The Teaching Economist, Issue 8 1/3

The Teaching Economist

Issue 8

William A. McEachern, Editor

	Critical Thinking		And Thinking Like an Economist
	Critical Thinking References		Grapevine
	Odds and Ends		The Evidence File
	Decline in Degrees		Topics in Forthcoming Newsletters

Critical Thinking

Nearly two decades ago, some educators began to disparage rote memorization in favor of teaching students how to think. Several highly regarded studies pointed to students' lack of critical thinking and problem-solving skills. The critical thinking movement began at the primary and secondary levels, then proceeded to college level. College courses in critical thinking are now taught in the social sciences as well as in the humanities, especially philosophy and English. The California state university system requires such a course of undergraduates. A critically thinking and creative work force is seen as one response to growing foreign competition.

What is critical thinking? Robert Innis, the father of the movement, defines critical thinking as "reasonable, rational thinking that helps us decide what to do or to believe" (1987, p. 10). Harvey Siegel defines critical thinkers as those who are appropriately moved by reason (1988). And Matthew Lipman argues that critical thinking is "skillful, responsible thinking that facilitates good judgement because it (1) relies upon criteria, (2) is self-correcting, and (3) is sensitive to context" (1988, p. 10). (For references, see The Evidence File.)

One controversy involves the question of whether critical thinking skills are applicable beyond the narrow disciplines in which these skills have been learned. A big question is whether the reasoning process is discipline-specific or whether it can be applied more generally. Are there critical thinking skills that transfer, or generalize, across subjects?

Most proponents of critical thinking courses claim that such courses improve the student's ability to reason about everyday problems and issues in the same way that general composition courses improve writing ability. But some educators argue that critical thinking is not a generalized ability and can only be taught in the context of a specific discipline, not as a free-standing course.

For example, John McPeck claims that different things count as good reasoning in different fields, so thinking well differs from field to field. For example, he recalled a "State-of-the-Union" address by President Reagan describing his economic policies; that address was followed by the Democrats' response. To McPeck, each side sounded reasonable; neither side seemed to commit logical fallacies. McPeck says what he needed to know was whether or not the premises offered were in fact true. He felt overwhelmed by the economics, and thought what he needed to know was more economics, not more logic.

Proponents of special courses in critical thinking claim such courses enable people to make more rational judgements about "everyday problems" of just the sort McPeck described. McPeck says that most everyday problems worthy of public debate are seldom about logical reasoning but are almost always about the truth of complex information, ideas, and propositions. We are not analyzing arguments so much as evaluating data, information, and purported facts. He claims that 98% of our mistakes in rational judgement originate either from poor information or from our failure to understand the empirical foundations and meanings of information we do have. (1990, pp. 10-11)

He says the concept of "reasoning ability" is something like the concept of "speed." If someone offered to improve our speed, the first thing we would ask is "at what?" Likewise, if someone offered to improve our reasoning ability, we should ask "at what?" He claims there is no such thing as "general reasoning ability." Psychologists offer evidence suggesting that what differentiates experts from novices in a variety of fields is knowledge of the subject and not a generalized ability to think well.

Nearly all educators agree that we should be teaching students how to think, not what to think. The sticking point that remains is how best to do this. Which is most effective: a course in logic, a more discipline-specific course, or perhaps some combination? McPeck would argue for a discipline-specific approach.

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And Thinking Like An Economist

Is economic thinking critical thinking? Economists would like to think so. McPeck would say that economic thinking represents one type of critical thinking, one type of reasoning ability. The 1991 statement by the American Economic Association's Committee on Economic Education seemed to equate economic thinking with critical thinking. After surveying faculty at 127 colleges and universities, the Committee published the following statement of purpose for the undergraduate economics major, a statement the Committee claims appeals to the vast majority of economics faculty in American colleges and universities:

