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Economics works! Experiments in high school classrooms.

Article Excerpt
Abstract

Economic experiments are a unique form of active learning. Students apply the scientific method by testing hypotheses and discovering for themselves how markets work. The authors conducted teacher training courses in experimental economics over a three-year period and conducted surveys to track teachers' adoption of classroom experiments. This paper discusses the survey results and describes how the training was revised accordingly. The primary conclusion of this article is that classroom experiments must be compatible with the school environment; that is, they should emphasize non-monetary incentives and hand-run experiments as well as be explicitly tied to school curricula.

I. Introduction

By the time that Vernon Smith, who pioneered the use of experiments in economics, was awarded the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics in 2002, experiments had become a familiar part of instruction in college economics courses. A substantial literature describes the use of economic experiments for instructional purposes in college classrooms. (Holt, 2007) provides a good reference, and numerous articles describing experiments in college classrooms have been published recently, including experiments in price discrimination (Michael et al., 2005), public goods theory (Pickhardt, 2005), money demand and risk (Ewing, Kruse and Thompson, 2004) and rationing "free" goods (Alden, 2006).

Experiments are a form of active learning that economic educators have been advocating for decades (Becker, 2000; Becker and Watts, 1995; and Brock and Lopus, 2006). Students in college microeconomics course sections with an experimental emphasis have experienced added gains in achievement on the Test of Understanding College Economics (Emerson and Taylor, 2004; and Dickie, 2006), and have outscored students in control classes on final exams (Ball, Eckel, and Rojas, 2006).

II. Economics Works!

Experiments are a unique form of active learning. Students apply the scientific method by testing hypotheses and discovering for themselves how markets work and how people respond to incentives. This was brought home to one of the authors after running Smith's classic double auction experiment with a high school Advanced Placement Economics...