An Examination of Trade-Offs in Teaching Economic Principles

In the fall of 1971 the economics principles program at Oklahoma State University was restructured. In lieu of the traditional two-semester principles course, two new courses--The Economics of Social Issues and Introduction to Economic Analysis-were established. As the name suggests, Economics of Social Issues is an issues-oriented principles course. The objectives of the course are to create interest in economics and to teach a limited number of economic principles around a set of social issues. The course consists of both micro and macro issues and principles. The Introduction to Economic Analysis is a theory-concentrated principles course. Its purpose is to provide in-depth coverage of both micro and macro economic principles. Applied fields such as labor economics, public finance, international trade, and industrial organization are not examined in the course. This course has no prerequisites-it may be taken before, with or after the issues-oriented principles course. The purpose of this paper is to test two hypotheses: (1) there is no significant difference in the gain in economic learning between our issues-oriented principles course and our theory-concentrated principles course and (2) there is no significant difference in the gain in economic learning between our restructured two-semester sequence and the traditional two-semester principles sequence covering the waterfront-principles, policies and the applied fields.