Manuel Förster

Effects of prior economic education, native language, and gender on economic knowledge of first-year students in higher education. A comparative study between Germany and the USA

The assessment of university students’ economic knowledge has become an increasingly important research area within and across countries. Particularly, the different influences of prior education, native language, and gender as some of the main prerequisites on students’ economic knowledge have been highlighted since long. However, the findings are often only available within countries and focus on students who are at different levels of their studies or graduates. To remedy this research deficit, the goal of our article is to analyze the status of economic knowledge of students at the beginning of their course of studies and compare the effects of prior economic education, gender, and native language between the USA and Germany. Therefore, we used a translated and adapted version of the fourth edition of the Council for Economic Educations Test of Understanding in College Economics (TUCE). The TUCE is an international measuring instrument that has been validated and widely been used in several countries to assess the economic knowledge of students in higher education. Since the curricular structure as well as higher education studies/programs in both countries is quite comparable, no tremendous general between-country effect has been expected. But as our results show, if micro- and macroeconomics are analyzed separately, divergent effects on the students’ economic knowledge were detected showing that prior education has a positive significant effect merely on micro test scores, while gender and native language are purely significant on macro test scores in both countries. In our conclusion, we discuss several reasons that might have caused these different effects.

Gender Effects in Assessment of Economic Knowledge and Understanding: Differences Among Undergraduate Business and Economics Students in Germany, Japan, and the United States

Gender effects in large-scale assessments have become an increasingly important research area within and across countries. Yet few studies have linked differences in assessment results of male and female students in higher education to construct-relevant features of the target construct. This paper examines gender effects on students’ economic content knowledge with a focus on construct-relevant explanations. Moreover, we compare gender effects cross-nationally between Germany, Japan, and the United States. To assess economic content knowledge of higher education students, we used translated, adapted, and validated versions of the Test of Understanding in College Economics (TUCE, 4th ed.), an instrument that is commonly used internationally. We found gender effects on test scores in all three countries; effects were larger in Germany and the United States than in Japan. Gender effects were generally more pronounced on the numeracy subscale than on the literacy subscale, that is, male students had a greater edge over female students when items required calculations. In our conclusion, we discuss how numeracy and literacy items may tap different abilities.

Macroeconomic knowledge of higher education students in Germany and Japan – a multilevel analysis of contextual and personal effects

Recent trends towards harmonising and internationalising business and economics studies in higher education are affecting the structure and content of programmes and courses, and necessitate more transparent and comparable information on students’ economic knowledge and skills. In this study, we examine by linear multilevel regression modelling the current state of macroeconomic knowledge of higher education students in Germany and Japan, while controlling for the effects of key study-related aspects such as study progress and completion of economics courses. We assess macroeconomic knowledge using the internationally established Test of Understanding in College Economics, which has been adapted and validated for use in Germany and Japan. We found a significant positive correlation between students’ level of knowledge and study progress in both countries, as well as varied gender-related and country-specific differences. Implications for assessment practices and future research are discussed.

Modeling and Measuring University Students’ Subject-Specific Competencies in the Domain of Business and Economics – The ILLEV Project

Current research provides very little empirical evidence regarding the influence of academic higher education on the development of professionalism among students. Over the course of the reform of the higher education systems in Europe (Bologna declaration) this issue has become increasingly important.

Assessing the previous economic knowledge of beginning students in Germany: Implications for teaching economics in basic courses

Study-related prior knowledge plays a decisive role in business and economics degree courses. Prior knowledge has a significant influence on knowledge acquisition in higher education, and teachers need information on it to plan their introductory courses accordingly. Very few studies have been conducted of first-year students’ prior economic knowledge or differences among students in such knowledge. In this article, the prior economic knowledge and the influence of personal factors on first-year students’ prior economic knowledge are examined. For this purpose, an adaptation of the fourth, revised edition of the American Test of Economic Literacy was administered, which was adapted in 2014 according to the Test and Adaptation Guidelines for use in higher education in Germany. We present findings based from an assessment conducted in higher education in Germany in the summer term of 2014; the subsample for this study comprises first-year students of business and economics. Findings indicate that there are significant differences in prior economic knowledge among first-year students within universities. Influence factors include economic learning experiences prior to starting university, gender, and mother tongue. The article closes with implications for teaching and degree program design.

Die Rolle der kollektiven Selbstwirksamkeit von Lehrkräften für erfolgreiche Schul- und Unterrichtsentwicklungsprozesse – Ergebnisse einer empirischen Studie

Insbesondere im Rahmen des neuen outputorientierten Steuerungsmodells kommt der Zusammenarbeit im Lehrkollegium ein zentraler Stellenwert zu. Sowohl die Forschung als auch die Bildungspraxis zeigen einstimmig, dass die Zusammenarbeit im Lehrkollegium eine notwendige Voraussetzung fur die erfolgreiche Realisierung von Schulentwicklungs- sowie schulubergreifenden Unterrichtsentwicklungsprozessen darstellt (s. z. B. die Beitrage in Zeitschrift fur Padagogik, 2006; auch Buske und Zlatkin-Troitschanskaia, 2009).

Implementierung und Wirksamkeit der erweiterten Autonomie im öffentlichen Schulwesen – Eine Mehrebenenbetrachtung

Das Konzept der erweiterten Schulautonomie hat als eine umfassende Innovation in der letzten Dekade zunehmende Beachtung erfahren. Spatestens nach der Veroffentlichung der ersten PISA-Ergebnisse in 2000 gehort „Schulautonomie“ zweifelsohne zu einem der Schlagworter der bildungspolitischen Diskussion und auch mehrere Forschungsdisziplinen und -richtungen (wie Educational Governance- Forschung, padagogische Implementationsforschung, Innovations- und Schulentwicklungsforschung etc.) haben sich mit diesem Konzept aus ihrer jeweiligen Perspektiven intensiv auseinandergesetzt. Je nach Annahme bzw. Fokus solcher theoretischen Sichtweisen (z. B. die juristische bzw. verwaltungsrechtliche Sicht, steuerungs- bzw. systemtheoretische Sicht, akteurs- bzw. handlungstheoretische Sicht etc.) werden sehr unterschiedliche Begriffsklarungen und Konzeptbeschreibungen vorgenommen (Zlatkin-Troitschanskaia 2006). Insgesamt zeigt sich, dass es sich bei der Schulautonomie um ein sehr facetten- und variantenreiches mehrdimensionales Konstrukt handelt (zu den verschiedenen Dimensionen der Schulautonomie: Zlatkin-Troitschanskaia 2010), zu dem auch ganz verschiedene Konzeptualisierungsansatze in den unterschiedlichen Forschungsdisziplinen vorliegen.

How feedback provided by voluntary electronic quizzes affects learning outcomes of university students in large classes

Abstract In view of the increasing number of university students attending large statistics classes as a requirement for their degree courses, the use of an online learning environment is indispensable for delivering immediate and frequent feedback. However, results of research on the value of technological tools and blended courses in various academic disciplines are not consistent and only point to minimal effects on academic achievement. To fill this gap, in this study, participation in optional electronic quizzes and its effects on exam grades in large statistics classes depending on gender and previous statistics- and mathematics-related abilities are investigated. Overall, participation in the electronic quizzes yielded a positive effect on final grades. However, particularly the groups who participated less in the electronic quizzes – i.e. poor performing students and males - benefitted more from quiz participation than high performing and female students. The large variability in effect sizes of feedback on performance suggests that additional moderators such as specific situation- and task-related characteristics and individual affective preconditions such as effort, motivation, and self-esteem should be analyzed in future research.