The Effectiveness of Teaching Assistants A Note on the Use of Graduate Teaching Assistants in the Principles Course

The use of graduate teaching assistants (GTAs) in the principles of economics course is a common practice at large public and private universities. Little effort has been made to evaluate the effectiveness of GTAs in comparison to alternative instructional procedures. This is perhaps explainable in part in that GTAs themselves are temporary staff; they teach several years until their degree is completed and then take a position at another institution. But the practice of using GTAs is well-established and reasonably permanent. The evaluation of GTAs is therefore of obvious importance.