International Review of Economics Education最新文献

The goal of this study is to introduce and evaluate a novel online simulation method built upon buyer-seller roleplay in a private social network for housing economics education. This is at a time when classroom disruptions due to COVID-19 require new methods to engage with students asynchronously. While methods like game-based learning simulations show potential to engage, they are often high-fidelity and require high setup costs. This is also the case for existing housing simulation games, for which besides being single player mode, costs for technical customization and learning curve reduces adoption in the classroom. In this context, the use of social networks to facilitate a low-fidelity buyer-seller housing roleplay may provide flexible learning goals and peer engagement, but its implementation is unclear. This gap in knowledge has motivated this investigation, for which undergraduate students in Hong Kong participated in property buyer-seller roleplay. Students posted available property and buyers bid for them using comments on a private social media app, Soqqle. Post-course reflective essays suggest that various student needs were met, indicating that the setup supports flexible learning outcomes. Authentic learning outcomes like knowledge transfer, reflection, challenge, and realism were also experienced. Further, although statistically insignificant due to lack of observations, a regression analysis shows that experiencing and overcoming challenges (β = 3.996, p = .082) provides the biggest learning outcome (R² = 0.325). A focus group with other simulation practitioners suggests the benefits of this method could extend to them. The findings of this study can benefit practitioners of game-based learning looking for quick and easy methods to introduce online roleplay for real-life scenarios in their classes.

In this paper, we document gender and race/ethnic achievement gaps over four semesters of an intermediate-level economics course. We find that, on average, under-represented minority (URM) students score lower on assessments, and this racial achievement gap differs in important ways for male and female students. Male URM students earned lower final exam scores than male non-URM students, but this gap disappears when we control for differences in prior preparation. In contrast, female URM students performed significantly worse than female non-URM students, even after controlling for prior preparation. We also analyze scores on low-stakes assessments and surveys about study behavior and find that the theory of stereotype threat most consistently explains our results. As these issues are unlikely to be unique to our classroom, we offer several potential pedagogical approaches found in the literature to address the differences in prior preparation and stereotype threat that underlie observed achievement gaps.

This study employs a random control trial experimental design to compare student learning outcomes in situations with live lectures and situations with ‘captured’ – virtually recorded asynchronous – lectures. Students across five sections of introductory microeconomics were randomly assigned to attend a lecture in person or virtually. They were then quizzed on the material covered. Later in the semester, the same students were switched to the opposite modality and quizzed again on new material. An important feature of the experimental design was that the topics differed significantly in complexity. We find that with the more difficult topic, students watching recorded lectures performed better than those attending live lectures. For an easier topic, however, the opposite was true. Male students benefitted most from lecture capture, particularly on the more difficult topic. Women students were largely indifferent to changes in lecture modality.