TAILIEUCHUNG - The Economic Naturalist Writing Assignment

The rst thing that most graduate students do is they rush to the literature to see if someone else had this idea already. However, my advice is to wait a bit before you look at the literature. Eventually you should do a thorough literature review, of course, but I think that you will do much better if you work on your idea for a few weeks before doing a systematic literature search. There are several reasons for delay. | The Economic Naturalist Writing Assignment Robert H. Frank Abstract Several months after having completed an introductory economics course most students are no better able to answer simple economic questions than students who never took the course. The problem seems to be that principles courses try to teach students far too much with the result that everything goes by in a blur. The good news is that a relatively small number of basic principles do most of the heavy lifting in economics. By focusing narrowly on these principles it is possible to teach students to master them at a fairly high level in just a single semester. The author describes a simple pedagogical device that has proven effective in this effort. It is called the economic naturalist writing assignment an essay in which students must pose an interesting question about something they have personally observed and then use basic economic principles to answer it in no more than 500 words. The author gives examples of questions and answers. Key words critical thinking economic naturalist introductory economics JeL code A22 Most students who take introductory economics seem to leave the course without really having learned even the most important basic economic principles. For example their ability to answer simple economic questions several months after leaving the course is not measurably different from that of people who never took a principles course Hansen Salemi and Siegfried 2002 . The problem seems to be that instructors of principles courses almost always try to teach students far too much. In the process really important ideas get no more coverage than minor ones. Everything ends up going by in a blur. The good news is that a relatively small number of basic principles do most of the heavy lifting in economics so if instructors can bring themselves to focus narrowly on those they can actually teach students to master them at a fairly high level in just a single semester. What principles should

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