Designing economics principles software: implementation issues

A 1989 paper in the Journal of Economic Education contained the following comments: "...a majority of software packages that accompany [economics] principles textbooks today ...are pedagogically naive and mundance. The programs are ofter little more than electronic versions of the study guide, and the student's role is essentially reduced to turning electronic pages." [1] In 1988, we came to a similar conclusion as we began to revise an introductory agricultural economics course and decided to develop our own software, called AECONIntro. An important concern in the course reorganization was to address four learning styles. [2,3] These can be summarized as: listening and notetaking, reading and reflecting, interacting with peers and the instructor, and hands-on exercises with demonstrative problems. AECONIntro was developed to provide an interactive learning environment to address the fourth learning style. Walbert made 14 suggestions for designing high-quality software to teach economics principles. [1] We grouped these into five categories: student involvement with the software, immediate feedback, increasing level of difficulty, high-quality graphical models and integration with a textbook or lectures. We also added a sixth--ease of use in a variety of computing environments. This article demonstrates that it is possible to implement many of Walbert's suggestions, and discusses design and development issues involved in terms of a particular piece of software, AECONIntro. Software Design Issues Walbert focused on the end product of a software development project. But it si essential for developers to consider several input issues as well. Our experience suggests the following six are especially important. * What is the level of student computer expertise? In a principles course, many students are inexperienced, so much attention must be devoted to tailoring the software for a beginner. It is essential to test the software with users of varying backgrounds so that no unexpected events occur that require special computer skills. * What is the level of student subject matter expertise? In a principles course, it is common to have students with weak backgrounds in math and no economics. The software should explicitly develop all of the concepts needed and assume no previous knowledge. At the same time, it should provide the option for more advanced students to skip over material they already know. * What degree of interaction possibilities should be included, and what form should they take? Both too much freedom without guidance as well as too little freedom and too much guidance can reduce the learning effectiveness of software. * What computing resources are available to the student? Student computing facilities range widely in sophistication. For our specific target audience, it was deemed likely that the equipment to which many students would have access would be relatively limited. Certainly, the more sophisticated the hardware demands of the software, the smaller the audience for the software. * Should the software be designed with a single textbook in mind or should it be textbook independent? The advantage of associating software with a single textbook is that it provides students with different learning styles access to the same material presented in different ways. Disadvantages include limiting the audience for the software, and being forced to adopt approaches used by the textbook author(s) that might not be desirable. * What development resources--both software and human--are available? Even though authoring systems have made it much easier to develop computer-aided instructional material, software development is still an expensive process in terms of time and money. Both subject matter and software expertise are needed. In addition, it is helpful if someone involved in development has training in educational theory. …