It is conventional wisdom that students attitude toward a course or an instructor determines how much students learns in the class. I was surprised to find out that someone actually tested this hypothesis out. Using a single equation model (Karstensson and Vedder, 1974, A note on attitude as a factor on in learning economics. Journal of economics education, (pp109-111)) this hypothesis works. However when a simultaneous relationship is estimated with a two-stage least squares the results shows something different. It shows that relationship between attitude and learning in economics classes goes in one direction but the direction is the opposite of the conventional wisdom. Students who learn more in an economics class tend to like economics more and are likely to take more economics afterwards (Walstad 1987 applying two stage least squares. In W.E. Becker and W.B. walstad, Econometric modeling in economic education research (pp111-134). Kluwer-Nijhoff)
The above reminds me of three things: 1) I love economics. It proves the conventional wisdom wrong using econometrics. 2) I have forgotten all of my econometrics. 3) All joking aside these studies made me think back and remember students saying “that class is a waste of time”. If they see your class as a waste of time they will hate you and whatever you teach.
No comments:
Post a Comment