Integrating the Economic Way of Thinking into US History Courses

Abstract

Can the economic way of thinking be integrated into high school and middle school US history courses? We introduce an instrument, the Test of Economic Thinking, to assess student’s ability to apply the economic way of thinking. In a pilot study involving 120 high school and middle school students across three states, we implement the Test of Economic Thinking to assess the effectiveness of integrating economic concepts into US history courses using the supplemental Economic Episodes in American History textbook. The results indicate that the supplemental textbook improves student’s ability to apply economic concepts. The pilot study suggests that integrating the economic way of thinking into high school US history can be fruitful and that the Economic Episodes in American History text can be a useful tool to facilitate the integration.