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Grades are usually the most contentious part of teaching. In a move towards transparency, course syllabi are becoming more explicit in how numerical scores map into letter grades. But even with that, numerical differences across instructors can rile students, who view such differences as unfair. For example, why should a passing grade in one course be 70 when it’s 50 in another?
To see how grade structures differ across instructors, I surveyed a random sample of 44 online syllabi for principles of economics courses that mapped percentage scores into letter grades. Based on a scale of 100, the lowest passing score in the sample was 30 and the highest passing score was 77. That’s a 47-point difference! For 28 of the 44 syllabi, the lowest passing score was 60. Here is the distribution of passing scores for the entire sample (with multiple courses at that score in parentheses): 30, 45, 50 (4), 55 (4), 56, 60 (28), 63, 65, 68, 70, and 77.
The lowest score earning an A- was 80 and the highest was 92. For 35 of the 44 courses, A- began at 90. The greatest spread between the lowest passing score and the lowest A- score was 60 points and the smallest spread was 15 points. The spread was 30 points for 32 of 44 syllabi. Despite outliers, most courses reflect a traditional grade structure, where students must score at least 60 to pass and at least 90 for an A-.
How rigid are these mappings? I surveyed each syllabus for any evidence of flexibility after the fact. In five of the 44 courses, the instructor reserved the right to expand grade intervals. Of course, those grading on a curve would be less likely to put their numerical grade structure on the syllabus to begin with. Why put it out there if you may change it?
The word “taboo” is Tongan, picked up by Captain Cook on one of his voyages to the South Pacific. The meaning that most of us relate to is “forbidden.” Mrs. Ward, my junior year English teacher at Portsmouth (N.H.) High School, required an essay a week. She had a list of “taboo” words that, if used improperly, would result in an automatic failure on that essay. The list wasn’t long. Taboos that I recall included the improper use of (1) their and there, (2) your and you’re, and (3) to, too, and two. Decades later, I still recall Mrs. Ward’s death sentence when I write such words. I remember little else about the course.
Here’s my question: could economists come up with a short list of taboos that would result in a failure on an assignment? Are some lessons so important that we really, really want students to learn them? One mistake that drives me nuts when I come across it is mixing up the labels for demand and supply curves. Sometimes that’s just sloppiness rather than a real misunderstanding, but so too is the confusion of “their” and “there.” I also think we should expect students to be able to come up with the profit maximizing condition of marginal cost equals marginal revenue.
Fortunately, the important lessons of economics—for example, that incentives matter—are more or less intuitive and need not be drilled in. What we do have to teach are the implications of intuitive economic behavior. Anyway, what transgressions would make your list of economic taboos? What bugs you?
Another memorable teacher during my junior year of high school was Miss Saunders, who taught Algebra II. She was nearly seventy. Homework was due every class. She would mark wrong answers and return the papers to redo until all were correct. Some were submitted again and again. Erasures sometimes would wear the paper through. I would guess that I had an average “float” of a half dozen assignments going back and forth. Multiply that by 30 students in the class and that’s 180 papers in various states of mathematical correctness. Miss Saunders must have been a busy lady.
Research suggests that homework in high school is more valuable than homework in lower grades, and homework in math is the most valuable of all. Repetition is the mother of mastery.
Do we know much about the value of homework assignments in college economics courses? Wayne Grove decided that he would require students in his two sections of economic principles at Syracuse University to complete five problem sets during the term. Just before the term began, the department head asked him to cover two additional sections for a colleague injured in a bicycle accident. Since he expected to fill in only briefly, Grove felt he could not very well impose the graded assignments on students in those other sections. But figuring it could do no harm, he encouraged his accidental students to complete the assignments and he would later provide answers. Otherwise, he treated all four sections identically.
After several weeks, he was informed that his colleague would not be back that term. At that point Grove realized he had a natural experiment underway. Would the students required to do the homework assignments do better on the exams than the other students? The short answer is yes. He found that freshmen benefited the most—other things constant—improving on average from C+ in the sections without the graded homework to B- or better in the graded sections. These results were reported in “Incentives and Student Learning: A Natural Experiment with Economics Problem Sets,” by Wayne Grove and Tim Wasserman, presented at the American Economic Association meeting in January (Grove’s coauthor is with the teaching and learning center at Syracuse).
