www.myeconlab.com
MyEconLab
School Name Ohio State University, Columbus, OH
Course Name Principles of Macroeconomics
Course Format Lecture
Key Results Data for this course show that students who completed more than the average number of extra
credit MyEconL ab homework assignment s had an average quiz grade 22 percentage points higher
and an average exam grade eight percentage points higher than students who completed fewer than
the average number of extra credit MyEconLab homework assignments.
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Submitted by
Darcy Hartman, Senior Lecturer
Course materials
MyEconLab and Macroeconomics, Hubbard, O’Brien
Setting
The Ohio St ate Univer sity’s main Columbus cam pus is one of
America’s largest. A four-year public research uni versit y in an
urban set ting, OSU se rves mor e than 45,00 0 under graduates.
The average freshman retention r ate is 93 percent , and the
four-year gr aduation r ate is 61 percent. E ighteen pe rcent of
student s identif y as a minority.
Principles of Macroeconomics is a one-semester, three-credit
course taken by more than 650 student s each semester; the
course is par t of the General Edu cation curriculum required of
many majors, including business, economics, engineering, math-
ematics, and pre-medicine. Macroeconomics addresses the
theories and methods of social scientific i nquiry through discus-
sion of supply and demand at the nationa l level, the measure-
ment of national income an d other macroeconomic measures,
along with applicatio ns to curre nt events. Students will discuss
current eve nts related to these measures, following the events
through the course of th e semeste r. Upon completion of the
course, students should be able to:
• Under stand t he theories and methods of social scie ntific in-
quiry a s they apply to the study of organiz ations and polities.
• Understand the formation and durabi lity of political, eco -
nomic, and social organizing principles and their differences
and similarities across context s.
• Compreh end and assess the nature and values of organi za-
tions and polities and t heir importance in social problem
solving and policy making.
Challenges and Goals
Senior Lecturer Darcy Har tman has been teaching Principles
of Macroecono mics for three years at Ohio State, usi ng
MyEconLab in the curre nt course for mat since spr ing 2014.
Believing that students need t o practice economics to l earn
it, Har tman was faced with the challenge of trying to compel
her large lecture sections—more than 600 students —to keep
current with course material. H and-gr ading homework was
out of the que stion, and while some class time wa s devoted to
working through example problems, face-to-face lecture time
also needed to include t he introdu ction and e xplanation of the
chapter content and econom ic princip les.
Hartman was familiar with commercial online digital homewor k
and assess ment progr ams from a pr evious teaching assign ment
at another college and trusted that a program like MyEconLab
could suppor t her students with homework a ssignments and
quizzing. Hartman part icipated in this study to m easure the
relationship between student performance and the ongoing
repetitive pract ice that MyEconLab offers to help students f ill
gaps in their knowledge and under standing. Data was collected
related to M yEconLab a ssignments and quiz zes that could be
helpful for and aligned to the lear ning outcom es of the cour se.
Implementation
Hartman requir es her students to use M yEconLab for q uizzing
only, suppor ted by optional, extra credit homework assign-
ments. St udents use their per sonal computer to work on
MyEconLab at home at their own pace, but with clearly identi-
fied weekly due dates. Har tman est imates that student s should
spend abou t 1–1.5 hours per wee k in MyEconLab. In fact, in
a voluntar y end-of-semest er survey of Hartman’s students
in spring 2015 (41 percent total response rate), 49 perce nt of re-
sponding students said they spent 1–2 hours per wee k working
in MyEconLa b while another 10 percent said they spent mo re
than two ho urs with t he progra m. While only quizzing (limited
