TEACHING TOOLS: TEACHING METHODS IN UNDERGRADUATE ECONOMICS

TEACHING TOOLS: TEACHING METHODS IN UNDERGRADUATE ECONOMICS

WILLIAM E. BECKER and MICHAEL WATTS*

Lectures have long been the dominant pedagogical approach in undergraduate economics courses, but they are certainly no longer the exclusive approach. Much 4 the recent soul-searching in the discipline, dealing with the desirable characteristics 4 economics programs and their graduates, has largely ignored the issue of promoting the use o f innovative and more active forms of teaching and learning. We reuiew a considerable literature on new teaching approaches, developed by economists over the past twenty-five years, and argue that this should also be a part o f the current debate about curriculum and training r+ms for the profession.

I. INTRODUCTION

In 1970 Nobel Laureate George Stigler argued that ”economics belongs in everyone’s education once we have learned how to teach it.” But because the logic of economics is not easy to learn or teach, he concluded that ”Economics is not yet ready to be made a part of the basic curriculum of all educated men” [p. 801. We now have new models for teaching economics. In fact, as in other areas of economics, we have competing models, with new approaches being offered to sup- plement extensively, if not replace entirely, the lecture pedagogy used nearly exclu- sively by economists at the time Stigler’s comments were published. Yet in major Commission and Committee reports and daily conversations held in faculty lounges around the world, alternatives to the lecture approach, in which the teacher often serves as a preacher and students as passive receptacles into which great thoughts and wisdom are poured, still

. * Professors of Economics at Indiana University and Purdue University, respectively. Becker is the Ed- itor and Watts the Associate Editor for the Instruction Section of the Journal 4 Economic Education.

appear to be either unknown or tacitly dismissed as unworkable.

In this journal, for example, McCloskey [1992] tells of an exchange between George Stigler and Milton Friedman. Friedman argued that while individuals pursue their self-interest they are often ignorant and require education to see that something they thought was in their per- sonal or national interest was not-e.g., tariffs and quotas. Stigler called Friedman a preacher. He argued that people find their own self-interest with or without education, and that no amount of preach- ing or lecturing about economics would change that self-interest.

In the “Report of the Commission on Graduate Education in Economics” by Krueger et al. [19911, considerable attention was given to bringing “real-world issues into the classroom.” But the Commission’s assumed instructional mode was still the lecture:

It is our impression that most Ph.D. programs devote little or no attention to teaching or encouraging the development of expository sk &....We suspect the lack of emphasis on communication in most Ph.D. programs reflects partly the scarcity of teaching time, partly

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instructors’ lack of confidence in their ability to teach communications skills, and partly a judgment that the ap- propriate style of professional communication is something students can figure out for themselves by watching their teachers. [p. 10491

The report of the Committee on College Faculty by Kasper et al. 119911, represent- ing the nation’s premiere liberal arts col- leges, emphasized the need for breadth in content coverage in economists’ graduate training, but did not even mention the need for breadth in instructional methods, or training in those areas.

Despite these btentional or uninten- tional slights, in literature from the past twenty-five years we found that many economists have spent a great deal of time developing and applying new teaching methods to actively engage students in the learning process. In what follows we sum- marize those alternative approaches to make it easier for others to consider and access these articles on innovative instructional methods in economics.

II. CLASSROOM GAMES, SIMULATIONS, AND LABORATORIES

Although Edward Chamberlin and others working in the area of imperfect competition were developing artificial markets in the classroom as early as the 1940s, Joseph and Saunders I19701 were perhaps the first economists to publish an extensive account on how to use such games to teach basic economic concepts. The approach soon proved to be quite popular, at least with the developers of these activities. The National Council on Economic Education (then known as the Joint Coun- cil on Economic Education) published the first edition of its Guide to Games and Simulations for Teaching Economics in 1971, written by Lewis and Wentworth, with references to some ninety different activities and publications.

In recent years commercially published games and simulations in economics have continued to appear, often featuring main-

frame econometric models or microcomputer programs written specifically as a classroom simulation. Examples of such activities include Blackburn and Case 119851; Gold, Pray, and Dennis [19841; and Lumsden and Scott t19951. Yoho and Walstad t19901 recently published a review article on microcomputer software for principles courses.

