There is an interesting debate taking place currently on the need to change the content and structure of introductory economics
courses. Noah Smith offers his perspective here:
Greg Mankiw offers his take here: http://gregmankiw.blogspot.com/2014/05/improving-econ-101.html
There are two fundamental challenges in how Principles of Economics is taught at
many American universities:
A.
Making economics relevant while keeping it
accessible to freshman college students with wide-ranging backgrounds is
certainly a challenge. The best way to introduce economics in not by
emphasizing empirical testing of the validity of economic theories. In fact,
the most interesting and useful lessons are often derived from studying economic history. For instance, if you want to examine business
cycles, readings on the Great Depression and the Great Inflation
(1970s) can be invaluable. Additionally, a thorough discussion of the causes and consequences of the
recent financial crisis would be highly illuminating (especially, if students
are shown the historical parallels to earlier crises). At the microeconomic
level, a careful analysis of real world market imperfections –imperfect
competition and industrial organization and asymmetric information problems –
would enliven classes. Again key historical cases would make the material more
accessible to students.
All of this requires highly motivated
students who are willing to undertake extensive reading and analysis and faculties willing to
challenge them. This leads us to the incentive problem discussed below.
B.
Underlying incentive structure for students and
young faculties is flawed: Many students these days do not want to be seriously
challenged (especially in first year courses). They want to essentially get
through the lower core courses with the least amount of effort and with the
highest possible GPA (the path of least
rigor leads them to seek out instructors who are likely to be easygoing
and flexible). From the instructor side, the growing obsession with student
evaluations creates an incentive to kowtow to student wishes. As long as you
make it easy to get a good grade and are as accommodating as possible, you will
be ‘popular’ with the students. Universities need to create a system in which
rigor and serious exploration of complex issues is appreciated.