THE SOCIAL ISSUES PEDAGOGY vs. THE TRADITIONAL PRINCIPLES OF
ECONOMICS: AN EMPIRICAL EXAMINATION
"What is the best way to teach introductory economics?"
Academic economists have debated this question for at least fifty
years (American Economic Association, 1950). Invariably the
discussion revolves around the traditional Principles of Economics
course sequence taught to Freshman and Sophomores by a majority of
American colleges and universities. More than one million students
enroll in the Principles of Economics every year (Siegfried, et.
al., 1991) and several Principles of Economics textbooks have sold
millions of copies through numerous editions published over several
decades. Given their large audience and their long-term publishing
success, it would seem reasonable to assume that academic
economists must know what to teach and how to effectively deliver
their ideas. However, even after years of professional discourse,
the Principles of Economics debate continues (see the Spring 1988
edition of the Journal of Economic Education).
Today, much of the debate involves questions of course
content (e.g., AD/AS vs. the Keynesian Cross, the validity of the
"kinked"demand curve, etc.) and instructional technique (e.g.
experiments, computer assisted instruction, etc.). Unfortunately,
the issue of course structure has been relegated to the minor
controversy of how to sequence the traditional Principles material.
"Which should be taught first, the Principles of Macroeconomics or
the Principles of Microeconomics?" Even though a consensus has not
yet formed on the answer to this question, the basic course structure
is firmly established as more than three quarters of all introductory
economics students experience the traditional two course Principles
of Economics sequence (Siegfried and Bidani, 1992). However, other
successful models of introductory instruction in economics do exist
which warrant the attention of economic educators.
This study examines the relative effectiveness of a
variant to the traditional Principles of Economics sequence -- the Social
Issues pedagogy. The roots of the Social Issues approach can be traced
back to the work conducted by Richard Leftwich and Ansel Sharp during the
early 1970's at Oklahoma State University. Many economic educators at
the time were concerned that the traditional Principles courses
over-emphasized abstract theory, thereby inhibiting economic
understanding and discouraging students from studying economics.
Leftwich and Sharp developed the Social Issues approach with the
belief that "students learn more when the subject matter is interesting
and relevant and when what they are supposed to learn is repeated by
means of a learning process involving contemporary social issues"
(Leftwich and Sharp, 1974b). They sought to encourage the pursuit of
economics by engaging students in issues relevant to their lives.
Leftwich and Sharp described their pedagogy in the following manner:
"In each issue certain elementary economic principles and
concepts basic to the analysis of that issue are
introduced, explained and applied. The issues themselves
are organized so as to facilitate a systematic
development of principles and concepts. Issues are
selected which are thought to be interesting and
stimulating, and to lend themselves to learning
economics. Each issue is approached as follows: (1) the
nature of the problem is presented generally from the
viewpoint of the public; (2) the economic aspects of the
problem are introduced, showing how economists conceive
the problem; (3) basic economic concepts and principles
are developed; (4) basic economic tools are applied to
the issue and policy proposals suggested from the
economic analysis are made." (Leftwich and Sharp, 1974b).
The Department of Economics at Oklahoma State built a new course
around this framework that replaced their first course in the
Principles sequence. It was followed by a second course,
Introduction to Economic Analysis, which covered elementary
economic theory (both macro and micro).
In 1974 Leftwich and Sharp introduced a textbook for use
in teaching the Social Issues course (Leftwich and Sharp, 1974a).
Several universities and colleges followed the Oklahoma State model
and many others used the Leftwich and Sharp text under a variety of
introductory course structures and formats. The textbook became an
academic best seller and today its twelfth edition (Sharp,
Register, and Grimes, 1996) is used in more than one hundred
institutions of higher learning. A number of other texts have been
written during the past twenty years to service the Social Issues
market, but most can be viewed as direct descendants of the
Leftwich and Sharp original (e.g. Edgmand, Moomaw and Olson, 1991).
