Does High School Economics Help?

Abstract

Recently an increasing number of high schools have begun offering economics courses. Suggestions for improving these courses have been the subject of frequent discussion within the profession, including articles by Stigler (1963), Maher (1969), and the National Task Force on Economic Education (1961). Unfortunately, it is not clear that these courses are actually improving the economic knowledge of students who take them. Poorly trained teachers, insufficient time spent on complex and confusing issues, and insufficient grounding in related subjects may result in little learning, or even worse, greater confusion among students who take high school economics courses than among similar students who do not. Earlier studies of this question have reported mixed findings. Clayton (1964) found significant association between students having taken high school economics and their performance in university courses. However, he failed to control for other differences among university students. Moyer and Paden (1968) controlled for aptitude, mathematics training, high school size, sex, academic year, and major. They found that students with high school courses know significantly more than other students at the beginning of their principles course, but that this difference is eliminated by the end of the course. Harbury and Szreter (1970), in a study of British students, controlled for various factors and found that high school economics made no difference either at the beginning or end of the university principles course. Finally, Saunders (1970) reported that students with high school economics courses knew significantly more at the end of the term even though they worked significantly fewer hours on the principles course, other things equal. This paper reports the results of a study of Canadian students at the University of Western Ontario during the fall of 1974. The main findings are that, adjusting for other factors, students who had taken previous economics courses did not begin their principles course with significantly more knowledge, nor did they learn significantly more during the semester. Furthermore, they received significantly lower grades than students who had never taken an economics course before.