Report
of the Committee on Economic Education
(Draft of December 31, 2002)
Note: Final version will appear in May 2003 AER
Papers & Proceedings
The Committee sponsored two sessions at the 2003
ASSA meetings. Gregory Mankiw chaired
the first session on “Preparing and Improving the Economics Teacher.” It included three papers that are published
in this issue of the Papers and Proceedings. The paper by William Walstad and William Becker reported the
results from a survey of all Ph.D.-granting economics departments on the
instructional use and teaching preparation of graduate students. The paper by Michael Salemi described a
model program for providing teacher education for graduate students in
economics based on experiences at several universities. The paper by Rae Jean Goodman, Mark Maier,
and Robert Moore explained how regional workshops on teaching are used to
improve the instructional skills of economics faculty. KimMarie McGoldrick, Stephen Buckles, and
Thomas Husted served as discussants for the session.
The second session focused on “Outcomes Assessment
in Undergraduate Economics” and was chaired by William Becker. The paper by Paul Grimes, Meghan Millea, and
Thomas Woodruff studied the influence of student perceptions of internal and
external control on their evaluations of teaching in a macro principles course.
The second paper by Joseph
Santos and Angeline Lavin assessed
student outcomes from a money and banking course that included an economics
research component for undergraduates. The third paper by William
Bosshardt investigated the factors affecting student drops and failures in
principles courses. The fourth paper by
Wayne Grove and Tim Wasserman examined factors associated with changes in grades
during an undergraduate education for an initial cohort of principles
students. The session discussants were
William Becker, Masanori Hashimoto, Kim Sosin, and Gary Fournier. These papers will likely be published in a
future issue of the Journal of Economic Education.
The Committee continues to believe that
teaching-methods workshops provide a valuable service to association members,
so for the seventh year, the Committee sponsored a one-day teaching workshop as
part of the AEA program at the ASSA meetings.
There were three workshops. In the
first workshop, Myles Boylan and Mary Huber made presentations on funding for
projects to advance the teaching and learning of economics. The session included poster contributions on
funded teaching projects from eight economics professors: Anne Bresnock (SimEcon: Economic issues and principles); Charles
Holt (Veconlab); Sheryl Ball and Catherine Eckel (Classroom experiments for
large lecture courses: A wireless
solution); Scott Simkins (Just in time teaching); Tod Porter (An Internet
simulation for microeconomics); Rochelle Ruffer (Identifying conceptional
problems in principles of microeconomics); and, Laurence Malone (Peer critical
learning in microeconomic principles).
Mark Maier chaired the session.
The second workshop focused on web games and strategy—recipes
for interactive learning in economics.
Laura Razzolini served as chair for the session. Charles Holt and Lisa Anderson made
presentations at this technology-based workshop.
The third workshop, organized by Rae Jean Goodman
and Mark Maier, was entirely devoted to poster presentations of teaching
ideas. The session included thirteen
interesting contributions from 19 economics professors: Calvin Blackwell (Eliciting information from
students in an incentive compatible manner); Marcelo Clerici-Arias and Mark
Tendall (Using an automated student response system in the classroom); Donald
Coffin (An industry-based course in introductory microeconomics); Maya Federman
(Small group discussions); Alan Haight (The grade tax: A civics lesson); Gail Mitchell Hoyt, Rachel
Lange, and Christine Lloyd (A dramatic change for the dismal science: Using dramatic presentations in a
microeconomics principles course); Brooks Kaiser and Charles Weise (A financial
system for principles courses); Jennifer Keil (Pre and post knowledge check in
microeconomics principles); Peter Kressler and Christine Johnston (Innovative
teaching: What is the missing link);
Robert Moore (A different introductory economics sequence); Steven Myers and
Michael Nelson (Teaching economics on the web—A study of student success);
Nichols Noble (A service learning project in a principles of economics course);
and, Robert Rycroft (Estimating a plane:
Economics in the third dimension).
Another CEE initiative is a project to provide
matching funding for regional workshops that are held at colleges and
universities to improve the teaching of economics. At the above poster session, Michael Salemi also made a
presentation to explain how economics faculty members could organize such
workshops and apply for funding. Eight
workshop proposals received matching funding from a grant provided by the
Kazanjian Foundation. The workshops
were conducted at the Bowling Green University, Midwest Economic Association
meetings, U.S. Naval Academy, Western Economic Association meetings, Idaho
State University, University of Richmond (held in Wilmington, NC), University
of Memphis, and Claremont-McKenna College.
A total of 225 faculty members attended the workshops. The participants gave a very positive rating
to the experience (73 percent rated them as a better use of their time than the
alternative and 25 percent rated them as just as good a use of their time as
the alternative). This project will be
continued for 2003 as a result of additional funding from the Kazanjian
Foundation.
In May 2000, a Research Projects Conference
was sponsored by the Committee to prepare proposals to advance economic
education. A total of $675,000 in
funding was secured for three projects:
(1) long-term effects of learning economics; (2) efficiency in the use
of technology in economic education; and (3) a study of Ph.D. education in
economics. Research papers from these
three projects will be presented at the 2004 ASSA meeting.
This past summer the Committee cooperated with the Journal
of Economic Education and the National Council on Economic Education to
establish an electronic journal for working papers in economic education. It will be called the Economics Research
Network Educator. ERN Educator
is part of the Social Science Research Network (SSRN) to which many economists
subscribe.
The Committee continues to track the number of
bachelor’s degrees conferred in economics.
The data that John Siegfried collects from the AEA Universal
Questionnaire show that the number of economics majors continues to rise above
the trough-levels reached in 1995–1996.
The number of B.A. degrees in economics awarded in 2001–2002 was 13.5
percent higher than in 2000–2001, 24 percent higher than in the1995–1996
trough, but only 84 percent of the total in 1991–1992, the date of the cycle’s
peak. More detailed information on the
survey results is available in a forthcoming report (Siegfried, Journal of
Economic Education, Summer 2003).
Information about the Committee on Economic
Education and its activities is available on the World Wide Web by connecting
to the American Economic Association web page at www.vanderbilt.edu/AEA and choosing
the “Committee” option.
William
Walstad, Chair
Department
of Economics
University
of Nebraska-Lincoln, 68588-0402
Tel: 402 472 2333
Fax: 402 472 9700
E-mail: wwalstad1@unl.edu