Leftwich and Sharp evaluated the effectiveness of their
original Social Issues course, as well as the Social Issues -
Introduction to Economic Analysis sequence, by comparing their
students' Test of Understanding College Economics (TUCE) scores to
national norms obtained from traditional Principles of Economics
students (Sharp, Leftwich, and Bumpass, 1975). Their results
suggested there was a modest cost to substituting the Social Issues
course for a one semester theory course in terms of student
understanding. For students who only completed the Social Issues
course, scores on the post-course TUCE averaged eleven percent
below the national norms. However, when comparing students who
completed the Social Issues - Introduction to Economic Analysis
sequence to the national norms, both the absolute and relative gain
were higher for the Oklahoma State students.
Even though Leftwich and Sharp's empirical findings
indicated that Social Issues was most effective when sequenced with an
elementary theory course, today most adherents of the Social Issues
approach use it in a one semester "stand alone" service course for
non-majors. This paper will test the relative effectiveness of
such an introductory course. Do students who only take an
introduction to basic economics learn as much in a Social Issues
course as they would in a traditional Principles course? No one
has addressed this question since the original study by Leftwich
and Sharp twenty years ago.
THE SETTING AND ANALYSIS DESIGN
This study was conducted at Northeast Louisiana University
(NLU). NLU is a regional state institution primarily serving
Louisiana residents. However, NLU has a significant out-of-state
student population and enrolls international students from some 51
nations. Current total enrollment is approximately 11,500.
Economics is taught in the College of Business Administration (CBA)
which is fully accredited by the American Assembly of Collegiate
Schools of Business (AACSB). The economics faculty at NLU offers
a one-semester Freshmen-level Economics of Social Issues course as
well as the traditional two-semester Principles of Economics course
sequence at the Sophomore-level. At the time of this study,
Economics of Social Issues was required for several CBA majors.
Additionally, many non-business majors take it as an elective. The
first Principles course (Principles of Macroeconomics) is required
for all CBA majors as well as several majors outside the CBA. The
second Principles course (Principles of Microeconomics) is also
required of CBA majors as well as a small number of non-business
majors.
A total of 7 regular class sections participated in this
study -- two sections of the Economics of Social Issues, three sections
of Principles of Macroeconomics, and two sections of Principles of
Microeconomics. All sections of each course were taught by the
same instructor but there were different instructors for each
course. All courses were taught during the Spring 1995 academic
semester. The assigned textbook for the Social Issues course was
the 11th edition of Economics of Social Issues (Sharp, Register,
and Leftwich, 1994). Students in the Principles courses were
assigned standard encyclopedic texts (For macro, (McEachern, 1994)
and for micro, (Hyman, 1994)).
At the beginning of the semester, instructors informed
their class that they were participating in a study of student learning.
Each student signed a release form and completed a demographic
survey (see Appendix) and the Attitude Toward Economics instrument
(Soper and Walstad, 1983). All students were also pre- and
post-course tested with the Third Edition TUCE (Saunders, 1991).
The Principles of Macroeconomics classes and one section of the
Economics of Social Issues course were administered the "Macro"
version of the TUCE. The Principles of Microeconomics classes and
the remaining Social Issues section were administered the "Micro"
version of the TUCE. Included in Table 1 is a list of the
variables and their specifications as collected and recorded from
the students in our sample. Table 2 provides the mean and standard
deviation for each variable by course.
--------------- Insert Tables 1 and 2 About Here ---------------
The Social Issues course includes both macroeconomic and
microeconomic topics. Given time constraints, it was not possible
to pre- and post-test the Social Issues students with both forms of
the TUCE. (Also, a macro-micro combined form of the Third Edition
TUCE does not exist.) Thus, one section of the Social Issues
course was compared to the Principles of Macroeconomics classes and
one section was compared to the Principles of Microeconomics
classes. This design allows for evaluation of the relative
effectiveness of the Social Issues course concept across both
courses in the normal Principles sequence.
