Economics Classroom Research Articles

Mindfulness Practices And Learning Economics

There is a growing interest among educators in teaching and learning practices based on mindfulness, a concept derived from eastern meditative traditions. This paper describes how mindfulness practices and concepts can be used to enhance the student’s learning experience in beginning economics courses. Specific areas with a high potential for learning enhancement are identified: grasping abstract economic concepts, seeing beyond obvious economic consequences, and finding one’s own ethical framework in economic analysis. Current research linking mindfulness practices to student development in these areas is examined and practical methods are offered to integrate mindfulness into the economics classroom.

An Increase in Imported Goods, Imports Have Increased – The Role of Teaching Pronunciation in an Esp Classroom

Abstract The fact that English has become the major lingua franca of international business and economy has influenced the goal of teaching pronunciation in an ESP economics classroom: the nativelike speaking skill as the ultimate goal has been superseded by a more realistic and more reasonable goal - the adoption of intelligibility and communicability skills. We argue here, however, that pronunciation skills should be included in a university level ESP economics course syllabus. We point out common pronunciation errors made by economics students due to first-language transfer, exemplifying our points with various types of exercises aiming at overcoming their pronunciation problems.

Learning space for food: exploring three Home Economics classrooms

Studies on children’s learning about food commonly focus on socialisation within a temporal perspective taking an interest in linear and developmental issues, where the home is assumed as the primary place for learning food skills that should be deepened through education in Home Economics. Home Economics concern topics that are related to our private domestic life but education takes place in the public setting of school which indicates that here is a tension built into the subject. This article explores how a classroom can be understood and explored beyond a temporal framework when studying children’s learning about food in Home Economics. Observations from three Swedish Home Economics classrooms are explored with a spatial perspective concerning material, network and power aspects. A spatial perspective makes the challenges of Home Economics visible which can aid in further development of professional methods for teaching about food.

Technology in the Aid of Delivering Economic Content to Teachers: Virtual Economics v. 3

We examine the impact on student achievement of a face-to-face teacher workshop that also provides economics instructors with access to an electronic library of instructional and reference material for their economics classroom—Virtual Economics v. 3 (VE3), offered by the Council for Economic Education. Based on evidence using student and teacher-level administrative data from the Georgia Department of Education and controlling for students’ prior achievement in mathematics, we find evidence that the VE3 workshop experience increases student achievement in high school economics. Our difference-in-differences estimates suggest that teacher participation in the VE3 workshop increases student achievement by 0.061 standard deviations on Georgia’s high stakes economics end-of-course test. Future research should seek estimating the effect of treatments in education such as theVE3workshop using randomized controlled trials (RCT).

Teaching With Data In The Principles Of Macroeconomics Course

Economic data play an important role in the study of macroeconomics. Teaching with data through interactive classes can engage students more fully in the learning process. Although the pedagogy of teaching with data has been widely applied in the undergraduate science classroom, its extension to the economics classroom is rarely discussed. This paper attempts to fill in this paucity in the literature by discussing two examples of integrating economic data in a principles of macroeconomics course.

Can Online Learning Boost Academic Performance? A Microeconomics Study

This study of the 2007 cohort of Durban University of Technology students enrolled in its introductory microeconomics course examines whether the length of time they spend in the online economics classroom is associated with different levels of academic performance. The study, using linear regression analysis, finds that performance is significantly correlated not only with gender and academic ability, but also with the length of time students spend productively in the online classroom as reflected in their achievement in online assessments. A cautious interpretation of these results is that the study offers at least modest evidence of how motivation to engage in online learning may impact on performance.

Relation between Students' Perceptions of Social Studies Classroom Environment and Self-directed Learning: High School Economics Classroom

Relation between Students' Perceptions of Social Studies Classroom Environment and Self-directed Learning: High School Economics Classroom

Targeting Teaching: An International Economics Classroom Experiment

This article describes a general equilibrium market experiment that allows students to generate goods prices, exchange rates, and trade flows by trading with each other. Instructors can set experiment parameters, and output data are automatically generated as a spreadsheet file. Exchange rate and current account dynamics are the outcome of student production and trading decisions. The source code is available without restrictions on modification or use.

A Model of the Relative Income Hypothesis

James Duesenberry's (1949) relative income hypothesis holds substantial empirical credibility, as well as a rich set of implications. Although present in the pages of leading economics journals, the hypothesis has become all but foreign to the blackboards of economics classrooms. To help reintegrate the concept into the undergraduate economics curriculum, the author constructs a model of the relative income hypothesis to present a few of its important properties and implications. Negative spending externalities, the effect of public provision taxes on wasteful spending races, and the Pareto implications of universal income growth are illustrated within a two-good consumption space as a method of introducing this rich literature to a greater number of introductory and intermediate economics students.