In research along similar lines, Susan Pozo of Western Michigan University and Charles Stull of Kalamazoo College report the effect of math homework on principles of economics test scores. A group of 157 students was required to complete math assignments and a group of 116 students was encouraged but not required to complete the assignments. Care was taken to otherwise treat the students comparably. Among students merely encouraged to complete the assignments, few did. Students required to complete the assignments did significantly better on the mid-term exam than did the other group. The benefit was more pronounced among students in the bottom half of the distribution. Oddly, there was no difference on the final exam. These results were also presented at the January AEA meeting in a paper entitled “Requiring a Mathematics Unit in Principles of Economics: Results from a Controlled Experiment.”
Wikipedia is a free online encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page) written and edited by volunteers in wiki mode, meaning that an article is subject to editing by nearly anyone (wiki is from the Hawaiian “wiki wiki,” meaning quick). Content is not controlled by any particular user or editorial group. The idea is that collaboration over time will improve content much the way that open-source software such as Linux has evolved. Wikipedia was founded in 2001 by Jimmy Wales, a University of Alabama graduate, and ABD in finance from Indiana University, who became wealthy trading futures and options. He says he spent a half million dollars getting Wikipedia going, but now the project is self-financed with grants and donations.
Entries include traditional encyclopedia topics and current events. The goal is to create and distribute a free encyclopedia in as many languages as possible. Wikipedia is now available in more than 100 languages, with English at the top with about one million articles, more than twice the next language, German. At an average of five articles per page, one million articles would fill 200,000 pages, or 100 volumes of 2,000 pages each. Wikipedia claims to be one of the most visited sites on the Internet.
Is Wikipedia a reliable reference for our students? The site profiles hundreds of economists including all Nobel Laureates and all but four of the 30 John Bates Clark Medal winners. Economists in the history of economic thought seem especially well represented. These profiles offer the biographical basics and links to other material. For example, Robert Solow’s profile links to his Nobel autobiography, his Nobel lecture, and to a dozen pieces he wrote for The New York Review of Books.
Wikipedia offers articles on hundreds of economic topics. To evaluate the contents, I surveyed the following mix of topics, listed in alphabetical order: aggregate demand, autarky, behavioral economics, Coase theorem, comparative advantage, competition, distinction between outsourcing and offshoring, economies of scope, efficiency, experimental economics, fractional reserve banking system, Gresham’s law, moral hazard, neuroeconomics, opportunity cost, principal-agent problem, public choice, rent seeking, sunk cost, transaction costs, and winner’s curse. These seemed to be covered reasonably well in a serviceable and balanced writing style. For example, the description of competition explored different types of competition. Explanations often included the origins of the term or expression.
Volunteer contributors and editors are asked to provide information objectively. Someone who had a hand in an article can later nominate it to be checked for neutrality, or objectivity. Such an article gets red flagged and reviewed. The process of creating and editing an article is transparent. One can trace the history of an article through various revisions. For example, “economics” first appeared as a few short paragraphs in December 2001. After hundreds of revisions and additions, the most recent version runs 12 pages. An article on “rent seeking” was introduced as a short paragraph in September 2003. Eighteen revisions later, Gordon Tullock was credited with the seminal paper and Anne Krueger got credit for independently coining the term.
Because of its open nature, vandalism and inaccuracies can occur, but these usually get corrected by subsequent readers. For example, six months ago, the profiles of economists included some who did not properly belong, perhaps added as a prank or on a bet. But those profiles have since been deleted. As James Surowiecki argues in The Wisdom of Crowds, many voices can yield a better answer as long as there is an aggregating mechanism. Wikipedia offers that mechanism.
Online textbooks are now under wiki construction in dozens of disciplines including anthropology, psychology, sociology, government, and communications, but none yet in business or economics.
