Developments in Economics Education Conference

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Developments in Economics Education Conference

• MBA students and threshold concepts in Economics

Dr Keith Gray, Peri Yavash Dr Mark
Bailey Coventry University University of
Ulster
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1. Main Aims

• Examine economic awareness of MBA students
• Identify most problematic threshold concepts
• Design materials to enhance understanding and
  performance
• Identify factors affecting student performance in
  general

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2. Primary Research Tool Multiplechoice test
devised which included the three categories of
threshold concepts

• Discipline economic systems, opportunity cost,
  gains from trade, the margin, welfare
• Personal profits, incentives, price/cost,
  economic definitions
• Procedural competition, externalities,
  elasticity, competition

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• 2.1 Research Time Horizon (Cohort 1 Sept 2006
  Cohort 2 Feb 2007)

Baseline Multi-choice test (week 1)
End Multi-choice test (week 10)
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2.2 Comparability of Cohorts

• Comparable re
• Minimum qualifications
• Minimum graduate experience
• Minimum English scores
• Tutor
• Kolmogorov-Smirnov test

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2.3 Data Collection

• Cohort 1 - answered the same multiple choice
  questions at the beginning and end of their
  course
• Most problematic threshold concepts identified
• New teaching materials devised
• Cohort 2 answered the same multiple choice
  questions at the beginning and end of their
  course, but new teaching materials and learning
  environment included

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2.4 Performance for different types of threshold
concepts
Table 2.1 Cohort 1 Performance for Discipline
Threshold Concepts ( of students who achieved
the correct answer).
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Table 2.2 Cohort 1 Performance for Personal
Threshold Concepts ( of students who achieved
the correct answer).
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Table 2.3 Cohort 1 Performance for Procedural
Threshold Concepts ( of students who achieved
the correct answer).
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2.5 The most problematic threshold concepts?

• Defined as all questions (concepts) which had
  negative value added

Table 2.4 Problematic threshold concepts
(negative value added)
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Additional problem questions?

• Questions which less than 40 of students
  answered correctly
• Q9 Price/Cost
• Q14 competition (both already included)
• Questions which only 40-50 of students answered
  correctly
• Q12 Elasticity (already included)
• Questions which only 50-60 of students answered
  correctly
• Q10 Margin
• Q8 Externalities
• For all other questions, 60-94 of students
  obtained the correct answer.

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Most Problematic Threshold Concepts

• Opportunity Cost
• Price/Cost
• Competition
• Margin
• Elasticity
• Externalities

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3. Pedagogical Developments in teaching
materials for Cohort 2

• Bespoke minicases in seminars, e.g. Pricing and
  Costs in Airline Industry
• Integration of seamless video clips in lectures,
  e.g. Work/Leisure Balance (opportunity cost and
  margin)
• Integration of more Q A sessions in lectures,
  covering all problematic threshold Concepts

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• 4. Comparison of results for Cohort 1 and Cohort 2

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4.1 Overall comparison of value added for Cohort
1 and Cohort 2
Graph 4.1 Comparison of Value Added for cohorts
1 and 2
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4.2 Comparison of results for problematic
threshold concepts
Table 4.2 Comparison of value added for Cohort 1
and Cohort 2
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5. Performance Indicators and Models

• 5.

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Table 5.1 Cohort 1 Cohort 2 Pearson
Correlations
Note or Highly significant at 99
confidence level

• Commentary Baseline Correlations
• Relatively strong () correlation between Base
  End mc for Cohort 1
• Highly sig. relationship Base End mc for
  Cohort 1 only
• b) Strong () correlation highly sig.
  relationship re Base Formative test
• for both cohorts
• c) No clear pattern re other assessments or
  statistically sig. relationships

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Table 5.2 Cohort 1 2 Pearson Correlations
Note Highly significant at 99 confidence
level or Significant at 95
confidence level

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Other Comments on Table 5.2

• Sig. relationship between Baseline End mc for
  Personal categories only for Cohort 2
• Notable that strength of correlation sig. lower
  across the board for Cohort 2
• Why? ....... performance models

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Performance Model

• Present a Tobit regression model
• Module mark as dependent variable
• General to specific approach
• Following table records a range of included
  variables/ results

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Coefficient
t - value
Table 5.3 Tobit Model
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Tobit Model Commentary Highlights

• Ceteris paribus, females score 3.24 higher than
  males
• Having a science degree raises scores by 11.8
• Having an economics degree raises scores by 9
• Notably, studying in Semester 1 lowers scores by
  2
• No threshold concept related variables
  significantly affected performance
• Large constant may hide the effect of the
  teaching strategies used

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6. Conclusions

• Revised pedagogy focusing on the most problematic
  threshold concepts appears, ceteris paribus, to
  have had a positive impact on the understanding
  of these threshold concepts (re multi-choice test
  performance)
• This finding may reflect the nature of Coventry
  University MBA students, limiting its general
  applicability

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• The weakness of threshold concept related
  variables in explaining overall performance may
  reflect the characteristics of the chosen
  dependent variable (module mark)
• Available data will allow regression of
  threshold concept related variables and other
  independent variables against other dependent
  variables, e.g. summative components

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Short Bibliography

• Davies, P. Mangan, J. (2005) Embedding
  Threshold Concepts from theory to pedagogical
  principles to learning activities, Working Paper
  3, Embedding Threshold Concepts
• http//www.staffs.ac.uk/schools/business/iepr/inf
  o/Economics(2).html
• Maddala, G.(1992), Limited Dependent
  Qualitative Variables in Econometrics, Cambridge
  University Press