Perhaps more novel are the articles that have been published to explain the pedagogical advantages of a particular game or simulation in teaching a certain economic idea or concept, or in overcoming gaps in student understanding that stubbornly persist after traditional textbook and lecture treatments. For example, Sulock El9901 described two games used to teach the free-rider problem, voting paradoxes, and the Coase Theorem. Hester [1991] developed an extensive simulation of a commercial banking system for use in large-lecture money and banking courses at the University of Wisconsin. Hemenway, Moore, and Whitney [1987] describe an oligopoly/cartel game that can be played in one class period, even by students who have no prior knowledge of oligopoly theory. Halstead [1989] developed a short simulation of central planning processes and problems. Yoho [1989] reviewed classroom exercises featuring the Fairmodel, which replicate different periods of recent U.S. economic history, involve students in sessions of economic forecasting, and simulate the effects of alternative macroeconomic stabilization policies.

Bartlett and King 119901 described far more extensive, department-wide experiences in setting up a computer laboratory for use in several different undergraduate economics courses at Denison University, under funding provided by the National Science Foundation. Some simulations are used in this laboratory, but there is also a concentrated effort to have students “gather their own data or use existing data bases to contribute to their own learning.

694 ECONOMIC INQUIRY

Students confront real problems, make de- cisions, and suggest policy actions in the laboratory” [p. 1861.

111. EXPERIMENTAL ECONOMICS

As Vernon Smith has noted 11981,369- 701, much of the earliest work in the young field of experimental economics was in- spired both by Chamberlain’s games on imperfect competition and as a way to introduce or partially replace traditional lectures on supply and demand in principles courses. The experimental framework usually lends a different cast to these classroom exercises than is seen in traditional games and simulations, to be sure; but largely because of the direct linkages to ongoing research programs, experimental economics appears to be a fertile new source of pedagogical innovations. In fact, the Fall 1993 issue of the Journal of Eco- nomic Education is devoted entirely to a collection of articles describing new classroom games and simulations developed out of the experimental economics framework.

Williams and Walker [1993] describe a computerized application of experimental economics developed at Indiana Univer- sity, in which students first act as monop- olists facing an uncertain demand curve, then as producers who must allocate an endowment of productive resources between a private good and a public good, and finally as traders in a market for a financial asset that yields an uncertain return over a long time horizon. Class- room experiments developed by Leuthold I19931 at the University of Illinois and Brock [1991] at the U.S. Air Force Acad- emy demonstrate the free-rider problem; and a trading activity developed by Wil- liams [1993] at Guilford College has students experience the effects of diverse skills, aptitudes, effort, and initial resource endowments in determining patterns of wealth distribution.

The April 1993 issue of Economic Inquiry features an article by Daniel Levy and

Mark Bergen that describes a multi- product barter trading experiment, which has been used successfully at the Univer- sity of Minnesota, the University of Cali- fornia-Irvine, Pepperdine University, the University of Chicago, and Union College. The experiment demonstrates the role and functions of money, for example by using ice cubes to show the desirability of a currency being made out of substances that are durable and stable.

After reviewing twelve articles on the classroom use of experimental economics, Fels [ 19931 offered an interesting summary and critique of these classroom activities:

It was natural that those doing experimental research would use experiments in their teaching and hold workshops to spread the word about their method. They have the skills to do it without excessive work, and there are spillovers in both directions .... The question now is what, if anything, do their accom- plishments ... have to contribute to other economics teachers.

In particular, Fels asked if the experimental economists had overcome the high start-up costs of giving up the lecture method in order to make greater pedagogical use of experiments and related classroom activities, and whether they offered evidence that students learned more by doing so, or responded more favorably to these instructional methods. He concluded that “the cost has been reduced to manageable proportions for some experiments but not others,” and that ”NO serious attempt ... has been made to evaluate any of them” [p. 3651.

To further reduce start-up costs for economists who want to begin using experimental economics in their teaching, since 1985 the National Science Founda- tion has funded summer training programs at the Economic Science Library at the University of Arizona. The classroom activities featured in this program are briefly described in an article by Wells [1991].

