Teaching tools: how is introductory economics taught in America?

Siegfried, John J. ; Saunders, Phillip ; Stinar, Ethan 等

Despite many studies of the effects of instructor and student characteristics and pedagogical methods on learning the principles of economics (Siegfried and Fels [1979] and Siegfried and Walstad [1990]), little has been reported about how introductory economics actually is taught in America (Sweeney et al. [1983]). To help rectify this situation we use information collected during the norming of the third edition of the Test of Understanding College Economics (TUCK III) to describe the students, instructors, pedagogical methods and evaluation instruments used in 189 different introductory economics classes taught at fifty-three different colleges and universities in 1989-90 (Saunders [1994a; 1994b]). Ninety-three classes are macroeconomics and ninety-six classes are microeconomics. Collectively, they enrolled over 9,600 students. We have instructor data for ninety macro classes taught by sixty-nine instructors and ninety micro classes taught by seventy instructors. Each class constitutes one semester of a two-semester sequence.(1)

We find that about 40 percent of introductory economics students are college freshmen and 40 percent are sophomores. About half have had some college level calculus prior to taking introductory economics. Nine out of every ten students are white. Although the majority of college students are women, only 44 percent of those enrolled in introductory economics are female. Over half the students work; over 80 percent of those who work devote more than ten hours per week to their job.

The typical instructor is a tenured or tenure-track male holding a Ph.D., has six to ten years of teaching experience, and has more than six years experience teaching introductory economics. Contrary to the impression of many students, fewer than 10 percent of the instructors' first language is something other than English. They are primarily a teaching faculty. Fewer than a third have published an article in the last five years. They report spending, on average, almost two-thirds of their working time teaching.

Three-quarters of class time is devoted to lecturing. Lectures and a textbook are the primary teaching instruments; homework, problem sets, and study guides are used in slightly more than half the classes. Computer exercises, television, and term papers collectively contribute less than 10 percent to student learning of the principles of economics, despite the recent emphasis on "writing across the curriculum" programs and the proliferation of computer-aided instruction software.

About 90 percent of assessment relies on midterm examinations, quizzes and a final examination. The vast majority of questions on these tests are multiple-choice.

I. THE DATA

The TUCK III sample was not selected randomly. Participating instructors agreed to help norm TUCK III, which required them to give a pre- and post-test of thirty or thirty-three multiple-choice questions to their classes, administer a questionnaire to enrolled students, obtain student records from their registrar, and complete an instructor questionnaire. The distribution of classes by type of institution is reported in Table I.

[TABULAR DATA I OMITTED]

Introductory economics classes taught at (usually regional public) comprehensive universities and (usually private) liberal arts colleges are overrepresented, and courses taught at two-year colleges are underrepresented relative to the nationwide distribution of enrollment. Classes offered at small colleges (with fewer than 1,000 students) or mega-universities (with more than 20,000 full-time equivalent students) also are underrepresented. The proportion of sample classes taught at public universities is almost identical to the proportion of the undergraduate population enrolled at public institutions in the United States in the 1980s.

II. CLASS SIZE

The average class size was forty-four students for introductory macro and forty-three students for introductory micro.(2) This is lower than the average class sizes of fifty-nine and fifty-seven recorded in 1980 for large samples (n = 425 and 429 respectively) of macro and micro sections of two-semester introductory economics sequences as reported by Sweeney et al. [1983, Table IV].(3) The differences are statistically significant at the 0.01 level. Of the ninety-three macro classes for which we have student data, fifty enrolled fewer than thirty-five students, and enrollment exceeded eighty in only twelve classes. Of the corresponding ninety-six micro classes, forty-two contained fewer than thirty-five students. Only nine micro classes in the sample exceeded eighty students. While the average class sizes of macro and micro respectively are forty-four and forty-three, the standard deviations of thirty-seven and twenty-eight respectively indicate that introductory economics is taught in classes of many different sizes.

