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Atlanta Marriott Marquis, M105
Hosted By:
National Association of Economic Educators
In addition to knowledge about the Fed, our survey data allow us to control for sex and age of the teachers, their educational attainment and teaching experience, attitudes toward teaching economics and other subjects, rural versus urban environment of their schools, and whether economics is a mandated subject for high school graduation in the state. Our sample consists of relatively experienced teachers, more male than female, about a third of whom prefer teaching economics to other subjects, and about a quarter of whom rank economics as their least favorite subject to teach. It is fairly representative of the population of social studies teachers in the US.
We find gender differences in survey responses with men scoring higher on the Fed knowledge questions than women. Interestingly, a preliminary analysis of the data lost due to incomplete survey responses reveals that women were far more likely to stop responding to the survey after first posed with a question asking about the Fed.
In this paper, I use a new dataset of TFL test scores obtained from Keys to Financial Success students in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware to examine the degree of positive, retained, zero, and negative learning exhibited by those students from pretest to post test. I use the methodology explained in Walstad and Wagner (2016) and refined by Smith and Wagner (2017). To better understand the measurement differences between the TFL and FFFL-HS tests, results from the recent TFL cohort are compared to previously reported results obtained from a prior cohort of students taking the FFFL-HS test. This work contributes to our ongoing work as a field to better understand how these two tests different in their ability to measure students’ understanding of personal finance. To my knowledge, this is the first time that the TFL test has been used to measure student understanding in an actual high school personal finance course.
in two different extra credit assignments administered in a large Principles of Macroeconomics
course in spring 2017. The first assignment is a competitive assignment consisting of music
suggestions and explanations made by students, in which students can “win” extra credit points by
being picked as the first or second place winner. The second assignment consists of a Student
Expenditure Basket spreadsheet in which all students who complete the spreadsheet earn extra
credit points; both assignments are completed outside the classroom. The study then proceeds to
investigate the determinants of extra credit and the importance of extra credit in the student’s final
grade. Class participation, gender and race play a significant role in extra credit points with
students who have higher classroom participation rates, females and non-Caucasians more likely
to gain from the two extra credit opportunities. The association between the extra credit points
earned and classroom participation rates indicate a positive relationship between within and
outside the classroom effort. Results also show that only a small percentage of students invest the
effort necessary to complete and/or win the optional extra credit assignments. It is also found that
students with higher previous collegiate GPAs, classroom participation rates, and extra credit
completion rates earn higher grades in the course.
Decision Making: The More You Know…
Paper Session
Sunday, Jan. 6, 2019 10:15 AM - 12:15 PM
- Chair: Jane Lopus, California State University-East Bay
What Do Teachers Know about the Fed and the Dual Mandate?
Abstract
A 2017 survey of 770 social studies teachers in the Federal Reserve’s twelfth district (comprised of nine Western states) reveals that only about 15 percent of teachers, including economics teachers, can identify the Fed’s main objectives of price stability and full employment. The overall score on a brief (six question) questionnaire about the role of the Fed averaged 50 percent for all teachers and 67 percent for economics teachers. These findings have potential policy implications in that the data collected also reveal that teachers who have lower levels of knowledge about the Fed are less likely to think that the Fed is doing a good job in regulating the economy.In addition to knowledge about the Fed, our survey data allow us to control for sex and age of the teachers, their educational attainment and teaching experience, attitudes toward teaching economics and other subjects, rural versus urban environment of their schools, and whether economics is a mandated subject for high school graduation in the state. Our sample consists of relatively experienced teachers, more male than female, about a third of whom prefer teaching economics to other subjects, and about a quarter of whom rank economics as their least favorite subject to teach. It is fairly representative of the population of social studies teachers in the US.
We find gender differences in survey responses with men scoring higher on the Fed knowledge questions than women. Interestingly, a preliminary analysis of the data lost due to incomplete survey responses reveals that women were far more likely to stop responding to the survey after first posed with a question asking about the Fed.
Learning Outcomes in a High School Personal Finance Course: More Evidence Using the TFL
Abstract
Using the recently released Test of Financial Literacy (TFL), student achievement in semester Keys to Financial Success high school personal finance courses is examined. After disaggregating the students’ test scores into positive, retained, negative, and zero learning, student performance on the TFL test is compared to disaggregated performance on the Financial Fitness for Life High School Test (FFFL-HS) from previous cohorts.In this paper, I use a new dataset of TFL test scores obtained from Keys to Financial Success students in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware to examine the degree of positive, retained, zero, and negative learning exhibited by those students from pretest to post test. I use the methodology explained in Walstad and Wagner (2016) and refined by Smith and Wagner (2017). To better understand the measurement differences between the TFL and FFFL-HS tests, results from the recent TFL cohort are compared to previously reported results obtained from a prior cohort of students taking the FFFL-HS test. This work contributes to our ongoing work as a field to better understand how these two tests different in their ability to measure students’ understanding of personal finance. To my knowledge, this is the first time that the TFL test has been used to measure student understanding in an actual high school personal finance course.
The Choice Is Yours: You Can Win With This, or You Can Win With That
Abstract
This study investigates who benefits from extra credit by examining the points earned by studentsin two different extra credit assignments administered in a large Principles of Macroeconomics
course in spring 2017. The first assignment is a competitive assignment consisting of music
suggestions and explanations made by students, in which students can “win” extra credit points by
being picked as the first or second place winner. The second assignment consists of a Student
Expenditure Basket spreadsheet in which all students who complete the spreadsheet earn extra
credit points; both assignments are completed outside the classroom. The study then proceeds to
investigate the determinants of extra credit and the importance of extra credit in the student’s final
grade. Class participation, gender and race play a significant role in extra credit points with
students who have higher classroom participation rates, females and non-Caucasians more likely
to gain from the two extra credit opportunities. The association between the extra credit points
earned and classroom participation rates indicate a positive relationship between within and
outside the classroom effort. Results also show that only a small percentage of students invest the
effort necessary to complete and/or win the optional extra credit assignments. It is also found that
students with higher previous collegiate GPAs, classroom participation rates, and extra credit
completion rates earn higher grades in the course.
Discussant(s)
Brenda Cude
,
University of Georgia
William Goffe
,
Pennsylvania State University
William Bosshardt
,
Florida Atlantic University
John Swinton
,
Georgia College
JEL Classifications
- A2 - Economic Education and Teaching of Economics