The Joy of Economics:  Making Sense out of Life
 Robert J. Stonebraker, Winthrop University
 

Why Don't They Learn?

An Educator's Lament

            You teach a child to read and he or her will be able to pass a literacy test.
                                                                                       ...President George W. Bush

Every politician needs a whipping boy:  someone to blame for society's woes; someone at which to aim partisan ridicule and rhetoric. Conservatives sling invectives at foreign terrorists and godless pro-life advocates, while liberals prefer targeting corporate fat cats and assault rifle enthusiasts. Both groups eye teachers with increasing suspicion. 

Education spending dominates state and local government budgets.  Educational outlays increase each year with no end in sight.  Student performance apparently has not kept pace.  Despite additional dollars, American students seem to be losing ground to students in other countries.  Parents and employers complain that students have not mastered basic concepts in grammar and arithmetic.  Johnny can't read, Mary can't add, and neither can find Bangladesh on a map.

As performance lags, politicians and parents understandably clamor for more accountability, for better results.  State after state has developed performance standards, required schools to implement outcome assessment plans, and mandated standardized testing to measure results. 

Will it work?  Not necessarily.  Test scores usually do rise, but this often is the result of teachers "teaching to the test" at the expense of other important material.  Many classroom instructors resent having to follow lockstep state-mandated curricula and lament being unable to tailor classroom instruction to the needs and interests of their particular students.  Others insist that the time and money spent on developing standards and tracking assessment detracts from their ability to concentrate on actual classroom instruction.  Critics argue that what we need better and more innovative ways of teaching, not state standards and assessment mechanisms.

Better methods?

            What are those more effective techniques?  What teaching methods will enable students to learn more effectively?  We do not know.  It is not for lack of trying.  Researchers have carried out innumerable experiments and filled professional journals with the results.  But the studies are remarkably inconclusive.  Very few attempted innovations show any consistent impact on learning. 

            Why are the results so poor?  Perhaps the innovative methods work for some but not all students.  Students do learn in different ways.  Some are more visual, others prefer to listen.  Some need hands-on work, others prefer reading books.  An experimental method that helps one student learn more effectively might cause problems for another.  If so, the class as a whole may show no improvement. 

Economists see logic in this explanation, but doubt that it accounts for all that we observe.  Even if the new methods do prove to be more effective, they may not improve learning or test results.  Even the best innovations might be scuttled by what I call the Mileah Effect.

The Mileah Effect

Mileah graduated with a B.A. in Economics.  No slouch, she took challenging courses, challenging instructors, worked hard, and graduated with honors.  But Mileah dreaded science and, ignoring the continued warnings of her academic mentor, postponed taking her required course as long as possible.  In her last semester Mileah finally bit the bullet and enrolled in Dr. Sutter's Oceans and Atmosphere class.  It was a relatively popular course and Dr. Sutter was one of the university's best instructors.  A genuinely caring woman, Dr. Sutter continually sought new and better ways to help her students learn.

Grudgingly Mileah set about her appointed task.  She attended class, took voluminous notes and studied.  She studied just enough to get a C on the first exam.  She could have done better but, in Mileah's eyes, a C was good enough.  Besides, she insisted, other students did even worse as the class average fell well below normal levels. 

Ever the concerned professor, Dr. Sutter responded by asking students how she might help them learn the material more effectively.  Several replied that they found it difficult to take good lecture notes and listen attentively at the same time.  Dr. Sutter, in turn, placed detailed class notes on the Internet so that students could concentrate on following the material in class without worrying about trying to copy everything down at the same time.

Mileah's academic mentor concurred that class attendance could now promote more learning.  Mileah agreed but, with a smile, responded that since class notes were available over the Internet she could now earn the C she wanted without attending at all.  After a quick recalculation of the relative costs and benefits, Mileah promptly skipped 21 of the remaining 24 class periods and still got her C.  Dr. Sutter's innovation did make it easier for Mileah to learn, but Mileah failed to learn more.  Techniques that facilitate learning do not always create increased learning.

Trade-offs and graphs

            Economists stress that people respond to incentives; they insist that when we change the incentives, people rationally change their behavior.  That's exactly how Mileah responded.  That's exactly how all students respond.

            Think of a student trying to choose between learning science and producing some composite good called all else.  The all else good might include such things as learning other subjects (like economics!) and volunteering at the local soup kitchen, or it might also include options such as playing video games and partying with friends.  The opportunity cost of learning more science is being able to produce fewer units of all else.  Suppose our student faces the production possibilities curve drawn below and decides that her most valuable combination is to produce A₀ units of all else and learn S₀ units of science (at point X).

Next, assume that the student's science professor develops a new teaching technique that facilitates learning.  The new technique increases the potential amount of science the student can learn and causes the production possibilities curve to swing out along the science axis (see the graph below).

How will our student react?  It depends. If she continues to spend the same amount of time studying science, she will now learn more as a result of the new technique.  She will continue to produce A₀ units of all else, but the amount of science she learns will rise to S₁ (see next graph).  She moves to the right on the graph to point Y.

Alternatively, like Mileah, she could react very differently.  She could reason that because she now can learn the science she needs in less time she can spend less time studying science and more on all else.  If so, the amount of science learned stays at S_0, while the amount of all else produced rises to A_1.   She moves up vertically on the graph to point Z (the Mileah Effect).

            Even though the professor's new technique successfully enables learning and increases production possibilities for our student, it does not necessarily increase the amount of science learned.  A chemistry major that sees value in learning science probably will use the innovation to learn more science.  However, students like Mileah who care little for science might simply shift production to alternative products. The outcome of improved technology for teaching science might well turn out to be better grades in economics or more hours volunteered at the local soup kitchen, or better video game scores and more hours spent partying.  Despite the political rush to embrace them, outcome assessment plans and standardized test results might easily be confounded by the Mileah Effect.

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Testing Yourself

To test your understanding of the major concepts in this reading, try answering the following:

1.         Explain (without graphs) why improved teaching techniques do not necessarily increase student learning.

2.         Use a production possibility curve to show the effect of an improved teaching technology, illustrate the potential student responses and explain.

3.         Explain what types of students are likely to use the new technology to learn more and what types will not.

4.         Explain the implications of this analysis for educational outcomes assessment plans.

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