William E. Becker

Teaching Methods in U.S. Undergraduate Economics Courses

Abstract In 1995 and 2000, the authors surveyed academic economists in the United States to establish how economics is taught in four types of undergraduate courses. The authors report overall findings from the 2000 survey and compare these results with the aggregate findings for respondents from all types of colleges and universities in the 1995 survey. The basic finding is that, despite some indications of increased emphasis and interest in teaching over this period, the teaching methods in these courses have changed very little over the past five years and are still dominated by “chalk and talk” classroom presentations.

Teaching economics to undergraduates : alternatives to chalk and talk

Alternatives to the lectures-and-chalkboard approach that dominates the teaching of economics are given here in a wide range of learning styles aimed at undergraduates.

How Departments of Economics Evaluate Teaching

Based on results from a 1999 national survey, William Becker and Michael Watts found that student evaluations of teaching were by far the most widely used, and often the only method used by economics departments, to evaluate teaching in undergraduate economics courses. To investigate whether departments of economics have moved beyond the use of student evaluations of teaching, in 2011 the current authors conducted a national survey of departments based largely on questions used in the 1999 survey. The surveys included items on how courses and teaching are evaluated, and on how that information is used in departmental promotion and salary decisions. (This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)

The Learning Effect of Assessment and Evaluation in High School.

Abstract The implications for student behavior of different standards in testing are explored and the importance of a students position in the distributions of student attainment is demonstrated. We show that competition between students does stimulate academic effort provided students are appropriately rewarded for achieving. We argue that stratifying students into groups in which each has a chance for success may be preferred to the setting of a single national standard.

Data Loss from Pretest to Posttest as a Sample Selection Problem

When estimating regression models of educational achievement with pre- and posttest data, researchers have overlooked a sample selection bias that may occur even where initial assignment to the control and experimental groups is random. The bias arises because students who take the pretest but do not take the posttest are excluded from the regression analysis. Using data from a nationally normed test of high school student knowledge of economics, adjustment for this bias is shown to influence the estimated effectiveness of programs aimed at increasing student learning of economics. Copyright 1990 by MIT Press.

Research on High School Economic Education.

Attention is given to the ways in which high school student learning in economics has been measured and to research findings using those measures. Standardized test scores show no great difference between one method of instruction and another. There is a need for alternative measures.

A Graphical Exposition of the Ordered Probit

The use of probit and logit models has become quite common whenever the dependent variable in a regression is qualitative. These models have been used to explain either/or choices and decisions involving multiple alternatives. A two-dimensional graphical interpretation of these different models has been provided by Johnson [3]. The purpose of this paper is to provide a three-dimensional graphical exposition of the ordered probit model, which was first estimated by McKelvey and Zavoina [4] and is now built into computer packages, such as LIMDEP [1].

Economic Education Research: Part III, Statistical Estimation Methods

This article is the last in a three-part series on research methodology in economic education in which statistical methods for model estimation are presented. Emphasis is upon the estimation and classical hypotheses testing of economic learning-regression models which may involve systems of equations, collinear regressors, interactions, and distributional effects, when there are errors in the variables and where measures of learning may be ordinal.

Higher education and economic growth

Preface. 1. Preview of Higher Education and Economic Growth W.E. Becker, D.R. Lewis. 2. Higher Education and Economic Growth S.A. Hoenack. 3. Higher Education, Economic Growth, and Earnings J. Pencavel. 4. Is Public Education Productive? D.A. Aschauer. 5. The Contribution of Higher Education to R & D and Productivity Growth W.M. McMahon. 6. The Effects of Higher Education on Unemployment Rates W.J. Howe. 7. Quality of Higher Education and Economic Growth in the United States L.C. Solmon, C.L. Fagnano. 8. Higher Education, Business Creation, and Economic Growth in the American States B.D. Jones, A. Vedlitz. Index.

Econometric Modeling in Economic Education Research

1 Statistical Methods in Economic Education Research.- 2 Building Theoretical Models.- 3 Measuring Intervention, Interaction, and Distribution Effects with Dummy Variables.- 4 Experimental and Nonexperimental Approaches to Statistical Research.- 5 Measurement Instruments.- 6 Simultaneous Equations Estimation.- 7 Applying Two-Stage Least Squares.- 8 The Probit Model.- 9 The Analysis of Qualitative and Limited Responses.- 10 Limited and Discrete Dependent Variable Models.- 11 Simultaneous Nonlinear Learning Models.- 12 Using Bayesian Analysis.- About the Authors.