The average class size of introductory macro courses at comprehensive universities was lower in 1989-90 than it was in 1980 (forty-four vs. fifty-two) but the decline is not statistically significant at the 0.05 level. At liberal arts colleges there has been virtually no change in macro class size (thirty-eight in 1980 vs. thirty-seven in 1989-90). The fall from fifty-two to thirty-eight in the average size of introductory micro classes at comprehensive universities is statistically significant (at the 0.01 level); at liberal arts colleges micro class size rose from thirty-nine to forty-three over the decade, but the change is not significant. At research and doctoral universities the average class size of both macro and micro introductory classes has dropped significantly, from around one-hundred per class in 1980 to about sixty for macro and sixty-five for micro in 1989-90.(4)

III. THE STUDENTS

Information about the students enrolled in introductory economics is reported in Table II. About 44 percent of the students who completed a Student Questionnaire are women, and 89 percent are white. In view of the fact that only about 30 percent of bachelor's degrees in economics in 1992-93 were awarded to women (Siegfried and Scott [1994, Table III]), it appears that retention rates for women from introductory economics into the major are worse than for men. The average combined verbal and quantitative SAT scores are 1020 for macro students and 1040 for micro students, about 150 points higher than national averages for those taking the exams (but not necessarily for those who attend college). Since the SAT scores were obtained from college registrars, the high SAT scores do not reflect student misreporting (Maxwell and Lopus [1994]). They probably do reflect sample and response bias, however.

[TABULAR DATA II OMITTED]

We identify the course sequence (micro-macro or macro-micro) at nineteen colleges and universities by examining on an institution-by-institution basis whether students in each subject reported predominantly that they were in their first economics course. Macro seems to be a prerequisite for micro at thirteen schools, and micro appears to be a prerequisite for macro at six institutions. For the other thirty-four institutions in the sample, either the two courses can be taken in either order, or we couldn't determine the order of the sequence.

Based on the same data we use here, Lopus and Maxwell [1995] recently found that the achievement of students in microeconomics principles classes was significantly higher if they first took a course in macro principles. In contrast, they found that performance of students in macroeconomics principles classes was not affected by the students' prior experience in micro principles.

Paradoxically, based on a survey of fifty leading economics departments (half research universities and half selective liberal arts colleges), Lopus and Maxwell [1995] discovered that 32 percent of the departments teach micro first and only X percent teach macro first. The other 60 percent either do not sequence their introductory economics courses or have only a single semester course. In the TUCK III sample it appears that 25 percent of the institutions teach macro first, and only 11 percent teach micro first, more in line with the findings about the effectiveness of the course order. The proportion of institutions without sequencing is about the same among the fifty-three TUCK III sample institutions as among the sample of fifty elite departments surveyed by Lopus and Maxwell.

The students enrolled in both macro and micro introductory economics are about 40 percent first-year students, 40 percent sophomores, and 20 percent juniors and above. Close to half the students had taken some type of economics course in high school and had completed at least one course in college-level calculus before taking introductory economics. A third are employed, and about 14 percent of those who are employed work more than thirty hours per week. Students working that many hours might be characterized as employed and attending college part-time rather than full-time students who work part-time.

IV. THE FACULTY

The sample includes sixty-nine different faculty teaching introductory macro and seventy different faculty teaching introductory micro. Seventeen individuals are in both the micro and macro sample. Data describing the faculty are reported in Table III. A little more than two-thirds of the instructors hold tenured or tenure-track appointments. About 14 percent were graduate students at the time of the survey. The rest are part of the floating reserve army of part- or full-time lecturers and instructors on term appointments.

About 60 percent of the instructors have earned a Ph.D. Roughly one-third of the macro instructors and a quarter of the micro instructors are out of graduate school, but do not have a Ph.D. Almost all of them hold a master's degree, however.

The distribution of years of teaching experience is almost uniform. Fewer than 10 percent of the instructors were teaching for the first time. About one-sixth of the sample instructors were first-time teachers of the introductory economics course to which they were assigned. The majority, however, had been teaching the course for more than five years. About 16 percent of the reporting instructors are women, roughly comparable to the presence of women in the discipline. The native language for nine out of ten instructors in the sample is English.

The faculty teaching introductory economics courses is primarily a teaching faculty. Only a third had published even one article in the five years prior to the survey. They reported spending 60 percent of their time on teaching responsibilities compared with only 21 percent of their time allocated to research. This reflects the fact that only eleven of the fifty-three colleges and universities in the sample are research universities as classified by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching [1987]. Among the elite fifteen or so departments of economics, only Princeton is represented in the sample.

V. THE COURSE STRUCTURE

A slight majority of introductory economics classes meet three times weekly (50 percent of macro and 57 percent of micro), mostly for fifty minutes each. About one-third of the classes meet twice a week (37 percent of macro and 33 percent of micro), usually for seventy-five minutes each. The remaining 10 to 15 percent of the classes meet once weekly (night class) or four or five times weekly (typically a quarter rather than semester system). There is a modest tendency for larger classes to meet three times a week for fifty minutes each.

