Assessment to promote learning in a literacy-targeted (LT) economics course

Abstract

The literacy-targeted (LT) introductory economics course seeks to reduce the quantity of economic concepts under study and increase students’ ability to apply those concepts to improve their own decisions and to make sense of economic news. The assessment strategy of the course must target students’ ability to transfer their conceptual knowledge to new situations. Assessments can include authentic and ill-structured problems. Frequent formative assessment with feedback gives students sufficient practice to develop deep understanding. Social learning pedagogy makes possible many more practice opportunities with immediate feedback than are possible in instructor-centered pedagogy. Regular writing assignments further develop students’ ability to apply economic concepts to real-world problems. Strategies from the writing across the curriculum (WAC) movement can limit the resulting increase in instructor workload.

Keywords:

• Backward design
• formative assessment
• ill-structured problems
• peer instruction
• writing across the curriculum

JEL code:

• A22

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

1 Long-answer questions make up the remaining 9 percent of points on the typical exam in the introductory course. Problem sets contribute 10 percent to students’ grades on average, with class participation (4%) the third-weightiest component.

2 LMS platforms typically allow IF-AT quizzes to be administered to student groups collaborating online.