BECKER & WATTS TEACHING UNDERGRADUATE ECONOMICS 695

IV. WRITING ASSIGNMENTS IN ECONOMICS COURSES

One of the latest instructional reform movements appearing on many of the nation’s campuses and in many different subject areas is usually described as “Writ- ing Across the Curriculum.” This approach promotes the development of better student writing skills in the various content-area courses, not just in first-year English composition classes.

Many economists are clearly sympa- thetic to these goals and methods, and some have written brief articles about their experiences in these programs. Four such articles appeared in a recent issue of the Journal qf Economic Education. In the first, Hansen [19931 describes eight writing assignments-initially rather short and simple, but leading up to much more extensive projects-which he incorpo- rated into a labor economics course taught at the University of Wisconsin. Davidson and Gumnior [19931 describe class projects involving both an economist and a writing specialist as instructors in an international macroeconomics policy course at Indiana University. Cohen and Spencer [19931 report on a similar joint effort involving an economist and writing specialist in a history of economic thought course taught at York University. Abdalla 119931 required undergraduate students in international or development economics courses at Illi- nois State University to prepare a series of reports on economic conditions and policies in some nation, and later to expand the reports into more substantial term papers.

Although these authors all report that they and their students were generally pleased with the results of these writing assignments, both in terms of the amount of economics learned and improvements in students’ writing skills, Fels’s comments about the papers on experimental economics apply just as well here. Teach- ers with special interests and skills in writing are most likely to undertake and

support this kind of classroom project, and more likely to successfully “sell” the approach to their students. Articles report- ing their experiences with this approach can help to reduce start-up costs and un- certainty facing other instructors who are considering using such an approach; but in many of the more extensive projects (such as those involving “outside” writing specialists) those are still very serious con- cerns. And while there is some anecdotal and student-course-evaluation data lend- ing support to the use of such extensive writing projects, there has been no formal evaluation of gains in student learning under these programs, especially as compared to student learning and interest in traditional lecture classes, or across large samples of students and instructors.

V. ECONOMICS IN LITERATURE AND DRAMA

If assignments in economics courses can be used to develop good writing skills and, arguably, improve students’ learning and interest in economics at the same time, perhaps it is not surprising that it has also been claimed that good reading-in the form of literature and drama-can also be used to help students learn more economics, and motivate them to do so. Watts and Smith [1989] provide a list of seventy-five literary passages, written by over forty different authors, dealing with economic concepts and issues. They also review a surprisingly extensive group of academic articles and books dealing with the some- times complementary but often uneasy relationship between the literary and economic ways of thinking.

Many economists have used literary allusions and epigrams in their articles and textbooks, and under George Stigler’s editorship the Journal of Political Economy began printing a literary excerpt dealing with economics on the back cover of each journal issue. None of this has led, as yet, to a full-blown course or teaching method in undergraduate economics, but the


seeds for such programs are now available.

VI. THE NOBEL LECTURES AS A TEACHING TOOL

The first Nobel prize in economics was awarded in 1969. Each year, the recipient’s speech (or the recipients’ speeches, if there are multiple winners) is published in Le Prix Nobel and widely reprinted in economics journals. Since the immediate au- dience for these speeches is made up of many noneconomists, the speeches tend to be nontechnical and suitable for use in undergraduate courses. In fact, reviewing the first twenty-six lectures, delivered from 1969 to 1988, Zahka [19901 concluded that fifteen of the lectures were “readily adaptable to upper-level undergraduate economics courses and honors programs” while the remaining eleven were “especially geared to graduate school students, who are more skilled in econometrics’’ [p. 3971.

VII. TEACHING ECONOMICS WITH THE POPULAR AND BUSINESS PRESS

Turning to more prosaic forms of reading and writing, economics has been front- page news on a regular basis through most of this century, and seems to command a larger percentage of the typical daily newspaper’s front page with each passing decade. This has led economists such as Kelley [1983] to offer suggestions on how media reports can be used to help motivate and teach economics, and to an article by Marks 119881 offering specific ques- tions and assignments to use in having students deal with the economic concepts presented in a highly controversial article published in The New Republic.