EMPIRICAL MODEL AND RESULTS
The relative effectiveness of the Social Issues course on
student understanding of introductory economics was tested using a
variant of the standard educational production function (Becker and
Walstad, 1987). The original sample contained 239 students spread
across the seven course sections described above. Only 157
students completed the semester due to changes in student
schedules, course drops, and university withdrawals. It has been
shown that such attrition is a form of self-selection that can
significantly bias an OLS estimation of an educational production
function (Becker and Walstad, 1990). To control for this problem,
the educational production function was estimated using the Heckman
(1979) two-step procedure to correct for self-selection.
The Heckman procedure involves the creation of a
"correction variable" (the inverse of Mill's Ratio) generated from a
probit equation which estimates the probability of remaining in the
sample. In our case, we observed the students' binary-choice as
they either remained in the sample through course completion or
dropped out through course withdrawl. A set of independent
variables hypothesized to influence the course withdrawl decision
was chosen and the following probit equation was estimated
separately for the macro and micro groups of students:
COMPLETION = a + k1GENDER + k2BLACK + k3AGE + k4NON-BUSINESS +
k5HOURS + k6ACT + k7GPA + k8EXPECTED GRADE + k9SOCIAL GROUP +
k10PRE ATE + k11ISSUES + n [1]
The results for equation [1] are reported in Table 3. The
estimations generally conform to a priori expectations and the
findings of previous researchers (Grimes and Niss, 1991). The
results suggest that black students, non-business students, and
students who belong to a social fraternity or sorority were less
likely to complete their semester of introductory economics, as
were those with less favorable attitudes toward the subject and
those with relatively high grade expectations.
--------------- Insert Table 3 About Here ---------------
GPA and ISSUES were the two variables found to have the
strongest effect on course completion. Students in both groups
with higher cumulative GPA's and those enrolled in the Social
Issues course were found to have a statistically significant
greater probability of completing the semester. This latter
finding is important given that one of Leftwich and Sharp's
original primary goals for the Social Issues approach was to
encourage the study of economics. Our results suggests that the
Social Issues approach does keep more students in the classroom
studying economics relative to a traditional principles course.
The estimated equations in Table 3 were used to calculate
Heckman's self-selection correction variable, LAMBDA. LAMBDA was
then included in the following educational production function to
estimate the relative effect of the Social Issues course on student
understanding of introductory economics:
POST TUCE = a + b1GENDER + b2BLACK + b3AGE + b4NON-BUSINESS +
b5HOURS + b6HIGH SCHOOL + b7COMPUTER + b8ACT + b9GPA + b10ALCOHOL +
b11PRE TUCE + b12ISSUES + LAMBDA + n [2]
Equation [2] was estimated twice, once for the macro group and once
for the micro group. As specified, the model controls for the
major and relevant demographic characteristics, prior experiences,
and academic endowments and aptitudes of the students in the
sample. The model's specification is firmly rooted in the
tradition of the accepted empirical economic education literature
(Becker and Walstad, 1987). Based on the literature, the expected
sign for each independent control variable is noted in Table 4.
The experimental variable, ISSUES, enters the model with a
dichotomous specification equal to one if the student was enrolled
in the Social Issues course.
--------------- Insert Table 4 About Here ---------------
Acceptable adjusted R2's were found for both estimates of
equation [2] and for each estimate most of the control variable
coefficients obtain their expected sign. The GENDER coefficient is
negative and statistically significant for both the macro and micro
groups of students but BLACK is found to be negative and
significant for only the macro group. A student's age and college
major were not found to be important determinants of post course
economic understanding; however, students with more HOURS of
college work were found to score higher on the macro POST TUCE.
The results further reveal that student consumption of alcohol
significantly decreased POST TUCE scores, ceteris paribus, for the
micro group. Also, as expected, a positive relationship between a
student's composite ACT score and performance on the POST TUCE was
found for both the macro and micro groups. Finally, a significant
coefficient was estimated for LAMBDA in the macro equation
indicating that self-selection had occurred in the attrition of
students over the semester.
