“mislearning” economics: addressing common thinking errors of principles students mariya...

“Mislearning” Economics: Addressing Common Thinking Errors of Principles Students

Mariya Burdina, Ph.D. & Katherine M. Sauer, Ph.D. [email protected] [email protected]

Metropolitan State College of Denver

April 12th , 2011 2011 Association of Private Enterprise Education Annual Conference, Nassau, Bahamas

Basic premise:

People learn new material by putting it in the context of what they already know.

In economics, prior experience and knowledge commonly interfere with the correct understanding of the new material.

Outline: I. Thinking ErrorsII. Identification StrategiesIII. Field Experiment

Examples of student “misthinking” fall into three categories.

1. linguistic mindset: derives from the tendency to identify with the everyday language usage of a word

- discipline’s usage differs from everyday usage

- ‘precision’ of the term matters

I. Thinking ErrorsII. StrategiesIII. Experiment

2. physical mindset: derives from the students’ physical experiences that cause misconceptions with regard to the understanding of graphical representations

3. resistive mindset: derives from the natural resistance to acknowledge a reality that is different from what the student believes “ought to be” the case


Kourilsky, M. (1993) “Economic Education and a Generative Model of Mislearning and Recovery” The Journal of Economic Education 24(1): 23-33.

Linguistic Mindset Physical Mindset scarcity vs rarity spending money has a cost but spending time doesn’t quantity demanded vs demand left shift in supply is a decrease quantity supplied vs supply binding price ceilings and floors

inelastic elasticity

public good vs public provision of a good zero economic profits vs not earning any

money Resistive Mindset the “cost” in opportunity cost isn’t just money

cost price controls are not always good for consumers (or

producers) welfare economics vs welfare program a monopoly isn’t simply a bad thing demand for labor vs wanting to have a job trade can benefit both parties involved

shift vs movement along sales tax on consumers or producers yields same

outcome unintended consequences vs negative

externalities ceteris paribus above vs increasing (on average-marginal

graphs)

Examples:I. Thinking ErrorsII. StrategiesIII. Experiment

According to the Generative Theory of Learning, people understand new concepts by idiosyncratically relating them to prior experiences and prior stored information.

How can we tap in to the students’ schema and use it to our teaching advantage?

Assessing the connections that the students have made can give insight to instructors.


Wittrock, M.C. (1974) “Learning as a Generative Process” Educational Psychologist. 11(2): 87-95. Republished in original form in 2010 “Learning as a Generative Process” Educational Psychologist. 45(1): 40-45.

Generative Learning Strategies can be broken down into 4 basic categories.

Strategies that promote: recall, organization, integration or elaboration.


Sharp, D.C., DS. Knowlton, and R.E. Weiss (2005) “Applications of Generative Learning for the Survey of International Economics Course” The Journal of Economic Education 36(4): 345-357.


1. Organization strategies involve the student imposing an organization on the content.

outlinesummaryconcept map

2. Integration strategies are those that assist students in making connections to their prior experience and knowledge.

paraphrasingcreating analogies or metaphors


3. Elaboration strategies require the student to connect the new content with additional or extended information.

- identifying real-world examples

- predicting implications of policies

- connecting course content to content from other disciplines

- hypothesizing causes for particular outcomes

Our Focus:

Analogies and metaphors are useful for making abstract concepts more concrete.

AnalogyGlove is to hand as paint is to wall.

Metaphor The lawyer grilled the witness.


People use analogies and metaphors so often in everyday communication that they may not even be aware they are doing so.

It is common to begin a statement with “Think of it as…” or “It is similar to …” when explaining something that is unfamiliar to a friend.


When students construct an analogy or metaphor they are relating new information to information they already understand.

Because the students’ own language is used to construct analogies or metaphors, students can not simply regurgitate definitions and examples from class.

An instructor can gauge a class’s understanding of a concept by looking at the analogies that students come up with.

Analogies can help students overcome the linguistic and physical mindset.



III. Evolution of Our Field Experiment

Pilot Version 1. After the instructor teaches a concept, students are asked to come up with an analogy for a that concept.

- homework for the next class- 3 to 5 answers were volunteered from students tobe discussed by class

We learned:- some students don’t understand analogies in general- by glancing through the submitted work, the instructor could gauge the class’s understanding- it is better to have analogies handed in so instructorcan process them before discussing as a class


Student Examples for quantity demanded vs demand

paycheck to 52 paychecks

a gallon of gasoline to a full tank

Demand is like people in the market for car and quantity demanded is the people willing to pay a certain amount for a car.

The need of shoes is big, so we’ll get more shoes to sell. There are 80000 people in Colorado who want to buy an iPhone, but there is only 10,000 available .


Pilot Version 2. After the instructor teaches the concept, the instructor offers an analogy for the concept, then the students are assigned the task of coming up with an analogy.

- tried in groups in class and as homework

We learned:- student answers fall into 3 types:

- clever/insightful analogy- analogy very similar to instructor’s- incorrect analogy


Instructor’s Price Ceiling AnalogyGrocery stores often impose a limit on the number of sale items you may buy.

Analogy Price Ceiling Store policy is to let you buy only a maximum

number of a particular item that is on sale. Legally, a price ceiling is the maximum price that

can be charged.

Some people would like to buy more than the limit, but are not allowed to.

Some people would be willing to pay more in order to be able to purchase the item, but are not allowed to.

Some transactions are prevented from taking place.

Some transactions are prevented from taking place.

Student-Generated Price Ceiling AnalogiesCorrect Incorrect

Many colleges have a maximum number of times you may attempt a course. Some students would like to attempt the same course more times, but are not allowed to. Some transactions are prevented from taking place.

Some airlines allow you to check one 50 pound bag free of charge. Some people want to bring more baggage but don't because they will have to pay for it. Some transactions are prevented from taking place.

Example:


Pilot Version 3. The instructor teaches the concept, offers an analogy, then gives an assignment where students distinguish between correct and false analogies.

- create worksheets

- students work together and discuss the merits of each analogy for a particular economic concept


Evaluating the Impact on Student Learning:

Where:(pending) Tier 1 research university with large-enrollment principles courses

- 4 sections (800 to 1000 students)

- multiple recitation sections

How:The experiment will take place in the recitation sections.

- each TA has control and experiment sections

3 to 5 topics will be chosen, TAs will be given instruction on the technique

experiment sectionsTAs will review the course material as they normally would but will also offer analogies.

The students will receive a worksheet involving both traditional questions and analogy questions.

control sectionsTAs will review the material as they normally would but will not offer analogies.

Students will receive a worksheet involving only traditional questions.


Variable of interest:student performance on exam questions relating to the experimental concepts

We hypothesize that students in the experiment group will score higher on those questions than students in the control group.


Control Variables:

- course performance (homework, attendance, exam average, course grade)

- student characteristics (GPA, credits, standardized tests, major, gender, age, previous econ course?)

- Instructor and TA dummy variables


Comments? Questions?

To contact us:Katie Sauer Mariya [email protected] [email protected] 303-556-3131

April 12th , 2011 2011 Association of Private Enterprise Education Annual Conference, Nassau, Bahamas

“mislearning” economics: addressing common thinking errors of principles students mariya...

Documents

generative learning

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labor vs

vs movement

economic profits vs

field experiment slide

identification strategies

generative theory of