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1УДК 33
Babamyradov M.
Turkmen State Institute of Economics and Management (Ashgabat, Turkmenistan)
THE ROLE OF ACADEMIC ECONOMICS: AUTHOR'S NOTES
Аннотация: academic economics represents a paradox. As a discipline it is dominated by a focus on the allocation and distribution of productive and consumptive resources with a particular concern with how these resources can be affected in order to increase income, satisfaction, welfare, wellbeing or change behaviour within an interactive or market setting. However, most academic economics departments do not possess knowledge about how they can allocate resources and influence the market in order to increase the demand for their own services
Ключевые слова: academic economics, case method, problem solving, experience.
The main aim of economics education is to enable students to 'think like economists'. According to recent research, thinking like an economist includes not only analytical or problem-solving skills but also creative skills, which 'help determine how to frame questions, what tools and principles apply to particular problems, what data and information are pertinent to those problems, and how to understand or explain surprising and unexpected results' (Siegfried et al., 1991, p. 199). A large body of evidence (see, for example, Brown et al., 1989, Boehrer, 1990) shows that an effective way to accomplish this learning is to provide students with increased opportunities to become more actively engaged in the application of economics. However, much of the teaching in many higher education institutions takes the traditional form of lectures and seminars supplemented by problem sets, written assignments and limited class discussions. As recently pointed out by Becker and Watts (2001), the predominant teaching method in economics departments in the United States is still what they refer to as 'Chalk and Talk'. As lecturers, we would generally agree that the most vivid and powerful lessons from our own educational experiences are related to projects in which
we were actively involved. Concepts, ideas and experiences are harnessed and clarified in our mind more easily and quickly through direct experience than through the reading of books and abstract theories and concepts. This is particularly true in the early development of cognitive skills. The use of the case method in the teaching of economics has received greater attention in recent years. Velenchik (1995) discusses her experience in using the method to teach international trade policy. She provides an evaluation of the method by comparing the results of students exposed to case discussion with the results of students on the same course but who have instead been taught in more traditional ways. She observed that the students on the case course had a more complete grasp of theory and did better in examination questions requiring analysis of real-world situations using theory. She also observed a dramatic improvement in students' analytical thinking and in their ability to express themselves verbally. Carlson and Schodt (1995) discuss their experience of using the case method in teaching development economics and international monetary economics. They present a detailed account of students' evaluation of the case method and they are able to show that students are emphatically positive and convinced that the use of cases helped them to learn economics.
СПИСОК ЛИТЕРАТУРЫ:
1. Becker, W. (1998) 'Engaging students in quantitative analysis with short case examples from the academic and popular press', American Economic Review, Papers and Proceedings, vol. 88, pp. 480-6;
2. Becker, W. and Watts, M. (2001) 'Teaching methods in US undergraduate economics courses', Journal of Economic Education, vol. 32, pp. 269-80;
3. Bloom, B. S. (Ed). (1956). Taxonomy of Educational Objectives Handbook 1: Cognitive Domain. New York: Longman, Green and Co