Examination of the ISSUES coefficient reveals that it is
negative for both the macro and micro groups. However, it is only
statistically significant for the micro sample. Thus, our model
indicates that students in the Social Issues course did not score
significantly different on the macro POST TUCE relative to the
students in the Principles of Macroeconomics course, ceteris
paribus. For our sample, the Social Issues approach provided
students with an understanding of introductory macroeconomics, as
measured by the TUCE, equivalent to that obtained in a traditional
Principles course. The same is not true for the micro group. The
results indicate that Social Issues students scored significantly
below the Principles students on the micro version of the TUCE,
ceteris paribus. Apparently, the Social Issues course is not a
perfect substitute for Principles of Microeconomics.
A quick review of the Economics of Social Issues text and
the macro and micro versions of the TUCE suggests that such a result
is not surprising. The Social Issues approach does not include the
extensive development of the microeconomic tools common to most
Principles of Economics textbooks (e.g. cost curves). The Social
Issues approach teaches only the essential economic concepts and
tools necessary to adequately understand the issues studied.
Further, the TUCE was designed for evaluation of traditional
Principles courses and is thus by its very nature inherently biased
to include those concepts more commonly taught in a Principles
classroom. This is important to recall when evaluating our results
for the macro group. Noting that the TUCE is designed for the
traditional Principles course strengthens our finding that no
difference in macro scores was found between the courses.
CONCLUSIONS
This paper has presented the first empirical study of the
relative effectiveness of the Social Issues approach to teaching
introductory economics in over twenty years. Standardized test
scores for students enrolled in a Social Issues course were
compared to those of students in traditional Principles of
Economics courses within the framework of a standard educational
production function. The production function was estimated using
Heckman's two-step procedure to correct for self-selection due to
student attrition over the course of study. After controlling for
student demographics, prior experiences, and academic aptitude, no
significant differences were found between students in the Social
Issues course and those in the Principles of Macroeconomics.
However, Social Issues students were found to score significantly
below students in the Principles of Microeconomics, ceteris
paribus.
Our results are encouraging for those instructors and
institutions pursuing the Social Issues approach to introductory
economics. The Social Issues course may be a close substitute in
terms of student learning for the traditional Principles of
Macroeconomics course. Programs that require introductory
macroeconomics may wish to consider the Social Issues as a viable
alternative to a theory oriented Principles course. Further, our
findings also suggest that there is significantly less attrition in
the Social Issues course than in the traditional Principles
sequence. This is a very important conclusion in light of the
pressures for credit hour generation and the problems of falling
enrollments experienced by many programs today.
Additional work is needed to evaluate the most beneficial
way to utilize the Social Issues approach. This study should be viewed
within the context of its experimental design and the institutional
arrangements in which it was conducted. Replication in other
contexts is needed to support the results presented here.
REFERENCES
American Economic Association, 1950. Final report: AEA committee
on the teaching of undergraduate economics. American
Economic Review Papers and Proceedings Supplement 49 (December):
1-226.
Becker W. E. and Walstad W. B., 1987. Econometric Modeling in
Economic Education Research. Boston: Kluwer-Nijhoff
Publishing.
Becker W. E. and Walstad W. B., 1990. Dataloss from pretest to
posttest as a sample selection problem. Review of
Economics and Statistics 72 (1): 184-188.
Edgmand, M., Moomaw, R., and Olson, K., 1991. Economics and
Contemporary Issues. Chicago: The Dryden Press.
Grimes, P. and Niss, J., 1991. Economic understanding and student
success in a business curriculum. Journal of Education
for Business 66 (May/June): 309-313.
Heckman, J., 1979. Sample selection bias as a specification error.
Econometrica 47 (1): 153-162.
Hyman, D., 1994. Economics, 3rd Edition. Burr Ridge, IL: Richard
D. Irwin, Incorporated.
Leftwich, R., Sharp, A., 1974a. Economics of Social Issues.
