Teaching students to use critical thinking skills is a popular goal of many economics courses. But what does "critical thinking" really mean, and how is it implemented? This article considers various interpretations of "critical thinking" and distinguishes "big-think" from "little-think" critical thinking,…

The normative elements underlying efficiency are more complex than generally portrayed and rely upon ethical frameworks that are generally absent from classroom discussions. Most textbooks, for example, ignore the ethical differences between Pareto efficiency (based on voluntary win-win outcomes) and the modern Kaldor-Hicks efficiency used in…

Adam Smith's moral philosophy can be used to introduce economics students to the important idea of transactions costs. The author provides a brief background in this article to Smith's moral philosophy and connects it to the costs of transacting in a way that fits easily into the standard principles of microeconomics classroom. By doing…

The authors explore academic misconduct in various forms and consider the role of student perceptions. They gather data from students in introductory economics courses regarding 31 types of misconduct. They estimate the relevance of various determinants of misconduct, acknowledging that they may vary across misconduct type and that students'…

Many instructors in subjects such as economics are frequently concerned with how to teach technical material to undergraduate students with limited mathematical backgrounds. One method that has proven successful for the authors is to connect theoretically sophisticated material with actual data. This enables students to see how the theory relates…

The authors examine student cheating based on implicit and explicit definitions of cheating. Prior to being provided a definition of cheating, students reported whether they had cheated. Students were then provided a definition of cheating and asked to rereport their cheating behaviors. Results indicate that students do not understand what…

Presents the results of a study where researchers noted the correct answers on quizzes, returned the quizzes and allowed students to grade them, and noted discrepancies in the scores. Reveals that cheating is unrelated to gender, religion, or overall grade point average, but positively associated with poor performance in class. (MJP)

Maintains that university economics classes focus on mainstream economics and neglect ethical values. Reports on a study of 511 university students and 645 households in Zurich, Switzerland, and Berlin, Germany. Finds that students' evaluation of fairness in economic transactions remains stable during the period of time they participate in…

Maintains that many traditional economics classroom experiments unfairly label, deride, or denigrate altruistic behavior and moral motivation. Describes several in-class experiments, the prisoners' dilemma, dictator games, and double auction experiments and discusses their inherent bias against moral considerations. Examines the ethical problems…