An Instructional Exercise in Price Controls: Product Quality, Misallocation, and Public Policy

Price controls are a contentious topic in society and hence a good source for economics classroom engagement. The standard textbook analysis of price controls is lacking, however. This paper presents real-world examples and classroom exercises on the topic of price controls. The exercises complement the standard textbook analysis of price controls by including costs related to misallocation and quality degradation. The discussion questions and analytical exercises provide students with a broad view of price controls and their policy implications.

A Year in Review: The High School Journal in 1920

In 1920, the High School Journal had been up and running for a year and cost 15 cents an issue. Robert Goddard was ridiculed by the New York Times for predicting space travel (a retraction was printed in 1969), small countries like Ireland and Romania were fighting for their own governments, and American women voted for the first time' in a presidential election. Immigrants were coming in waves to the United States, and education was facing an existential crisis, wondering what its purpose was in this new booming economy. To explore the journal's role in this era, I take a look here at what the HSJ was covering ninety years ago. Pragmatism and Schooling As I write this piece, the University of North Carolina is holding a celebration of John Dewey's 150th birthday entitled, Democratic Education in the Spirit of John Dewey. Learned scholars are speaking of democracy in education, appropriating power to pupils, and finding happiness in one's occupation. And as I read the first issue of HSJ from 1920, I realize that the first notes of our educational song could be heard almost ninety years ago in the title of the first article: How Can the Aims and Purposes of Instruction be Made More Vital in Actual Practice? by Dr. Thomas Briggs of Teachers College. APA citation and pulling from others' work was long in the future for HSJ articles; Briggs bases his assertions on his own practice and the address to the Pennsylvania State Educational Congress. Briggs did not believe in pragmatism (the prevailing critical lens of the day), but in a golden rule which will guide without restricting (p. 1). He proposed the following three duties for schools: I. The first duty of the school is to train pupils to perform better the desirable activities that they are likely to perform anyway. II. Second, [to increase effectiveness] by increasing the amount and effectiveness of skilled supervision of instruction III. Third, [to increase effectiveness] by seeing that specific, definite, and worthy purposes are proposed by pupils or else comprehended, approved, and adopted by them as their own (p. 1). The Dewey scholars who spoke and discussed this past weekend would have to agree entirely with Briggs' assertions. Briggs argues for better vocational training, a topic still in contention today. He argues for better teachers, and when in education have not argued for better-trained teachers? And finally, he argues for democratic education, involving students in their own instruction--exactly the purpose of the 2009 conference. His reasons are actually (despite his protests) quite pragmatic; he tells us: pupils should be prepared to do better what they will be constantly called on in actual life to do--find problems and devise means of effectively solving them. Nowhere except in the classroom or in the lowest grades of employment are human beings regularly told exactly what to do, furnished all the necessary data and only those, and expected to find their satisfaction in the approval of a taskmaster (p. 1). Briggs believes that by following his proposals, we should go a long way toward ridding the schools of the wasteful and all too common spirit of 'getting-by' (p. 1). In this day of high stakes testing and rote memorization of material, one wonders how far have come in meeting Briggs' standards (or Dewey's)--or how far away have traveled. Briggs does not suggest that vocational training and practicality should replace theory and discipline, and neither do authors in the rest of the issue. Two particular articles show translational theory in the classroom of 1920 and are of note. The first, Observations on Visiting Home Economic Classes, by Edna Coith (then the State Supervisor of Home Economics for North Carolina), describes visiting two Home Economics classrooms in North Carolina. …

More significant and intentional learning in the economics classroom

AbstractBy using Fink's taxonomy to shape new learning goals and creating new learning and assessment activities, two teachers succeeded in raising students' awareness of the value of their courses and enabled them to become more reflective learners in the process.

Hot Off the Presses: Podcasting for the Economics Classroom

Despite the recent interest and production of quality podcasts freely available online, there are relatively few podcasts available for K-12 teachers of economics. We see this as a missed opportunity given the real-time and real-world nature of economics. We have created the Econocast (http://econocast.org) website to help spark teachers’ imaginations to leverage podcasting in the economics classroom and to help make the publication process easier. In this article, we offer a definition of podcasting, discuss how podcasting might support the economics curriculum, and present a case study of a teacher's development of an “iReport” economics podcast for her ninth grade classroom. We invite readers to help realize the potential of podcasting to engage students in meaningful learning of economics concepts.