Dallas, TX: Business Publications, Incorporated.
Leftwich, R., Sharp, A., 1974b. Syllabus for an "issues approach"
to teaching economic principles. Journal of Economic
Education Special Issue 1 (Winter): 1-32.
McEachern, W., 1994. Economics - A Contemporary Introduction, 3rd
Edition. Cincinnati, OH: South-Western Publishing,
Company.
Saunders P., 1991. Test of Understanding in College Economics -
Examiner's Manual. New York: Joint Council on Economic
Education.
Sharp, A., Leftwich, R., and Bumpass, D., 1975. An examination of
trade-offs in teaching economic principles. Journal of
Economic Education 7 (Fall): 56-58.
Sharp, A., Register, C., and Grimes, P., 1996. Economics of Social
Issues, 12th Edition. Burr Ridge, IL: Richard D. Irwin,
Incorporated.
Sharp, A., Register, C., and Leftwich, R., 1994. Economics of
Social Issues, 11th Edition. Burr Ridge, IL: Richard D.
Irwin, Incorporated.
Siegfried, J., Bartlett, R., Hansen, W., Kelley, A., McCloskey, D.,
and Tietenberg, T., 1991. The status and prospects of the
economics major. Journal of Economic Education 22
(Summer): 197-224.
Siegfried, J. and Bidani, B, 1992. Differences between economics
programs located in liberal arts colleges and in business
schools. Journal of Economic Education 23 (Spring):
181-188.
Soper J. and Walstad, W. B., 1983. On measuring economic
attitudes. Journal of Economic Education 14 (Fall): 4-18.
Table 1
Definition of Variables
___________________________________________________________________
Variable Specification
___________________________________________________________________
GENDER Female student = 1; Male student = 0
BLACK Student is black = 1; Otherwise = 0
AGE Age of student in years
NON-BUSINESS Student is not a business major = 1;
Otherwise = 0
HOURS Semester credit hours completed prior
to course enrollment
HIGH SCHOOL Student completed high school economics
course = 1; Otherwise = 0
COMPUTER Student completed computer course prior
to enrollment = 1; Otherwise = 0
ACT Student's composite score on the American
College Test
GPA Student's cumulative grade point average
prior to course enrollment; standard 4-point
scale running from A = 4.0 to F = 0.0
EXPECTED GRADE Student's pre-course grade expectation;
standard 4-point scale running from A = 4.0
to F = 0.0
SOCIAL GROUP Student is a member of social fraternity or
sorority = 1; Otherwise = 0
ALCOHOL Average number of alcoholic drinks consumed
by student each week
PRE ATE Student's pre-course score on the Attitude
Toward Economics survey instrument
PRE TUCE Student's pre-course score on the Test of
Understanding College Economics
POST TUCE Student's post-course score on the Test of
Understanding College Economics
ISSUES Student enrolled in the Social Issues
Course = 1; Otherwise = 0
COMPLETION Student completed course and received
a letter grade = 1; Otherwise = 0
LAMBDA Heckman's self-selection correction term
(Inverse of Mill's Ratio)
___________________________________________________________________
Table 2
Mean and Standard Deviation of Variables by Student Group
______________________________________________________________________
Variable Micro Micro Macro Macro
Principles Issues Principles Issues
______________________________________________________________________
GENDER 0.364 0.538 0.455 0.667
(0.485) (0.505) (0.500) (0.479)
BLACK 0.145 0.359 0.143 0.303