In both micro and macro classes instructors report that they use three-quarters of available class time to lecture. The remaining time is divided about equally between the instructor responding to or discussing student questions and students responding to or discussing instructor questions. Overall, only about one-eighth of class time is used for what might be called "active student involvement."

How class time is used varies surprisingly little with class size (Siegfried and Kennedy [1995]). Instructors of the thirty-three classes with fewer than twenty-five students reported spending 69 percent of their time lecturing; lecture time increased to 75 percent for class sizes ranging from twenty-five to thirty-four, remained at 75 percent for classes ranging from thirty-five to seventy-four students, and rose to about 78 percent for classes enrolling more than eighty students. Time devoted to student recitation is about 15 percent for classes with fewer than twenty-five students, falls to 11 percent for class sizes ranging from twenty-five to thirty-four, is 10 percent for classes enrolling thirty-five to seventy-four students, and dips moderately to 8 percent for classes of more than seventy-five students. Of course recitation time per individual student declines much faster as class size grows.(5)

The instructors' choices of course learning activities are reported in Table IV. The majority of both micro and macro principles instructors rely exclusively on a textbook for reading assignments. Most, however, assign some homework or problem sets. Micro instructors (30 percent) are more inclined to make heavy use of homework and problem sets than are macro instructors (17 percent). The majority of instructors make moderate use of study guides that accompany most of the major textbooks, but fewer than 12 percent use any kind of computer exercises, including those offered by textbook publishers. Television programs, such as the Annenberg Economics U$A series, are used more frequently by macro instructors than by micro instructors, but over 80 percent make no use at all of television.

[TABULAR DATA IV OMITTED]

The median number of homework assignments or problem sets is five per semester and does not vary much with class size. The average number of term papers assigned is very small, and surprisingly is less for classes with enrollment of fewer than twenty-five students than for larger classes. This result is probably explained by the fact that many of the small classes in our sample were from two-year colleges, and very few instructors at these schools reported using term papers.

The survey asked students to rate the contribution of each of several learning activities toward their understanding of the course material. A summary of their responses is reported in Table V. Students believe that their regular instructor is the most important source of learning, with the main textbook in a solid second place. Homework and problem sets, and supplementary readings rank third and fourth. The contribution of computer exercises, term papers, and television programs is trivial according to the students.

[TABULAR DATA V OMITTED]

Relative to the instructors' reported amount of use, students judge supplementary readings and homework (or problem sets) to be a much more productive use of time than either computer exercises or television programs in macro courses. For micro courses homework and problem sets appear to be the more productive use of time also, with supplementary readings and computer exercises close behind, and television playing essentially no role.

VI. INCENTIVES AND THE MEASUREMENT OF LEARNING

What counts for the course grade is reported in Table VI. Seventy-six (in macro) to 83 percent (in micro) of the introductory economics course grade is typically derived from mid-term and final examinations. The usual pattern consists of two or three mid-terms and a final exam. The final exam counts, on average, about 28 percent of the course grade. The most common percentages contributed by the final are (in order) 30, 25, 40, 20, and 33, collectively accounting for three-quarters of the courses using a final examination.

About half of the instructors count homework assignments, problem sets, and quizzes toward students' grades. A typical pattern consists of six or seven homework assignments or problem sets which collectively count about 10 percent in micro and 14 percent in macro. Quizzes count on average about 19 percent in micro and 23 percent in macro courses in which they are used. Nine percent of the macro instructors and 13 percent of the micro instructors require a term paper; it usually counts 15 (macro) or 12 (micro) percent of the course grade.

Examination formats are reported in Table VII, which, not surprisingly, reveals that economists rely heavily on multiple-choice questions. Almost everyone uses them to some extent and, on average, they account for almost two-thirds of course grades. Short-answer questions on examinations make up another 20 percent of course grades. Longer-answer essays (more than one page) comprise only 5 percent of macro and 9 percent of micro course grades.

VII. DIFFERENCES BY INSTITUTIONAL TYPE(6)

How economics is taught varies among the different types of institution, reflecting differences in students, faculty, and resources. Average class size across both macro and micro is about thirty in two-year colleges, thirty-five in liberal arts colleges, forty-five in comprehensive universities and around sixty in research and doctoral institutions. Pedagogical decisions are consistent with the class size pattern. A larger proportion of class time is allocated to instructor lecturing at research, doctoral and comprehensive universities than at liberal arts or two-year colleges. The difference is about 5 percentage points in macro and 10 percentage points in micro classes. In contrast, almost twice as much class time is devoted to students responding to or discussing instructor questions at liberal arts and two-year colleges as at research, doctoral, and comprehensive universities (about 15 percent vs. 8 percent).

