| By: |
Pühringer, Stephan;
Bäuerle, Lukas |
| Abstract: |
The global financial crisis (GFC) led to increasing distrust in economic
research and the economics profession, in the process of which the current
state of economics and economic education in particular were heavily
criticized. Against this background we conducted a study with undergraduate
students of economics in order to capture their view of economic education.
The paper is based on the Documentary Method, a qualitative empirical method,
which combines maximum openness with regard to the collection of empirical
material coupled with maximum rigor in analysis. The empirical findings show
that students enter economics curricula with (1) epistemic, (2) practical or
(3) moral/political motivations for understanding and dealing with real-world
problems but end up remarkably disappointed after going through the
mathematical and methods-orientated introductory courses. The findings further
indicate that students develop strategies to cope with their disappointment -
all of them relating to their original motivation. The theoretical
contextualization of the empirical findings is based on the psychological
concept of cognitive dissonance. |
| Keywords: |
Economic education,real-world orientation,cognitive dissonance,Global Financial Crisis,qualitative social research,Documentary Method |
| JEL: |
A10 A11 A12 A20 B49 |
| Date: |
2018 |
| URL: |
http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:cuswps:oek37&r=all |