Enabling students to 'think like an economist' is the overarching goal of the major. All other virtues follow. Thinking like an economist involves using chains of deductive reasoning in conjunction with simplified models (such as supply and demand, benefit-cost analysis, and comparative advantage) to illuminate economic phenomena. To some, economists tend to abstract too much from the richness of human behavior and reality; to many economists, the strength of our analysis is the provision of focus and clarity of thought; parsimonious models are a virtue, not a vice.
Thinking like an economist also involves identifying and evaluating tradeoffs in the context of constraints, distinguishing positive from normative analysis, and tracing behavioral implications of change while abstracting from aspects of reality. It, moreover, involves describing redistributive implications of change, amassing data to evaluate economic events, and testing hypotheses about how consumers and producers make choices and how the economy works. Finally, thinking like an economist involves examining many problems through a filter of efficiency -- coping with limited resources.
Thinking like an economist requires creative skills, too. Identifying economic issues and problems, framing them in ways other people do not see, devising novel policy proposals for dealing with problems, analyzing both the intended and unintended effects of policies, and devising innovative methods to estimate the magnitude of these effects -- all are as central to the discipline as is the development of logically coherent theories. (From John J. Siegfried, et al. "The Economics Major: Can and Should We Do Better than a B- ?" American Economic Review, (May 1991), p. 21, emphasis added).

Philosophers tend to emphasize the reasoning component of critical thinking, as with the use of logic. Nonphilosophers, particularly scientists, tend to emphasize the problem-solving aspects of critical thinking. Economics, at least as reflected by the Committee's statement, marries the reasoning components with the problem-solving components. What's more, according to the Committee's state-ment, thinking like an economist involves not only critical thinking, but also creative thinking. The two are intertwined. First we produce economic ideas using creative thinking, and then we judge them using critical thinking.

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Critical-Thinking References

Brookfield, Stephen D. Developing Critical Thinkers. Jossey-Bass, 1987.
Ennis, Robert H. "A Taxonomy of Critical Thinking Disposition and Abilities."
In J.B. Baron and R. J. Sternberg (eds.), Teaching Thinking Skills: Theory and Practice (pp. 9-26). Freeman, 1987
Lipman, Matthew. "Critical Thinking: What Is It?," Analytical Teaching, 1988, Vol. 8, pp. 4-10.
Lipman, Matthew. Thinking in Education. Cambridge University Press, 1991.
McPeck, John. Critical Thinking and Education. St. Martin's, 1981.
McPeck, John. Teaching Critical Thinking. Routledge, 1990.
Norris, Stephen P. (ed.) The Generalizability of Critical Thinking. Teachers College, Columbia University, 1992.
Ruggiero, Vincent Ryan. The Art of Critical Thinking, 3rd ed. HarperCollins, 1991.
Siegel, Harvey. Educating Reason: Rationality, Critical Thinking, and Education. Routledge, 1988.
Smith, Frank. To Think. Teachers College, Columbia University, 1990.

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Grapevine

William A. McEachern, Editor

Oscar Flores	Stephen M. Miller
Jerome L. McElroy	Gregg Davis
Brad Stamm	Bradley K. Hobbs