Will Rogers used to say that none of us is smart enough to remember all we know. David Henderson and Charles Hooper exploit that memory lapse to write a book pulling together some decision-making skills that none of us can remember all of the time. Making Great Decisions in Business and Life (Chicago Park Press, 2006) offers abundant examples of goofy thinking and how to correct it using some simple guidelines. Henderson teaches economics at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey and Hooper is president of Objective Insights, a consultant firm to drug and biotech companies.
The approach is to begin with examples of the bad decisions that even some economists make. By drawing on simple economic logic, the authors offer guidelines to help avoid such pitfalls. Each guideline is fleshed out in its own chapter. As listed here, these guidelines will seem like eat-your-spinach platitudes, but Henderson and Hooper show they are deceptively powerful: Use techniques to help clarify your thinking. Identify what you value most. If something changes, think about what other change caused it. Know what you want before you choose. Don’t be ruled by your biases. Recognize what’s important. If you don’t like your choices, create better ones. Consciously choose the best alternative. Learn how to deal with risk. Determine the value of information before seeking it. Think simple. Discover arbitrage opportunities. And behave ethically.
Stories of what not to do are often based on personal experience or personal observations, many drawn from consulting encounters. Although the book is aimed at a wider audience, the examples and focus seem especially relevant to those making business decisions or learning how to make business decisions.
The book’s structure reinforces the lessons, with boldfacing of key expressions, end-of-chapter summaries, and an end-of-book summary chapter. But I do have some quibbles. The book’s conversational style usually works, though a bit more editing would have helped. Some examples are stretched beyond their usefulness, and some terms are used before they are explained. Still, the book’s sharp, practical focus on decision-making will benefit most any reader.
THE GRAPEVINE
In their third such effort, Michael Watts of Purdue and William Becker of Indiana surveyed the instructional approach used in teaching undergraduate economics. Based on responses to a five-page questionnaire mailed in the spring of 2005 to all types of higher education institutions, the authors found that a median of 83% of respondents rely primarily on the lecture approach, or “chalk and talk”, as they call it. This was about the same median found in surveys they carried out five years ago and ten years ago. There have been modest increases in placing class notes online, computer lab instruction, and classroom experiments. Still, there is much inertia. Watts and Becker also found an increased emphasis on teaching at the surveyed institutions. Their paper, “Is There Less Chalk and Talk in Undergraduate Economics Classes?” was presented at the American Economic Association meeting in January.
Larry Neal, Professor Emeritus at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, has won the 2005 Hughes Prize for Excellence in Teaching Economic History. Neal taught undergraduate and graduates courses in European Economic History and for fifteen years edited Explorations in Economic History. The prize, awarded annually for the last dozen years by the Economic History Association, is named for Jonathan Hughes—“brilliant, funny, literate, and a master teacher,” a jazz saxophone player, and, from 1966 until his death in 1992, an economic historian at Northwestern. Previous winners include Daniel Barbezat, Amherst (2004); Charles Feinstein, Oxford (2003); Barry Eichengreen, Berkeley (2002); Carolyn Tuttle, Lake Forest (2001); Jeffrey Williamson, Harvard (2000); Robert Whaples, Wake Forest (1999); the late Robert Gallman, North Carolina (1998); Martha Olney, Berkeley (1997); Henry Gemery, Colby (1996); and the late William Parker, Yale (1995). Douglas North, Washington University in St. Louis, won the inaugural prize in 1994, one year after his Nobel Prize.
Eric Steger of East Central University in Ada, Oklahoma, likes to generate class discussion by posing questions. While discussing the costs of production, he asked students "why don't low cost countries like China produce almost everything?" He says this question got the students thinking about the realities of business decision making. Students raised a number of potential obstacles to production and trade including language barriers, business customs, shipping costs, rules and regulations, supply disruptions, political risks, and questions about quality. Professor Steger began another class by writing the following question on the board: "Is $1000 per hour great pay?" He asked students what they would want to know before they answered such a seemingly simple question. One said he wanted to know how much $1000 would buy. Another asked what the job was. Professor Steger believes that a good question can trigger a lively discussion.