The use of learning aids does not vary much by type of institution. Homework is more common at research and doctoral universities and two-year colleges for macro, but more common at comprehensive universities and liberal arts colleges for micro. Surprisingly, supplementary (to the textbook) readings are least commonly used at research and doctoral universities, where one would expect the faculty to be most familiar with and enthusiastic about non-text readings.(7) As expected, use of a study guide or workbook is far more prevalent at two-year colleges than at any other type of institution.

Assessment methods at liberal arts colleges differ from those at other types of institutions. Almost all of the term papers in the sample were assigned at liberal arts colleges. Quizzes are also more common at liberal arts colleges. Although the final examination seems to count similarly everywhere (about 25 to 33 percent of the course grade), midterm examinations are less important at liberal arts colleges than at other types of institutions (35 to 40 percent vs. 50 to 55 percent).

The questions on the examinations also differ at liberal arts colleges. Multiple-choice questions account for only about 30 percent of course grades at liberal arts colleges, while constituting about 70 percent at each of the other types of institutions. Liberal arts colleges substitute both short-answer and long-answer for multiple-choice questions. Short-answer and long-answer questions are responsible for about 50 and 15 percent, respectively, of students' grades at liberal arts colleges, while accounting for a measly 15 and 5 percent, respectively, at the other types of institution.

VIII. CONCLUSION

The description of the students, faculty, teaching methods and assessment instruments used in introductory economics courses reported here provides a benchmark against which existing practice can be evaluated. These norms represent actual rather than ideal practice, however, and, as such, should not be interpreted as goals.

Most introductory economics classes are taught similarly. Faculty spend most of their time lecturing in class and rely heavily on multiple-choice examinations. There seems to be little experimentation with alternative pedagogies (Becker and Watts [1995]), in spite of the investment made in such methods over the past several decades.

(1.) About three-quarters of college introductory economics students in the U.S. take a two semester or two-quarter sequence (Sweeney et al. [1983]). (2.) The number of students used to measure class size in this report is the average of the number who took the pre-test and the number who took the post-test exam. (3.) Average introductory economics class size in the earlier report was based on a retrospective estimate, which probably reflected the number of students who completed the courses. The average number of students in the TUCK III sample who completed the courses in 1989-90 is forty for macro and forty-one for micro. (4.) Over this same period, the number of bachelor's degrees awarded in economics grew by about 33 percent (Siegfried and Scott [1994, Table I]). (5.) For example, the TUCK III data suggest that the recitation time per student over an endre semester of a 2100 minute course (forty-two periods of fifty minutes each) is about nineteen minutes for a class enrolling sixteen students, eight minutes for a class of thirty students, and four minutes in a class of fifty-four students. Warren Whatley suggested this perspective on student recitation time. (6.) Tables reporting details of differences across institutional categories are included in Saunders [1994b]. (7.) About half the faculty in the sample from research and doctoral universities, however, were graduate student instructors.

REFERENCES

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Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. A Classification of Institutions of Higher Education: 1987 Edition. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1987.

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--. "The Teaching of Introductory Economics: Benchmarks from the TUCK III Data Base." Department of Economics Working Paper 94-012, Indiana University, September 1994b.

Siegfried, John J., and Rendigs Fels. "Research on Teaching College Economics: A Survey." Journal of Economic Literature, September 1979, 923-69.

Siegfried, John J., and Peter E. Kennedy. "Does Pedagogy Vary with Class Size in Introductory Economics? American Economic Review, May 1995, 347-51.

Siegfried, John J., and Charles E. Scott. "Recent Trends in Undergraduate Economics Degrees." Journal of Economic Education, Summer 1994, 281-86.

Siegfried, John J., and William Walstad. "Research on Teaching College Economics," in The Principles of Economics Course: A Handbook for Instructors, edited by Phillip Saunders and William Walstad. New York: McGraw Hill, 1990, 270-88.

Sweeney, M. Jane Barr, John J. Siegfried, Jennie E. Raymond, and James T. Wilkinson. "The Structure of the Introductory Economics Course in United States Colleges." Journal of Economic Education, Fall 1983, 68-75.

HAO ZHANG Siegfried is Professor of Economics and Stinar and Zhang are M.B.A. students at Vanderbilt University; Saunders is Professor of Economics at Indiana University. Robert Moore and two anonymous referees made useful suggestions.