Student Learning Goals

Below are the departmental learning goals mapped to College-wide goals for student learning.

Goals for the economics major:

• Understand how economic theories and models are formulated and appreciate their explanatory power. (Ia, IIb)
• Be able to use economic models to evaluate current economic issues and public policy. (IIa, IIb, IIId)
• Understand the role of historical and institutional context as conditioning policy-making. (Ia, IIa, IIIb, IIId)
• Support students’ growth in critical thinking and problem solving including choosing appropriate models and understanding their limitations. (Ia, IIa, IIb)
  Understand the differing perspectives of economics and other social science fields. (Ic, IVa)
• Analyze economic systems in a cultural, global, and/or social justice context. (Ib, Ic, IId)
• Appreciate the impact of economic activity on environmental and ecological systems. (Ia, IIb, IIId)
• Appreciate the impact of economic activity on human well-being and welfare. (IIb, IIId, IVb)
• Learn how economists use quantitative approaches to measure economic outcomes and test competing theories. (Ia, Ic, IIb, IIIc)

Information literacy

• Use appropriate search methods to find existing economic literature; find and access current and historical economic data. (Ia, IIb, IIIc)

Visual literacy

• Use a variety of visual modes to display and communicate information about economic phenomena and relationships, including charts and graphs. Create presentations that effectively summarize research. (IIb, IIIc)

Technological literacy

• Be proficient in the use of STATA (or R) econometric software to describe and summarize data and to investigate hypotheses using a variety of methods. (Ia, Ic, IIb, IIc)
• Use appropriate data and empirical methods to evaluate economic research. (Ia, Ic, IIb)

Effective oral communication

• Explain, debate and/or discuss models and economic phenomena. (IIa, IIc, IIIc).
• Work in groups. (IId)

Effective written communication

• Both descriptive and persuasive writing regarding economic phenomena, conditions and policies. (Ic, IIe)
• Create new knowledge by identifying and formulating a question or series of questions about some economic issue that will facilitate its investigation. (IIa, Ic, IIId)