Capstone senior research course in economics

ABSTRACT

In this article, the authors describe the structure and assessment of a capstone course in economics. The outcomes are noteworthy for three reasons. First, among cited evidence to date, this is the only undergraduate economics program from a nonselective public university reporting similar achievements in undergraduate research paper publications. Second, the program reports learning outcomes of a relatively new instrument in standardized test (ETS MFT Economics) to measure attainment of proficiencies in economics. Finally, it introduces undergraduate research paper competition outcomes as a measure of student paper quality.

KEYWORDS:

• Capstone
• research
• undergraduate

JEL CODE:

• A22

Acknowledgements

The authors have benefitted from the helpful comments of William B. Walstad, Allen Bellas, Oscar Flores-Ibarra, and an anonymous reviewer. Ms. Sharon Nemeth also provided expert editorial guidance.

Notes

1. Watts and Schaur (2011) found few programs assessed their upper division field courses using term papers (28 percent in 2005 and 30 percent in 2010), and even fewer in statistics and econometrics courses (15 percent and 22 percent, respectively).

2. Hansen (2001) discussed why formal instruments, such as the TUCE, are not suitable to measure the attainment of proficiency in economics. For this reason among others, we use several instruments to assess our students’ learning outcomes and program effectiveness.

3. DeLoach, Perry-Sizemore, and Borg (2012) proposed six recommendations for increasing undergraduate research (UR) in economics. According to the authors, skills leading to and involved in UR can be attained at any course level (course activity and project), or in a capstone course, or with collaborative research (with mentor). However, we were able to implement only two of their recommendations (research course, and a required research experience in the capstone). At our institution, course content and assessment are within the prerogative of the faculty. Departments do not have the right to make changes to course content or teaching methods. For this reason, the redesign adopted the capstone course as the only vehicle with which the instructor has control of instruments to assess student learning outcomes.