International Review of Economics Education最新文献

This meta-analysis considers the use of technology to facilitate learning in undergraduate economics courses. We ask what technologies have been adopted, who did the adopting, and how effectiveness was evaluated. A survey of 277 articles published between 2000 and 2022 demonstrates that while many of the technologies adopted for teaching reflected contemporary trends, studies of online and hybrid courses and flipped classrooms are now staples of the literature. Pedagogical studies that explore novel applications without quantifiable evaluative outcomes have declined substantially, whereas the number of studies that empirically estimate learning gains have doubled. Increasingly, researchers leverage random control trials and quasi-experiments.

This study investigates the perspectives of Economics academics regarding the impact of using text-generative AI (GAI) on teaching and assessment in the UK higher education (UKHE) sector, with a specific focus on essays. The survey of academics’ perceptions encompasses considerations of academic integrity, transferrable skills, and ethical GAI use. The responses unveiled a range of significant findings regarding the present condition of essay-based assessment in Economics education. The most prominent of which is that, while GAI development has introduced a new conflict between integrity concerns and essay-writing, Economics academics confirm that the latter continues to be important to their graduates. However, there is an emphasis on reshaping the format of conventional essays and refining traditional marking criteria. Elevating assessment questions along Bloom’s taxonomy is deemed vital for critical thinking and producing future-ready graduates. Respondents also recognise the need to impart ethical awareness among students when using GAI while exploring innovative pedagogies to develop and assess the new GAI skill set. Thus, our study challenges the dichotomy of pulling the plug on conventional essays and, instead, prompts a critical re-evaluation—resuscitation through reimagination. Finally, most express interest in learning more about GAI and its educational applications, either through self-experimentation or structured events and GAI training. Overall, the study reveals a complex topography of perspectives, highlighting the need for subtle, collaborative approaches as academics carefully evaluate strategies to leverage GAI’s potential while evolving assessments and pedagogies.

The modern-day classroom is characterized by academic diversity, with students from varied backgrounds and with different levels of prior knowledge. To cater to the diverse abilities of students, this paper explored the use of flipped learning as a teaching approach in an introductory economics course. We investigated the effectiveness of 40 pre-lecture videos covering basic concepts and 27 post-lecture tutorial videos focusing on practice in improving students' exam outcomes, especially for beginners in economics who may require more support from instructors than other students. We collected data about video engagement and students' grades in progress assessments. Surveys were conducted to gather students’ feedback regarding the usefulness of the videos on their learning. The findings showed that beginners engaged more with those videos, spent more time watching them compared to non-beginners. Furthermore, the study observed an improvement in beginners' exam performance, with their average grade increasing as a percentage of the average of non-beginners. These findings hold significance for instructors aiming to offer personalized assistance to students with varying levels of prior knowledge, thereby advancing educational practices in the field of economics.

This paper explains how the three-equation IS-MP-PC-model can be adapted to discuss macroeconomic adjustment in a monetary union. It introduces a two-country version that is used to illustrate the difficulties of macroeconomic adjustment in the presence of asymmetric demand and financial shocks. The level of analysis does not go beyond the level of a course in introductory macroeconomics. The adaption can be used by instructors in euro area countries to bridge the gap between the standard model and the macroeconomic issues that these countries face or by any instructor who wishes to analyze shocks in regions sharing the same currency. It also allows instructors to debate current policy issues with their students and thus motivate them for the field.

There has been very little change in how the economics profession teaches undergraduate students over the last 25 years. This study examines the effects of school, instructor, and departmental characteristics on teaching methods and materials used in undergraduate economics courses. We employ the regression framework originally used by Harter, Schaur, and Watts (2015a), but differentiate our work from prior research by using a single survey sample, separating descriptive statistics by course type, adding new dependent variables (e.g., use of adaptive learning technologies), and creating figures to represent predicted probabilities for a variety of variables. We find, among other things, that changes in departmental policies, such as teaching loads and class sizes, along with shifts in the composition and characteristics of faculty members (e.g., male vs. female or years of teaching experience) may have unintended consequences on instructors’ teaching practices. These findings have implications for school and departmental policies that could affect the quality of undergraduate economics course instruction.

In this paper, we document the design, development, and validation of a new multiple-choice assessment created to test student knowledge and understanding of probability and statistics concepts used in economics. High quality measures of student skills and understanding are useful for course and program evaluation, analysis of pedagogical innovation, and identifying misconceptions and gaps in students’ prerequisite knowledge in more advanced courses. Alternatives such as final examinations often do not provide the desired coverage and are difficult to compare across terms and institutions, and student evaluations of teaching (SETs) may reflect student sentiment rather than the quality of instruction and overall student learning. Until now, the only standard assessment appropriate for undergraduate economics courses was the Test of Understanding College Economics (TUCE), which tests introductory economics knowledge.

Using a quasi-experimental research design, we examine the efficacy of one type of cooperative learning pedagogy (think-pair-share exercises) in the microeconomic principles course. Students in the treatment group engaged in think-pair-share exercises with an assigned partner throughout the semester. Those in the control completed the same exercises but did so individually. All students took the Test of Understanding in College Economics (TUCE) at the beginning and end of the semester to allow us to determine any achievement gains and whether these gains differ by treatment. Following Walstad and Wagner (2016) and Smith and Wagner (2018), we decompose student performance to consider positive learning – adjusting for guessing – on the TUCE. We find no significant effect of cooperative learning on guessing-adjusted positive learning measures.

Using pop culture to illustrate economics concepts is a growing trend among economics instructors. This paper embraces this trend and contributes by exploring the opportunities that using video clips from Netflix Originals series provides to economics instructors. We created lecture plans based on 12 Netflix Originals series allowing instructors to illustrate more than 25 economics concepts presented in principles of economics courses. The shows listed in this paper are from Africa, the Middle East, Asia, Europe, Australia, and the Americas. Therefore, this paper's lecture plans allow students to learn a wide range of concepts using series from various parts of the world. Besides geographical diversity, our resources enable instructors to expose students to multiple forms of diversity, such as languages, cultural, ethnic, and sexual identities.

We study the impact that the choice of data visualization tool has on student ability to create a graph and interpret the information contained in it. We use a systematic random assignment approach and control for student demographic and academic characteristics. We compare the use of spreadsheets to the use of FRED (Federal Reserve Economic Data) among 471 undergraduate students of statistics for business and economics. We find that although there is no statistical difference between groups in the number of started assignments, the number of completed FRED assignments is significantly larger than the number of completed Google Sheets assignments. With that caveat, we find no association between the choice of data visualization tool and the proportion of correctly built graphs, average frustration, and perceived difficulty reported by students when building the graph. We document lower confidence in the task among female students and students who used FRED.

There is an extensive literature asserting the undisputable educational value of games. Inspired by a popular CBS TV show, this paper presents a Survivor-style game that instructors can implement in any economics course. At first, students play in teams, then individually. This encourages both teamwork and independent learning. We also conduct an experiment to compare a control and a treatment group in terms of course scores and attendance. We find that students who have played Survivor have statistically better performance and better attendance than their peers in the control group. In light of our findings, we recommend incorporating such active-learning activities in economics classes. Integrating fun and engaging components to the “chalk-and-talk” teaching approach adds important intangible benefits.