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Abstract

This Article will evaluate the impact of the confluence of two factors- gender and the availability of a credit/no-credit grading option- on student performance in Professor Craver's Legal Negotiating course at George Washington University. Our empirical assessment will analyze the results achieved on negotiation exercises and on course papers by the 612 male and female law students who took Professor Craver's course over the past eleven years. Do a greater percentage of female students take the Legal Negotiating course on a credit/no-credit basis, when that option is available, than do their male cohorts? Are the woman students who take the course on a credit/no-credit basis motivated more by a desire to avoid the discomfort associated with overt competition than by a desire to earn an easy two-credit hours in a skills course? If so, the credit/no-credit female students might work as diligently as their graded classmates causing the negotiation exercise and course paper performances of credit/no-credit females to exceed those of credit/no-credit males who may elect the credit/no-credit alternative not to avoid competition, but to guarantee themselves a "credit" with a minimal amount of effort.

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