Oscar Flores of Moorhead State University in Moorhead, Minnesota, says that after finishing the usual discussion of the double coincidence of wants, he tries to underscore the difficulty of finding such a match by noting that behind every sad love song exists a double-coincidence-of-wants problem.
Jerome L. McElroy of Saint Mary's College in Notre Dame, Indiana, likes to demonstrate points by using polar, or extreme, cases. For example, to convey that imports are a leakage from GDP, he asks students to suppose that, for a given year, all consumer goods are imported and are not processed further (that is, there is no domestic production of goods). In this polar case, consumption of goods would equal imports, and the excessive reliance on imports would reduce GDP (assuming exports remained unchanged). To distinguish between GDP and GNP, he assumes all domestic workers in a given year emigrate overseas for work and send all their earnings home, and there is no immigration of labor. In this polar case, GDP would fall close to zero but GNP would reflect the earnings of those who went overseas.
Brad Stamm of Nyack College in Nyack, New York, explains economic concepts by introducing celebrities and political figures into a real or fabricated story. For example, as an illustration of cross-price elasticity of demand, he talks about Pepsi and Coke machines at the White House. From these vending machines, Hillary Clinton purchases 10 Cokes per week when the price of Pepsi is $1.00 per can and 15 Cokes per week when the price of Pepsi is $1.50 per can. He believes such stories both increase students' attentiveness and improve their retention.
In the last issue I described one way to administer an exam in a large class by having students draw seat assignments from a bag before the exam. Stephen M. Miller, my colleague here at the University of Connecticut, offers a variant of that model. He numbers each exam to correspond to a seat number, shuffles the exams, then passes out exams as students arrive. Professor Miller argues that his variant allows proctors to check seat assignments any time during the exam (since the seat number is on the exam). His approach also eliminates the possibility that students sitting next to one another will have the same version of the exam. He suggests two additional security measures for exam administration. If you use multiple-choice tests that are machine graded, he recommends checking the answer sheet to make sure it's the same version of the exam as the one given to the student. Finally, he suggests requiring a picture ID on exam day to identify unfamiliar students. If an unfamiliar student forgets an ID, ask for the student's number, then check it.
Gregg Davis of Marshall University in Huntington, West Virginia, uses the following exercise to introduce students in microeconomic principles to the role of the middleman. The class before an exam, each student in a class of 50 draws one question (and answer) from a hat. After the drawing, the class is informed that students collectively hold questions that make up half of the total points on the exam. He then announces that he will leave the room for five minutes, after which the class will resume as usual, with no more said about the exam. While Professor Davis is gone, one student typically agrees to gather all questions, process them with answers, and mail them to students. Money is collected to pay for postage and for the opportunity cost of the volunteer's time. Davis notes that the exercise offers students a neat introduction to the role of middlemen, the opportunity cost of resource use, as well as the theory of comparative advantage (since the volunteer typically knows about word processing).
Five years ago, Bradley K. Hobbs of Bellarmine College in Louisville, Kentucky, founded The Bellarmine College Student Journal of Economics: Issues in Political Economy. The editing, writing, and production are carried out entirely by undergraduates. Submissions are welcome from any undergraduate regardless of college or major. The paper must be written by an undergraduate, pertain to some aspect of economics, and be submitted through a faculty member sponsor. The Journal is also interested in recruiting peer reviewers.
To request a style sheet, call (502) 452-8240; fax (502) 452-8038, e-mail BKHOBB01@ULKYVX.>LOUISVILLE. EDU.
Direct inquiries to:

The Journal,
Attn: Dr. Bradley K. Hobbs,
Department of Economics,
Bellarmine College,
2001 Newburg Road,
Louisville, Kentucky 40205-0671.

David Bolt and Michael Raper of West Georgia College in Carrollton, Georgia, think students can learn much about markets from a discussion of ticket sales, price ceilings, and scalping. The textbook presentation is typically one of a price ceiling, with the quantity demanded at the ceiling price exceeding the quantity supplied. Supply is usually presented as vertical at the fixed capacity. Even though the excess quantity supplied would support a higher price, promoters are reluctant to charge a higher price because they do not want to be viewed as price gougers; they also like the quality signal that a sellout imparts. Colleges sometimes use the excess demand for sports events to allocate tickets based on contributions to college athletic programs. Super Bowl tickets are bundled with hotel rooms and even airline tickets. Once a popular event is sold out, a secondary market quickly develops to reallocate tickets to those who value them the most. In this secondary market, the supply curve slopes upward since higher prices encourage more ticket holders to sell. Prices paid in the secondary market will differ, depending on such factors as the negotiating skills of the parties. Professors Bolt and Raper find that most students enjoy sharing their insights on this market.

