Assessment Part 2

The latest issue of the Papers and Proceedings of the American Economic Review contains three articles on 'research on teaching innovations' in economics. The idea is that the effects of the innovations are measurable because the economists who introduced the innovations, or who analyzed the innovations, used randomized trials. The papers find that the effects of the innovations are on the order of 2 percentage point increases in final overall scores, leading to half-letter grade change for about 25% of class (in the case of the first innovation). The three innovations are: (1) requiring that Econ students take a math skills course and test online prior to their work in the Econ class; (2) using an interactive software to enable experiments and feedback real time in the classroom; and (3) having problem sets be graded rather than optional. The papers are striking, and typical of the assessment literature. To wit: they elevate the virtue of careful measurement of results (through randomization in these cases) while completely ignoring the most fundamental principle taught in economics, that of opportunity cost. Each one acts as if their innovation was costless and produced a 2% return, so why not do it everywhere? If students are taking a math skills class online, sure their Econ grade might go up- but might they not have done worse on their history assignment? Won't grades go up with practically *any* assignment? Don't instructors try to strike a balance between the work they think is important for their class, and an understanding that students are working on other classes at the same time? Moreover, signing students up for an on-line tutorial and math exam is not free- who is paying for that? If someone is paying for that, might the money not yield higher scores by bringing in high-quality tutors? The same goes for the grading requirement- mightn't the learning effect be even greater if the professor were not grading but rather were doing more review sessions? And the interactive software? How many class sessions are spent teaching students an obscure proprietary software that has no applications outside the Econ classroom. Isn't there an opportunity cost in terms of Econ material not covered? Maybe students perform better because they do less 'work' and have more fun (i.e. non-work), and the exams are ratcheted downwards? Anyway, food for the assessment skeptic to digest.