The economics department at Johns Hopkins University established in 2002 the Bruce Hamilton Research Seminar Award given annually since then to the graduate student who “best exemplifies the high standards Bruce has set through his insightful and constructive comments at seminars over his many years as a faculty member.” (Hamilton is now emeritus.) That sounds like a good idea, and a useful signal to the job market.
A revision of the Test of Understanding of College Economics (TUCE) will be available soon. Questions have been revised or replaced, scrutinized by a team of economists, and normed based on results from colleges and universities at all levels. As before, there are 35 multiple-choice questions on each of the micro and macro tests. The macro test changed more than the micro test because of reduced emphasis on competing schools of thought. The revision was discussed by William Walstad, of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, and Michael Watts of Purdue in “The Test of Understanding of College Economics: Revision and Preliminary Results” presented at the American Economic Association meeting in January.
According to the U.S. Labor Department, over the next ten years, jobs for economists are expected to grow more slowly than the average for all occupations, with higher growth for economists in management and consulting positions. The Department’s forecast two years earlier called for average growth. One growth area for undergraduate majors is for secondary school economics teachers as the subject becomes increasingly important at that level. In the federal government, the starting salary in 2005 for economists with a bachelor’s degree was $24,667; but someone with a top academic record could begin at $30,567 (who says grades don’t matter). A master’s degree holder started at $37,390, and a Ph.D. at $45,239; previous work experience boosted that to $54,221. Starting salaries were higher in selected geographical areas where the prevailing local pay was higher. The average annual salary for economists employed by the federal government was $89,441 in 2005. For more details, go to http://www.bls.gov/oco/ocos055.htm#emply.
Economists assume that the individual is motivated by rational self-interest. But are young people now more self-interested? When the U.S. Army fell short of its recruiting goals, it dropped its ad agency. The new agency changed the campaign slogan from “Be all you can be” to “I am an Army of One.” The Army was reportedly trying to connect to a more self-interested generation of young people. One new ad has a young man talking to his father: “It’s about what you told me the other day, about doing something for myself—something important.”
Economists don’t like to muck around in matters of consumer taste, but the preference for Coke versus Pepsi may not be just a matter for the tongue to decide, according to Samuel McClure of Princeton and his colleagues. Brain scans of people tasting the soft drinks reveal that consumers’ knowledge of which drink they are tasting affects their preferences and activates memory-related brain regions that recall cultural influences. Thus, say the researchers, they have shown neurologically how a culturally based brand image influences a behavioral choice. See Samuel M. McClure, et al. 2004. "Neural Correlates of Behavioral Preference for Culturally Familiar Drinks" Neuron, 44 (2) October 14, 2004, pages 379–387.
Paul Krugman, in his New York Times get-acquainted interview (available online to Times-Select customers), says in high school he was a big science fiction fan, especially of Isaac Asimov’s Foundation series. Based on characters in the series, Krugman decided he wanted to be a “psychohistorian” when he grew up. After encountering no such profession, he aimed for history but drifted into economics. His Times columns seem to draw more on political economy.
The list of blogs written by economists is growing. The “Economics Roundtable” at http://www.rtable.net/index/rt/economics/recent/ links to about 120 economic blogs. I found only one of those that focuses primarily on teaching economics (versus economic issues per se). That’s “Tim Schilling on Economic Education” from the Chicago Fed at http://education.chicagofedblogs.org/. If you know of other blogs concerned mostly with teaching economics, send me a link and I will pass it along.
Film critic Roger Ebert observes that there exists an ancient tradition that movie characters always live in apartments they could not afford in real life.
Long-time New Yorker writer A.J. Liebling claimed that he “could write better than anyone who could write faster, and faster than anyone who could write better.”
Knowledge is one of the few things that can be given to others without reducing the amount you have left. –Thomas Sowell
“Wisdom is in learning what to overlook.” --William James
“Everything is political, even the truth.” --Paul Krugman
Return to Contents of Issue 30, Spring 2006
