Observations on the Use of Textbooks in the Teaching of Principles of Economics

Abstract

My assignment today is to discuss the uses and potential abuses of textbooks in the principles of economics course.' As I have dealt with my views on teaching macroeconomics and on the use and abuse of graphs in the principles course in a previous issue of this journal, I shall not discuss these matters in depth here. Before I present some of my opinions concerning this issue, I believe it is only proper for me to provide a little background. I have been teaching principles of economics at Stanford on and off for almost ten years. In the course at Stanford-as in the principles course at most other universities-the course instructor presents several lectures per week to throngs of undergraduates, mostly freshmen and sophomores, who also meet once a week with a graduate teaching assistant in small sections of twenty-five students. I am aware that there are other modes of teaching principles at other universities, perhaps the second most common being several meetings a week with a graduate teaching assistant and periodic professional lectures to the entire course enrollment. There is also substantial variance in the length and nature of time devoted to principles of economics at various universities. Perhaps most common is a two-quarter or a two-semester course, partly reflecting the traditional micro/ macro division, which is becoming decreasingly sensible in teaching principles (how anyone can be serious about teaching macro to students who have not had micro, and simultaneously avoid repeating much of what is taught in the micro half of the course, is becoming increasingly incomprehensible). In other universities, a one-quarter or one-semester introduction, designed both as a feed-in to intermediate micro or macro for majors and as a general service course for all students, is offered. Some universities even have the luxury of offering both options. Although information on textbook use and sales is notoriously unreliable, as near as anyone can tell far more than one million college students a year take the principles of economics course. Also, studies of retention levels indicate that, for whatever reason, our students are not retaining for even a year or two much of what we try to teach them.