Widening access and participation for learning introductory microeconomics: using students' own contextualised storytelling

Abstract

The fear of mathematics has long posed a barrier to wider participation and access for students to make sense of introductory microeconomics. The use of students' own written, contextualised stories as an assessment task was used to address the problem. Data was collected from a survey of 122 undergraduate and postgraduate students at an Australian leading research-intensive university to evaluate the impact on student learning. Preliminary findings suggested students' own contextualised stories helped them to meaningfully connect their learning to personal life experiences, link their learning to topical news events, and to appreciate the value of learning economics. Postgraduate students tended to value using contextualised stories twice as much as undergraduate students. The assessment task provides teachers of introductory micro economics insights into the value of students' own contextualised storytelling for learning, while also having implications for wider access and participation of mathematically challenged students from diverse backgrounds.