Economics teaching relies overwhelmingly on faculty lecturing, which is generally seen as a significant pedagogical problem. But this paper argues that didactic instruction is actually well-suited to the neoclassical economics that is usually taught. This approach – especially its textbook...

This paper aims to quantify the effectiveness of teaching economics with video exemplars, mainly the US TV show The Simpsons. We regress students' exam scores on their performance on Simpsons and non-Simpsons pop quizzes. After controlling for students' quality difference and exam content, our...

In 1985 the Department of Economics at Dickinson College USA, a private four year liberal arts college, embarked upon a bold but promising reform of its economics programme placing it on the cutting edge of what is now called 'pluralist economics education'. This new approach to the philosophy...

We developed three hypotheses and a case study involving a sample of 203 students enrolled in four introductory microeconomics classes during the spring semesters of 2007 and 2009 to examine the effects of prior exam performance on increments for current in- and out-of-classroom efforts toward...

The introductory course poses a particular problem for a pluralist approach. The mainstream has assumed that its paradigm constitutes the whole of what is worthwhile communicating to first year students. Thus a substantial portion of the available teaching time has been pre-allocated. The...

The TUCE is a test of economic literacy which is used to allow lecturers of economics to compare student performance in economics in their classes. The results of the TUCE indicated that the majority of students struggled with the questions of the TUCE. The poor economic literacy rate raised the...

The purpose of this essay is to give my own perspective about what is wrong with the Chinese higher education and what is needed. From my perspective, and I believe I speak for many, if we are to truly understand our economy, we need to go beyond what is presented in the texts; to go beyond...

Managerial economics, which seeks to use microeconomic principles to solve managerial problems, has become firmly established in business curricula, particularly at the MBA level. Surveys of MBA directors and MBA alumni, however, have indicated that managerial economics tends to be an unpopular...