On the other hand, Kennedy [1992] asked not what the press could do for economics, but what economics should be doing to help students better understand articles in the press. He found that five macroeconomic concepts are regularly and prominently featured in business sec- tions of leading national papers, but not

emphasized in macroeconomics textbooks. Accordingly, he called for more classroom and textbook coverage on: (1) the discouraged/encouraged worker hypotheses and paradoxical changes in unemployment statistics, (2) the role of inventory levels in macro forecasts of the national economy, (3) effects of money supply growth on the bond market, (4) the effects of inflation in foreign exchange markets, and (5) the effects of international differences in nominal interest rates on foreign exchange rates.

Actually, the national media has a pro- nounced effect on much of the work economists do, including their undergraduate teaching. For example, the reason so many departments and textbooks teach the principles of macroeconomics before microeconomics is that macroeconomic concepts and issues are more frequently discussed in the daily media, and therefore innately more interesting to a larger number of students. This instructional pattern was first popularized by Samuelson’s path- breaking principles textbook in 1948, but that has been somewhat reversed in the past two decades, with many newer textbooks and a large number of departments adopting a “micro-first” strategy in order to stress microeconomic concepts as key building blocks for many macroeconomic concepts and issues. The debate over the most effective order is still a lively one, however, and Alan Blinder [1991] for one sees the issue potentially coming down to a

- fundamental^ trade-off:

Suppose teaching micro first is sounder but macroeconomics brings in the crowds. Then putting micro first would mean that fewer students would be get- ting a slightly better education. Teachers of economics believe that some exposure to economics is good for students. So which is better: giving more students less, or giving fewer students more? The answer is not obvious ... [p. 2531

Wood [19851 argued that the full potential of using media reports in economics classes cannot be realized because too


many editors and reporters do not know economics, resulting in stories that are flawed with errors and important omis- sions. Cochran and Brown [19891 see jour- nalistic mistakes and inexact use of economic terms more in terms of an opportu- nity to show students the important differences between economic and journalis- tic analysis, but they too realize the inherent difficulty instructors face in trying to catch and correct all of the errant journal- istic passages in classes where students are expected to read financial newspapers or magazines throughout the semester.

A recent study by Becker, Walstad, and Watts [1994] finds empirical support for the argument that economists and journalists approach economic topics and issues quite differently. The authors compared survey responses by economists, joumal- ists (including members of the Society of American Business Editors and Writers), and teachers, using items dealing with a wide range of economics issues that were originally developed by Alston, Kearl, and Vaughn [1992]. It turned out that the general samples of economists and economic educators held very similar opinions on these items; and that the journalists, high school economics teachers, and other high school social studies teachers held very similar opinions; but the economists and economic educators had very different opinions from those expressed by the journalists and high school teachers. This has important implications for teachers of undergraduate economics courses, in terms of the knowledge and attitudes entering students are likely to hold on a variety of contemporary economic issues, whether or not they have taken a high school course on economics.

VIII. CASE STUDIES IN UNDERGRADUATE ECONOMICS CLASSES

The case method has long been a favor- ite teaching method in MBA programs at Harvard and other leading universities. Economists at Harvard and at the Pew

Case Study Center at Georgetown Univer- sity have developed a number of cases that may be purchased and used in upper division undergraduate courses. One full- blown textbook in macroeconomics by Ruckstad [1992], featuring several extensive case studies, was developed out of the Harvard programs. This particular textbook is succeeding in the marketplace (at least to the extent of reaching a third edition), and other books of cases dealing with topics usually taught in upper division undergraduate and graduate courses are starting to appear from other sources, such as Schumann, Rogers, and Reitzes 119921. At the introductory level, however, while there have been occasional attempts to develop a case-study textbook-most recently by Fels, Buckles, and Johnson [19791, so far as we have been able to determine-such efforts have not yet met with success in the marketplace, probably because of instructor reluctance to use the case method with students who have such limited backgrounds in economics.

Carlson and Schodt [19951 have also argued that ”one obstacle to the more widespread adoption of case teaching in economics, apart from a simple lack of information, appears to be that, in [the] minds of many economists, any shift from the traditional lecture format involves an inevitable sacrifice of theoretical rigor.” However, after attending a training ses- sion on the case method at Harvard and using the method in their own undergraduate and master’s levels classes, Carlson and Schodt claim that

Case method teaching, while no panacea for all that may ail contemporary instruction in economics, ...p rovide(s) a means for the active engagement of students with their learning, for having them do economics, and, ultimately, for their learning how to think like economists.

