The Impact of “Trade-offs” and Teacher Training on Economic Understanding and Attitudes

Abstract

“Trade-offs” is a video/film series designed to teach some economic concepts to children in the elementary grades. In this article, Walstad reports the findings of his study to determine the effectiveness of the films and of special training programs for teachers using the series. One of the unusual aspects of this project is that Walstad attempted to determine the relationship between economic knowledge on the part of elementary school pupils and their attitudes toward economics as a subject. Few attempts have been made to measure student attitudes toward economics at this level. Walstad's methods will be of interest to other researchers, particularly his findings regarding the use of two-stage least squares (TSLS) as opposed to ordinary least squares (OLS). He asserts that OLS estimates “may be biased and inconsistent.”