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2005 Economic Education Case Study Project

2005 Economic Education Case Study Project. Lessons From the Field Michael C. Kimmitt Kimberly Burnett. Background. Economics in Hawai`i Public Schools Senior elective Fulfills Social Studies requirement Taught by any teacher with Social Studies certification

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2005 Economic Education Case Study Project

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  1. 2005 Economic Education Case Study Project Lessons From the Field Michael C. Kimmitt Kimberly Burnett

  2. Background • Economics in Hawai`i Public Schools • Senior elective • Fulfills Social Studies requirement • Taught by any teacher with Social Studies certification • One school effectively requires it; other schools do not offer it. • No Child Left Behind • Economics a “core area.” • Teachers must be “highly qualified.”

  3. Background • Burnett and La Croix, “The Dog ATE My Homework,” mimeo 2005 • Examined the results from a survey of economic knowledge given to one classroom of seniors (not an econ class) in each of 19 schools

  4. Background • Some student info • Did you take an econ or consumer education (CE) class? • Are you planning to go to a two year college? Four year? • Have you participated in a stock market game? • Used publicly available data on schools. • After econometric techniques, had significant coefficients on dummy variables for schools.

  5. Literature Review • Walstad (2001), summary paper • Economics classes do generally teach economics. • Walstad (1992) • Even after a class, students do badly on test of knowledge. • Self selection issues, as with many studies. • Grimes (1994) • Differences between public and private • Bosshardt and Watts (1990) • Teacher undergrad background is important • Burnett and La Croix (2003, 2005) • Current state of Hawai`i economic education

  6. Methodology f(student interest, talent) + g(teacher ability, interest) + h(school quality) • Little info on student interest and talent • 2 yr college plans insignificant in all specifications • Impossible to gather increased data. • Case study approach • Interview principals and econ teachers • 8 schools selected, based on best variety. • Each Interview ½ hour to 2 hours, depending on subjects. • Once measures of teacher quality selected, teachers at other schools called and very briefly interviewed.

  7. Methodology SMS = Stock Market Simulation 4-year = plans to attend 4-year college DMath = variation from mean percentage of 10th grade students scoring at or above proficiency on math

  8. Results • Class structure • Economics class not effective • “My students tell me they go through everything we covered in class in the first two weeks of college.” • CE courses effective when teacher infuses economics into them. • CE not currently on list of approved courses. • Stock Market Simulations quite effective. • Even with variation between teachers.

  9. Results • Class structure cont. • Unified Econ course difficult to teach • Some students taking AP Calculus, others have trouble with percentages. • “I came here to teach econ, but now my favorite subject to teach is geometry.” • No patterns in differing structures or textbooks.

  10. Dependent: Score (1) (2) Gen 0.6 (0.4) 0.6* (0.4) Econ 4.4 (4.5) 0.8* (0.4) Teacher*Econ -4.1 (6.0) Teacher2*Econ 1.3 (1.7) Teacher3*Econ -0.1 (0.1) CE 4.0 (2.7) 3.0 (2.4) Teacher*CE -6.4** (2.4) -5.0** (2.0) Teacher2*CE 1.7*** (0.5) 1.4*** (0.4) Teacher3*CE -0.1*** (.03) -0.1*** (.03) SMS 1.4*** (0.3) 1.5*** (0.3) 4-year 1.2*** (0.3) 1.3*** (0.4) DMath 0.1*** (0.03) 0.1*** (0.03) Constant 9.4*** (0.5) 9.4*** (0.4) R-squared 0.16 0.15 *significant at 10% level, **significant at 5% level, ***significant at 1% level Results

  11. Results • Teacher Background • Undergrad classes mattered for CE, not Econ. • Qualitatively • Teacher comfort more important than background. • Most students who take Econ are college bound or seeking CE. • Econ mixes soft skills of social studies with harder analytical skills, so teachers or students could be missing either and have troubles.

  12. Teacher Background

  13. Policy Implications • Curriculum review • What we are doing now is not working. • CE classes gone, but they were successful in multiple ways. • “I’m doing unit cost pricing!” • Implies that a more applied approach might be more successful. • Stock Market Simulations effective • Other game-style tools may also be effective.

  14. Policy Implications • Teacher background • Perhaps create a sub-certification within Social Studies. • Also, perhaps a sub-certification within business • Look at UH Principles courses for Education majors • Our proxies for teacher background and enthusiasm were not useful for Econ classes; more research is needed.

  15. Further Research • As above, continue to examine teacher characteristics. • Administer survey with larger sample • More access to student characteristics • More definite results • Reexamine school quality proxy • Results using per-capita income in neighborhood, students receiving school lunches, and inequality are interesting but not easily enough interpreted to include here. • Now that schools have more standard curricula, compare curricula to that of other states.

  16. Thank you! • Give a man an economics class, and you edify him for a semester; but teach a man to be an economics teacher, and he may eventually become Speaker of the House.

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