A Pedagogical Model of the Relative Income Hypothesis

Duesenberry's (1949) relative income hypothesis holds substantial empirical credibility, as well as a rich set of implications. Though familiar to the pages of leading economics journals, the hypothesis is all but foreign to the blackboards of economics classrooms. With the intention of introducing the concept to undergraduate economics students, this paper constructs a simple pedagogical model of the relative income hypothesis. The model extends upon the standard consumer choice problem to help students understand how positional considerations might influence a representative consumer's utility maximizing behavior. Properties and implications of the hypothesis, including negative spending externalities, wasteful spending races, the effect of forced retirement savings programs upon wasteful spending races, and the Pareto implications of universal income growth, are illustrated within a two-good consumption space.

Stuck Behind the Math: Just How Helpful Can One Expect Technology to be in the Economics Classroom?

This paper studies the efficacy and motivation for using technology when explaining mathematical concepts in economics pedagogy. It links practice with theory by examining the use of technology in light of current literature on active and cooperative learning in economics in conjunction with extensive research in mathematics education concerning the effectiveness of technology in teaching. Suggestions on how to implement teaching strategies with computer technology are discussed within the context of the computer algebra system, Maple. A variety of specific applications using Maple technology are provided in an online appendix.

Teaching Economics with Short Stories

Using short stories as supplements to traditional economics courses or as the part of nontraditional economics or interdisciplinary courses helps students to grasp economic concepts while diversifying instructional methods in the classroom. Short stories centered on economic concepts fit well in the long tradition of teaching by parable. Students derive great pleasure from reading short stories and they possess great skill analyzing short stories, seeming quick to grasp even very subtle meaning in the narrative. The paper describes the pedagogical value of this literary form and presents numerous short stories apt for use in the economics classroom.

Technology in Support of Good Pedagogy: Electronic Response Systems and Peer Instruction in an Economics Classroom

College instructors and students participated in a pilot project at The University of Akron to enhance student learning through the use of a common teaching pedagogy, peer instruction. Peer instruction is a teaching pedagogy which can be used to engage students through activities that require each student to apply the core concepts being presented and then to explain these concepts to their fellow students. The teaching pedagogy was supported by the use of technology, an electronic response system, which recorded student responses. We report our experiences in using this technology enhanced teaching pedagogy and provide another example of an active and collaborative learning tool that instructors can use to move beyond chalk and talk. Preliminary results from student and instructor surveys are also reported.

Outcome and process evaluation of a Norwegian school-randomized fruit and vegetable intervention: Fruits and Vegetables Make the Marks (FVMM)

This study reports the effect of the Fruits and Vegetables Make the Marks intervention, a school-based fruit and vegetable intervention consisting of a home economics classroom component and parental involvement and encouraged participation in the Norwegian School Fruit Programme, all delivered during the school year of 2001-02. Nine randomly chosen schools received the intervention and 10 schools served as control schools. Participating pupils completed questionnaires at baseline (September 2001), at Follow-up 1 (May-June 2002) and at Follow-up 2 (May 2003). A total of 369 pupils (69%; mean age, 11.3 years at baseline) participated in all three surveys. No effect of the intervention was found for intake of fruit and vegetables eaten at school or all day, neither at Follow-up 1 nor at Follow-up 2. On analysing the effects on potential mediators, significant differences between intervention and control groups were found for Awareness of the five-a-day recommendations only. The intervention programme was rated as very good by the teachers, and the pupils reported that they enjoyed it. However, the intervention failed to change fruit and vegetable intake, probably because it did not succeed in changing the pupils' preferences for or the accessibility of fruit and vegetables--the two strongest correlates of children's fruit and vegetable intake.

The Use of Role-Playing in the Teaching of Economics

This paper provides a framework for using role-playing exercises in the economics classroom. Also known as goal-based scenarios, role-playing exercises are based on the theory that students learn more effectively through cognitive conflict. Such exercises give students the opportunity to consider opposing theories and positions in an uncertain environment. Using two scenarios - one for a course on economic development and the other for an intermediate class in macroeconomics - the author provides step-by-step explanations of how role-playing can be used to provide students with a deeper appreciation of the complexities encountered in formulating economic policies. Finally, this paper demonstrates how these exercises can be augmented with writing assignments that may qualify a course for a writing-across-the-curriculum (WAC) designation.

Improving Assessment in University Economics

The author discusses the following seven issues affecting assessment of undergraduates in universities: decisionmaking and the selection of tests, the use of written and oral assignments to measure learning, the characteristics of grades and portfolios for evaluating students, opportunities for self-assessment and feedback to instructors, retention of learning and the testing for higher-ordered thinking, the psychology of students in the economics classroom, and the development of new tests as public goods. The author suggests ways that economics faculty can add new dimensions to their assessment practices, improve their understanding of assessment choices, use assessment to enhance the quality of student thinking, and conduct research studies on assessment questions.