Study: College students learn better with same-race TAs

Having a teaching assistant of the same race leads to better grades, according to a new working paper from the National Bureau of Economic Research.

“Results show a positive and significant increase in course grades when students are assigned TAs of a similar race/ethnicity,” researchers wrote in the study. “These effects are largest in classes where TAs are given advanced copies of exams and when exams had no multiple choice questions. We also find that assignment to similar race TAs positively affect both section and office hour attendance, suggesting that TA-student match quality and role model effects are the primary drivers of the results.”