Publications

While the field of economics is lacking in diversity, there is little consensus on the underlying causes of or most effective solutions to this problem. We combine data from the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) with data from our own survey of U.S. economics departments to identify characteristics of institutions and departments that are...

In this paper, we document the design, development, and validation of a new multiple-choice assessment created to test student knowledge and understanding of probability and statistics concepts used in economics. High quality measures of student skills and understanding are useful for course and program evaluation, analysis of pedagogical innovation, and identifying misconceptions and gaps in...

Standard assessments can give instructors reliable objective measures of student skills at the beginning and end of a term. We describe seven standard assessments that we have developed for commonly taught economics courses, and introduce a new website, econ-assessments.org, that allows instructors worldwide to set up any of our assessments for their students. Instructors get...

In this paper, we document gender and race/ethnic achievement gaps over four semesters of an intermediate-level economics course. We find that, on average, under-represented minority (URM) students score lower on assessments, and this racial achievement gap differs in important ways for male and female students. Male URM students earned lower final exam scores than male...

We use unique data from seven intermediate economics courses taught at four R1 institutions to examine the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on student learning. Because the same assessments of course knowledge mastery were administered across semesters, we can cleanly infer the impact of the unanticipated switch to remote teaching in Spring 2020. During the...

Math skills are critical for success in economics courses. However, instructors often lack information about the level and extent of their students' underpreparedness in mathematics. In this paper, we describe the development of two new assessments of math skills relevant for introductory and intermediate economics courses. The assessments may be used early in the semester...

An invention activity is a teaching technique that involves giving students a difficult substantive problem that cannot be readily solved with any methods they have already learned. The work of Dan Schwartz and colleagues (Schwartz & Bransford, 1998; Schwartz & Martin, 2004), suggests that such activities prepare students to learn the “expert’s solution” better than...

In this article, the author describes the use of primary literature readings in an upper-division undergraduate field course. One of the two main learning goals of the course was to teach students how to read academic articles in economics with a critical eye. This was accomplished by providing students with a structured framework for summarizing...