Understanding the financial literacy of young people is an essential prerequisite for developing effective education programmes designed to improve young people’s understanding of personal finance. In this paper, we present results from a survey of high school students which included a...

Personal financial literacy is becoming increasingly important in the modern world, especially for young people. In this paper we compare financial literacy of high school students in Hamilton, New Zealand, with samples from Japan and the United States. We compare not only overall financial...

The results of three surveys of freshman economics students (2008-2010) at the Waikato Management School, New Zealand, suggest that incoming students have significant levels of prior economics knowledge. Given this head start in knowledge, we have expanded our freshman lecture material with more...

This study investigates whether question format disadvantages certain types of students. I use assessment data compiled from principles of economics classes at the University of Canterbury from 2002-2008. I combine these with administrative data on student characteristics to create a...

This paper reports from a simple natural field experiment based on an eco-nomics exam. Part of the exam consisted of 30 multiple choice questions, where the students obtained 1 point per correct answer while 1 point was deducted for each in-correct answer. We find no significant gender...

As the result of the September 4th 2010 Canterbury earthquake and associated aftershocks on February 22nd 2011 and June 13th 2011, final examinations in the two 100 level economics papers at Canterbury University were cancelled at short notice in semester one 2011. The final examination...

Advocates of Constructed Response (CR) questions argue that CR questions provide a different assessment of student knowledge than is available from Multiple Choice (MC) questions. If that is the case, and if the benefit in terms of improved assessment is substantial, then it follows that grade...

This study investigates how first year Principles of Economics courses assessment items predict achievement in post principles economics courses. Of particular interest is how achievement in different assessment forms (assignments, multiple choice questions, and constructed response questions)...

Blogs provide a dynamic interactive medium for online discussion, consistent with communal constructivist pedagogy. This paper explores the use of blogs in the teaching and assessment of a small (40-60 students) introductory economics paper. The role of blogs as a teaching, learning and...

This study provides evidence that constructed response (CR) questions contribute information about student knowledge and understanding that is not contained in multiple choice questions (MC). We use an extensive data set of individual assessment results from Introductory Macro- and...