How to Improve Economic Competence of Teacher Students?

• In Event: Roundtable Session 34
  In Roundtable Session: Teacher Training and Development to Enhance Change Capacity

Abstract

Dealing appropriately with economic matters is becoming increasingly important, owing to an ongoing shift of responsibility from governments towards individuals and an increasing complexity of our globalized world. Therefore economic topics have already been implemented in most school curricula (Schmid, Beckmann & Wiesen, 2012). However, surveys indicate that young adults have insufficient economic competence (e.g. Retzmann et al. 2012). Considering the fact that students’ learning correlates with their teachers’ knowledge (e.g. Goldhaber & Anthony, 2007), this raises the question whether teachers themselves lack sufficient economic competence to adequately support students’ learning processes. Since studies confirm this shortcoming, this survey trains teacher students in the domain of economics. Results show that this training has a significant impact on their economic performance.

Author

• Christin Siegfried, Goethe University