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The Impact of the Teaching High School Economics Workshop for Teachers on Student Achievement

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Abstract

Centers for Economic Education across the country have as their primary goal assisting k-12 teachers teach economics. Much of this assistance is done through in-service teacher workshops. While there is empirical evidence that teacher in-service workshops ultimately increase student achievement, it is useful to know which workshops have the greatest impact. In this paper, we analyze the effect of one of the most popular workshops, Teaching High School Economics. Using new data on all Georgia high school students, we find that the students of teachers who have attended this workshop achieve significantly higher scores on these tests than other students.

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Notes

  1. For a list of workshops offered, see Swinton et al. [2010].

  2. This information about specific GCEE workshops and their content comes from personal communications with GCEE associate director and chief program officer, Glen Blankenship.

  3. During the workshop, teachers also receive the Capstone, Focus: High School, and Focus: International publications from CEE. Teachers also receive the Economics Classroom video series developed by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. In addition, teachers received the Virtual Economics 2.0 disk (currently the Virtual Economics 3.0 disk is distributed in a separate dedicated workshop).

  4. Algebra, Geometry, United States History, Economics/Business/Free Enterprise, Biology, Physical Science, Ninth Grade Literature and Composition, and American Literature and Composition [GaDOE 2008].

  5. Of the 90 questions, 75 count toward the student's score. Each test also field tests 15 questions, which do not count toward the student's score.

  6. The EOCTs are officially administered in the spring and the fall. Some students take remedial EOCTs in the summer. These tests are not included in the data.

  7. In future work, we hope to specifically examine AP Economics and GCEE's AP Economics workshop.

  8. This restriction disproportionately eliminates observations early in our sample period. If any bias from this sampling procedure comes from teachers learning more about the test over time, our norming of the EOCT scores ought to address this problem.

  9. Other studies of the impact of in-service workshops for economics teachers suggest larger effects. However, as discussed in our literature review, these studies tend to be small-scale analyses that do not attempt to control for any selection bias.

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Acknowledgements

This research was made possible by the Council for Economic Education through funding from the United States Department of Education Office of Innovation and Improvement, and Georgia College & State University. The authors thank the Georgia Department of Education for sharing its student administrative data and expertise, which made this study possible. Finally, the authors also thank participants at the 2009 NCEE/NAEE Conference and especially three anonymous referees for helpful comments.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Georgia College & State University, CBX 14, Milledgeville, 31061, Georgia, USA

    John R Swinton, Benjamin Scafidi & Howard C Woodard

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  1. John R Swinton
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  2. Benjamin Scafidi
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  3. Howard C Woodard
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Appendix

Appendix

Table A1

Table A1 Comparison of means from sampling strategy A
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Swinton, J., Scafidi, B. & Woodard, H. The Impact of the Teaching High School Economics Workshop for Teachers on Student Achievement. Eastern Econ J 38, 401–416 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1057/eej.2011.21

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