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Odds and Ends

To be good at teaching, we must be good listeners. It's obvious when we are not: we look around, wear a dazed expression, glance at the clock. We shouldn't try to fake attention. Nor should we focus on what we will say when the speaker takes a breath. Avoid prejudging the speaker. Don't rule out any topic as completely uninteresting. Keep your mind open. Creative people are always on the lookout for good ideas.
The American Association of University Professors recently published The Work of Faculty: Expectations, Priorities, and Rewards, which relies on 1988 data. It concludes that faculty members worked that year, on average, about 54 hours per week, up from about 43 hours per week reported in 1977. The work week differed by type of institution. Those at doctoral institutions worked an average of 54 hours per week; those at comprehensive and liberal arts colleges, 52 hours; and those at two-year institutions, 47 hours.
Sedona, Arizona, is on the cutting edge of the New Age.
From the "there-is-no-disputing-taste" department, consider the following ad, which appeared in a Sedona advertising circular: "'X-Static Sound Tune-Up,' Tibetan bowls played on your body, 45 minutes, $25."
"Most academic subjects have fallen victim to the Sirens of the ivory tower: sacrificing utility in favor of elegant abstraction, to various degrees at various times in their history. Perhaps economics and philosophy have the worst record of all, a short head in front of psychology."
- Michael Scriven, in the Forward to McPeck (1990).
"The tendency to avoid challenge is so omnipresent in human beings that it can properly be considered a characteristic of human nature. But calling it natural does not mean that it is beneficial or unchangeable. Indeed, all self-discipline might be defined as teaching ourselves to do the unnatural. The characteristic of human nature that makes us most human is our capacity to do the unnatural -- to transcend and transform our own nature."
- M. Scott Peck
"A generous and elevated mind is distinguished by nothing more than an eminent degree of curiosity."
- Samuel Johnson
"Judge a man by his questions rather than his answers."
- Voltaire
"Creditors have better memories than debtors."
- Ben Franklin
"Experience is the name everyone gives to their mistakes."
- Oscar Wilde
"When the student is ready, the teacher appears."
- Chinese proverb

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The Evidence File

The average retail price of breakfast cereals has climbed about 70% over the last decade, nearly twice the average increase for all prices. Cereal prices have increased the least where generic products are close substitutes for brand names, such as with corn flakes. Thus, the closer the substitutes, the greater the price elasticity of demand.
The last issue of The Teaching Economist provided lecture fees for some leading economists. Here are lecture fees for other notables. According to a special issue of Forbes called FYI, the following charge $25,000 per lecture:
- Barbara Walters
- Jimmy Carter
- Bobby Knight
- Alan Dershowitz
- "Adam Smith"
- Louis Rukeyeser (who insists on speaking for two hours)
According to The New Yorker (9/12/94, p.41), Sam Donaldson charges $30,000 per lecture, and Cokie Roberts and William Safire each charge $20,000. The three network news anchors say they don't charge or they donate their fees to charity. Others who do not accept speaking fees include Ted Koppel, Jim Lehrer, Bob Schieffer, and C-SPAN's Brian Lamb.
According to Forbes (9/26/94), the top-earning entertainers this year are
- Steven Spielberg: $165M
- Pink Floyd: $56M
- Oprah Winfrey $53M
- Barbra Streisand ($52M)
- The Eagles ($52M)
- Rolling Stones ($50M)

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Decline In Degrees

The number of undergraduate economics degrees awarded increased on average by 3.6 % per year between 1977-78 and 1989-90, climbing from 15,661 to 23,488. This total fell by 1.8% in 1990-91. Though totals are not available after 1990-91, a survey of 127 institutions points to a drop of 0.2% in 1991-92 and an eye-popping drop of 14.2% in 1992-93. The decline began at private four-year colleges in the mid-1980s, then moved to public institutions. Especially hard hit in the most recent year were graduate degree-granting public universities, where the number of undergraduate economics degrees awarded dropped by 17.2%. Since the total number of bachelor's degrees awarded continued to climb during the 1990s, degrees awarded in economics declined as a proportion of total degrees awarded.

The percent decline in undergraduate economics degrees awarded was nearly identical between those institutions where the economics department is located in the business school and those institutions where it is located in the college of liberal arts. About one quarter of the decline in undergraduate economics degrees awarded can be explained by a decrease in the proportion of economics degrees awarded to women. Women earned 34.1% of the undergraduate economics degrees awarded in 1982-83, but only 30.0% of those awarded in 1992-93. For more details see John J. Siegfried and Charles E. Scott, "Recent Trends in Undergraduate Economics Degrees," Journal of Economic Education, (Summer 1994), pp. 281-86.

The 1980s were boom times for economics majors, so we did not have to promote the merits of the major. Now that enrollments are waning, perhaps it's time to market the benefits of economics. One benefit that seems clear is that economics courses sharpen a student's critical-thinking skills.

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Topics in Forthcoming NewsLetters

Teaching Resources on the Internet
Economics in Science Fiction

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