They also report that their students were very enthusiastic about the use of case studies, based on responses to course evaluation surveys.


Velenchik [19951 reports that the case method was particularly successful in mo- tivating students who were not economics majors but taking a policy-oriented undergraduate course in international economics to learn and apply economic theory, and also to enhance their skills in using and presenting quantitative evidence.

IX. COOPERATIVE LEARNING All of the above alternatives to the

standard lecture approach can be incorpo- rated into small group activities in which students work together toward a common goal, and the instructor serves as an ob- server who often provides feedback only after the groups complete various kinds of assignments. For example, in a classroom experiment exercise, student groups might act as firms trying to maximize profits, and the instructor serve as a government agency/overseer. Or, using the Nobel lectures, student teams might debate whether common themes, problems, and suggested policy remedies appear over time in various subsets of the lectures, with the instructor serving as a moderator.

For large classes, a simple cooperative exercise called “Think, Pair, Share” re- quires only a few minutes to do, but provides a break in standard lectures that actively involves students and allows instructors to quickly assess what students know. Students are required to think about a question posed by the instructor; com- pare, discuss, and refine their answers with a neighboring student; and share their responses with the class if their team is called on by the instructor.

Maier and Keenan 119941 describe the ”Think, Pair, Share” activity and the use of other cooperative learning techniques to teach basic economic concepts, such as the supply curve. Citing the general education literature on cooperative learning, they claim that compared to standard lecture methods students working in groups learn more, use higher level reasoning, express more satisfaction with their

classes, are less likely to drop out, and become more tolerant of ethnic and racial differences.

Johnson and Johnson [19911, two of the leading general education authorities on cooperative learning, offer a good survey and comparison of cooperative, competitive, and individual learning methods.

There is an inherent free-rider problem in assigning grades in cooperative learning activities. Bartlett [19951 describes an innovative method of avoiding the free riding. Students are given the option of forming groups or not. Then, when an exam or in-class presentation comes due, Bartlett uses a random-number process to choose one member of the group to take the exam or make the presentation, and the grade earned by the student is as- signed to all members of the group. Obvi- ously, this creates incentives for all members of the group to be sure that they and all of the other members are well prepared for each assignment.

X. CONCLUSIONS

Anecdotal evidence in both collegial discussions and recent books such as Anderson’s Impostors in the TempZe holds that economists, like professors from other disciplines, often express disdain for teaching, and implies that economists are perhaps especially loathe to spend their valuable time developing and experiment- ing with new teaching methods. That point of view is refuted, or at least se- verely strained, by our review of what many economists are actually doing in the classroom, and encouraging other economists to do. This is, of course, also anecdotal evidence; but there is presently little or no hard evidence available about the amount of time academic economists in different kinds of schools are devoting to their teaching, let alone how well they succeed in raising students’ level of economic understanding and critical thinking skills.


Though not supported by findings from formal research, it is tempting to conclude that the variety of teaching methods available for use in undergraduate economics classes is broad enough to offer the means for virtually any instructor to achieve re- spectable teaching ratings, given reason- able amounts of preparation and a modi- cum of sensitivity to student responses in the classroom. Moreover, there is an important place for specialization and com- parative advantage in teaching economics, based on student and instructor differences in preferences and effective learning and teaching styles. Some students and teachers are natural born listeners and lecturers, some are talkers and discussion leaders, and some seem to learn or teach best using group activities that feature ”hands on” demonstrations of economic concepts and relationships.

Great orators should lecture. The rest of us should consider using a variety of teaching methods to actively engage our students and reduce the amount of time we spend lecturing to audiences that are often captive in the short run, but all too willing and able to vote with their feet in the long run, as recent enrollment trends in economics documented by Siegfried and Scott [1994] have shown. Variety in the pace and format of undergraduate classroom instruction-across different class periods and even within a particular class-may well be the missing spice of good teaching and more enthusiastic learning.

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TEACHING TOOLS: TEACHING METHODS IN UNDERGRADUATE ECONOMICS