Knowledge of First-Year Economics Students on Economics as a Basis for the Development of an Infographics Book
This descriptive-correlational study found that first-year economics students possess a moderate overall knowledge level with significant gaps in quantitative topics and a strong dependence on their senior high school background, thereby providing the empirical basis for developing a targeted infographics book to address these learning deficiencies.
Original paper licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). This is an AI-generated explanation of the paper below. It is not written or endorsed by the authors. For technical accuracy, refer to the original paper. Read full disclaimer
Imagine economics as a giant, invisible game board where everyone is trying to figure out how to share limited resources. It's the study of why things cost what they do, why some people have jobs while others don't, and how money moves around the world. To play this game well, you need to understand the rules, like "supply and demand" (if everyone wants a toy but there are only a few, the price goes up) or "inflation" (when prices for everything slowly creep up, making your allowance buy less). But here's the tricky part: just because you've heard these words on the news doesn't mean you actually know how the game works. This is where "economic literacy" comes in—it's the difference between knowing the names of the pieces and actually knowing how to move them. If students start college without a solid grasp of these basic rules, they might get lost in the advanced levels of the game, struggling to understand complex strategies later on.
So, what happens when a group of brand-new college students, who are just stepping onto this game board, are asked to show what they know? A researcher named Jameson Estrada decided to find out. He gathered 83 first-year economics students at a university in the Philippines and gave them a massive quiz—a "knowledge check" with 180 questions covering 18 different topics, from how markets work to how countries count their money. The goal wasn't just to grade them; it was to see if their background (like how much money their families make, their age, or what high school track they came from) had anything to do with how well they did. Think of it like checking if a soccer player's performance depends more on their natural talent or the specific drills they practiced in high school.
The results were a bit like a treasure map with some clear X's and some foggy spots. Overall, the students had a "moderate" understanding of economics. They scored an average of 6.07 out of 10. They were pretty good at the stuff they see every day, like "demand" (scoring 7.12/10), because they've seen prices change at the store. But they hit a wall with the abstract, math-heavy stuff. They struggled the most with "national income accounting" (scoring only 5.13/10), which is basically the math of how a whole country's economy is measured. Other tough spots included "elasticity" (how sensitive buyers are to price changes), "cost," and "money and banking."
Here is the most interesting part of the story: the researcher found that the students' knowledge wasn't really about who they were as people. It didn't matter if they were male or female, or how much money their families earned. A student from a very poor family did just as well (or as poorly) as a student from a wealthier one. The difference wasn't about age or gender; it was about preparation. The students who did best were the ones who had taken specific economics classes in high school (the "ABM" strand) or had very high grades in general subjects. The students who had the least exposure to economics in high school were the ones who struggled the most.
Because of this, the researcher suggests a clever solution: an "infographics book." Imagine a textbook that doesn't just use boring paragraphs, but uses colorful pictures, charts, and visual stories to explain the hard stuff. Since the students are good at the real-world stuff but bad at the abstract math, this book would focus heavily on turning those tricky, invisible concepts (like how a central bank works) into clear, visual diagrams. The idea is to use pictures to bridge the gap for students who didn't get the same head start in high school, helping them visualize the rules of the economic game so they can play it better. The study suggests that if we design materials that target these specific weak spots with visuals, we can help everyone level the playing field, regardless of where they started.
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