student’s decision to participate in extracurricular activities. Her findings suggest that single-sex schooling is beneficial to a student’s choice to participate in extracurricular activities in high school and in college. This result implies the benefits of single-sex schooling extend beyond an individual’s educational experience.
Foster worked under the guidance of Katy Rouse, assistant professor of economics and Steve DeLoach, professor of economics. Foster also presented her paper at the Eastern Economics Association annual conference in Boston, Mass., Elon’s Spring Undergraduate Research Forum and the Duke Economics Department Undergraduate Research Symposium.