An Examination of the Impact that Classroom Based Experiments have on Learning Economic Concepts

This paper examines and extends the important pedagogical issue of whether using classroom based experiments to illustrate concepts such as supply and demand increases students’ knowledge and understanding of economics. Previous literature has only considered this in a single course whereas this work broadens the focus to both the principles of microeconomics and macroeconomics course. Student understanding and knowledge was measured via the standardized Test of Understanding College Economics exam in conjunction with the individual courses’ final exam. Results indicate that there is not an improvement in either TUCE scores or the final exam score by students who were exposed to classroom experiments. Furthermore, there is some evidence that the experiments might actually lower an instructor’s student evaluations.