In the current political economic dispensation, it is important to revisit the opportunities for citizenship, cooperative, and public economics and the responsibility of economics teachers. In doing so, it is essential to analyse the nature of the dominant pedagogical philosophy of individualism, probe what alternatives could be embraced,…

The issues of developing strategies and approaches to teaching introductory level economics courses at university have been long standing. With the development of economics learning standards in Australia, this is a time to consider teaching and learning approaches to engage students and develop skills in economics. This paper considers that to…

Purpose: Economics is catering to a diverse student cohort. This cohort needs to be equipped with transformative concepts that students can integrate beyond university. When a curriculum is content-driven, threshold concepts are a useful tool in guiding curriculum re-design. The paper aims to discuss these issues. Design/Methodology/Approach: The…

Plagiarism continues to be a concern within academic institutions. The current study utilised a randomised control trial of 137 new entry tertiary students to assess the efficacy of a scalable short training session on paraphrasing, patch writing and plagiarism. The results indicate that the training significantly enhanced students' overall…

There have been many national and international reports expressing concern about the problems of teaching economics subjects in universities and colleges. This paper puts forward one approach to deal with the issue through the use of a computer based learning program designed to cater for the differences in backgrounds and learning styles of…

Problem based learning (PBL) is a recognised teaching and learning strategy used to engage students in deep rather than surface learning. It is also viewed as a successful strategy to align university courses with the real life professional work students are expected to undertake on graduation (Biggs, 2003). Problem based learning is practised…

This paper presents a dialogue between an academic economist and an educational developer. It asks whether it is possible to teach in a way that works well for all students. The economist contends that teaching entails making a choice as to which students should benefit most--the more academically capable or the lower-achieving students. He sees…

In this paper, the authors review more than 300 reports of students in New Zealand, Australia, China, Singapore and South Korea who have participated in a global action-learning program to teach entrepreneurship and free market economics to their respective communities, through Students in Free Enterprise (SIFE). The authors use the results of…

A study investigated Australian students' reasons for choosing an extra year's study (honors) in economics when good employment opportunities were available without the added training. Factors considered include student background, current circumstances, achievement, course structure, perceived demand for honors graduates, opportunity costs, and…

This study sought to determine what a group of first-year English as a Second Language (ESL) university students learned from a series of lectures in English, how the students learned what they appeared to learn, and what features of the lecturer's presentation most affected the learning of the students. Twelve international ESL business students…

A study examines current approaches to assessing the academic writing needs of non-native speakers of English (NNSs), first by reviewing recent research into student writing needs and then by a survey of students, tutors, and English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) teachers. Critical examination of recent studies finds problems in both their approach…