(0.356) (0.486) (0.352) (0.467)
AGE 21.255 20.154 22.009 19.818
(4.368) (4.721) (4.659) (2.378)
NON-BUSINESS 0.218 0.154 0.643 0.182
(0.417) (0.366) (0.481) (0.392)
HOURS 54.891 17.231 45.25 31.970
(27.451) (11.579) (24.82) (31.434)
HIGH SCHOOL 0.418 0.538 0.393 0.485
(0.498) (0.505) (0.491) (0.508)
COMPUTER 0.891 0.769 0.839 0.848
(0.315) (0.427) (0.369) (0.364)
ACT 20.683 18.782 21.327 19.970
(2.956) (3.286) (3.478) (3.534)
GPA 2.698 2.449 2.715 2.579
(0.609) (0.552) (0.562) (0.618)
EXPECTED GRADE 3.327 3.231 3.348 3.364
(0.610) (0.742) (0.611) (0.653)
SOCIAL GROUP 0.164 0.051 0.188 0.061
(0.373) (0.223) (0.392) (0.242)
ALCOHOL 5.291 4.077 3.482 3.818
(8.069) (9.413) (5.817) (10.540)
PRE ATE 3.327 1.077 0.929 3.364
(9.401) (6.221) (6.337) (7.035)
PRE TUCE 9.055 7.308 9.393 8.424
(2.483) (2.687) (2.997) (2.773)
POST TUCE 12.243 8.849 11.967 10.478
(4.245) (2.895) (4.525) (4.033)
______________________________________________________________________
N 55 39 112 33
______________________________________________________________________
Table 3
Probability of Course Completion: Probit Results
________________________________________________________________
Variable Macro Micro
________________________________________________________________
CONSTANT -0.504 -1.933
(0.393) (0.935)
GENDER 0.240 0.400
(0.980) (1.039)
BLACK -0.232 -0.621*
(0.716) (1.280)
AGE 0.033 0.557
(0.989) (1.048)
NON-BUSINESS -0.292 -0.504*
(1.207) (1.280)
HOURS -0.001 0.002
(0.185) (0.028)
ACT -0.004 -0.635
(0.105) (0.015)
GPA 0.548*** 0.575**
(2.489) (1.987)
EXPECTED GRADE -0.404** 0.003
(1.852) (0.013)
SOCIAL GROUP 0.100 -0.723**
(0.318) (1.655)
PRE ATE -0.037** -0.001
(1.940) (0.067)
ISSUES 0.544** 0.898**
(1.741) (1.972)
________________________________________________________________
Pseudo R2 0.690 0.786
Chi-Square 19.054 18.307
________________________________________________________________
Notes: Absolute Value of t-statistics in ( ).
*Statistically significant at the .10 Level, one-tail test.
**Statistically significant at the .05 level, one-tail test.
***Statistically significant at the .01 level, one-tail test.
Table 4
Determinants of Student Understanding: Regression Results
_________________________________________________________________
Variable Macro Micro
_________________________________________________________________
CONSTANT 0.893 12.816**
(0.160) (1.876)
GENDER [-] -1.396* -2.405***
(1.450) (2.393)
BLACK [-] -1.855* 0.325
(1.484) (0.236)
AGE [+] 0.063 -0.032
(0.603) (0.033)
NON-BUSINESS [-] -0.881 -0.069
(0.890) (0.045)
HOURS [+] 0.040*** 0.001
(2.318) (0.078)
HIGH SCHOOL [+] -0.802 -0.994
(1.164) (1.253)
COMPUTER [+] -0.102 -1.679
(0.109) (1.577)
ACT [+] 0.293** 0.299**
(2.151) (2.079)
GPA [+] 0.796 -0.917
(0.874) (0.864)
ALCOHOL [-] 0.083 -0.098**
(1.178) (1.941)
PRE TUCE [+] 0.410*** -0.026
(3.420) (0.180)
ISSUES [?] -0.465 -3.082**
(0.407) (1.769)
LAMBDA -3.577** -0.214
(1.389) (0.057)
_________________________________________________________________
Adjusted R2 0.481 0.186
N 83 74
_________________________________________________________________
Notes: Expected Sign in [ ].
Absolute Value of t-statistics in ( ).
*Statistically significant at the .10 Level, one-tail test.
**Statistically significant at the .05 level, one-tail test.
***Statistically significant at the .01 level, one-tail test.