646597

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CSE0010.1177/2047173416646597Citizenship, Social and Economics EducationHapp et al.

Article

Citizenship, Social and

Assessing the previous Economics Education

2016, Vol. 15(1) 45­–57
© The Author(s) 2016
economic knowledge of Reprints and permissions:
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beginning students in Germany:

DOI: 10.1177/2047173416646597
cse.sagepub.com

Implications for teaching economics

in basic courses

Roland Happ, Manuel Förster and

Olga Zlatkin-Troitschanskaia
Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, Germany

Vivian Carstensen
Bielefeld University of Applied Sciences, Germany

Abstract
Study-related prior knowledge plays a decisive role in business and economics degree courses. Prior
knowledge has a significant influence on knowledge acquisition in higher education, and teachers
need information on it to plan their introductory courses accordingly. Very few studies have been
conducted of first-year students’ prior economic knowledge or differences among students in such
knowledge. In this article, the prior economic knowledge and the influence of personal factors on first-
year students’ prior economic knowledge are examined. For this purpose, an adaptation of the fourth,
revised edition of the American Test of Economic Literacy was administered, which was adapted in
2014 according to the Test and Adaptation Guidelines for use in higher education in Germany. We
present findings based from an assessment conducted in higher education in Germany in the summer
term of 2014; the subsample for this study comprises first-year students of business and economics.
Findings indicate that there are significant differences in prior economic knowledge among first-year
students within universities. Influence factors include economic learning experiences prior to starting
university, gender, and mother tongue. The article closes with implications for teaching and degree
program design.

Keywords
economic knowledge, Test of Economic Literacy, adaptation, heterogeneity in higher education

Corresponding author:
Roland Happ, Department of Law, Management and Economics, Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, 55099 Mainz,
Germany.
Email: roland.happ@uni-mainz.de
46 Citizenship, Social and Economics Education 15(1)

Introduction
Numerous studies of teaching–learning emphasize the fundamental importance of prior knowl-
edge in the accumulative process of knowledge acquisition (see Alexander and Jetton, 2003;
Anderson, 2005; Schaap et al., 2011). In higher education, first-year students’ subject-related
prior knowledge is especially important as it affects their knowledge acquisition throughout the
course of their studies (see Happ et al., in press; Lopus, 1997). For the field of economics, we
demonstrated on the basis of findings from a panel study (see Happ et al., in press) that prior
knowledge significantly influenced students’ success in degree courses in economics and deficits
in prior economic knowledge at the beginning of their studies could not be compensated for suf-
ficiently over the course of their studies. However, first-year students with a higher level of eco-
nomic knowledge at the beginning of their studies maintained a higher level of economic
knowledge over the course of their studies, as they were more efficient in acquiring new knowl-
edge (Happ et al., in press).
Awareness of the heterogeneous preconditions and prior knowledge of first-year students is
important particularly for teachers in higher education (Morgan, 2012) as it can help them identify
knowledge deficits from the start and design appropriate and sufficient learning opportunities
accordingly (see Anderson et al., 1994; Arnold and Straten, 2012). To foster students’ knowledge
acquisition in a degree program, teachers need to be aware of heterogeneity in students’ precondi-
tions, so they can tailor their lessons according to the students’ level of prior knowledge (see
Brackenbury, 2012; Smart et al., 2012). First-year higher education students’ prior knowledge can
be influenced by individual learning experiences as well as personal characteristics such as general
intellectual ability. Knowing students’ level of economic knowledge at the beginning of their stud-
ies and the corresponding influence factors can help university teachers and administrators not
only design effective courses and degree programs for groups of students with heterogeneous pre-
conditions but also manage these groups during transition from secondary-level to tertiary-level
education (on the organization of the introductory study phase, see Gale and Parker, 2012; Krause
et al., 2005; Rodger and Tremblay, 2003).
In this article, we examine students’ level of prior economic knowledge at the beginning of a
business and economics degree program and analyze personal factors that might have influenced
it. An investigation into the current state of research (see section ‘Influences on prior economic
knowledge’) indicates that significant explanatory factors can include students’ personal character-
istics (such as intellectual abilities) and previous economics-related learning experiences (e.g. eco-
nomics classes in secondary school; see Gill and Gratton-Lavoie, 2011). Thus, in this article, we
examine the extent to which intellectual ability, gender, mother tongue, and economic learning
experiences at secondary school influence students’ level of economic knowledge at the beginning
of their higher education studies (on factors influencing economic knowledge, see Siegfried and
Walstad, 2014). Based on findings from an assessment of economic knowledge in higher education
conducted in Germany in 2014, suggestions have been made to address heterogeneity in students’
prior knowledge, one of which is that universities offer first-year students tutorials addressing defi-
cits in their prior economic knowledge.1
In section ‘Operationalization and assessment of prior economic knowledge’, we describe the
instrument used to assess first-year students’ economic knowledge. In section ‘Influences on prior
economic knowledge’, we examine students’ personal characteristics as well as their economic
learning experiences prior to university, both of which should influence the prior economic knowl-
edge of first-year students. In section ‘Empirical findings’, we formulate hypotheses and test them
by means of a regression analysis for a subsample of first-year students in business and economics
Happ et al. 47

assessed at the beginning of the summer term 2014. In section ‘Implications for further research
and practices in economics education’, we draw conclusions, present implications for higher edu-
cation teachers and administrators, outline limitations of the study, and discuss approaches for
future research.

Operationalization and assessment of prior economic knowledge

There are only a few standardized instruments to assess economic knowledge that provide results gen-
eralizable across institutions. The American Council for Economic Education (CEE) aims to advance
the development of instruments to assess economic content knowledge (Saunders, 2012: 8). Today, the
CEE offers a number of instruments to measure economic knowledge of students in various age groups.
The CEE sets standards for economic knowledge and defines the requirements test-takers in different
age groups should meet. According to Meszaros and Siegfried (1997: 247), the CEE’s standards describe
the fundamental propositional knowledge of economics relevant to adolescents. The CEE has updated
its standards and test instruments to reflect current changes in the field of economic education (Shiller,
2010). The Voluntary National Content Standards in Economics for high schools in the United States
were published in 1997 and updated by the CEE in 2010 (Grimes, 2012: 263). The CEE also updated
test instruments to reflect new developments in subject-matter orientation in economic education
(Asarta and Rebeck, 2012: 314).
In this study, the prior economic knowledge of students at the beginning of an economics degree
course at university was assessed using an instrument designed for assessment of economic knowl-
edge at the end of secondary education. The fourth and revised edition of the Test of Economic
Literacy (TEL), published in 2013 by Walstad et al., seemed especially suitable for this purpose.
The second version had been adapted for use in Germany (Soper and Walstad, 1987) and named
Wirtschaftskundlicher Bildungstest (Beck et al., 1998). However, review of the test items of the
second and fourth editions revealed that the items had been modified extensively, and a series of
new test items had been added (Walstad et al., 2013) to reflect significant structural changes made
to economic content presented during secondary-level and tertiary-level education. Schneider
(2012) presents an argument as to which content should be taught in foundation courses in eco-
nomics at high schools in the United States to prepare students for transition to college and which
changes have become evident over the past few years. The financial crisis of 2008–2009 has been
the most prominent, but not the only reason, for changes to the content of economic education
(Blinder, 2010; Shiller, 2010). Technical advances following the introduction of the Internet as a
mass product have played a role in this as well, as they have facilitated the expansion of interna-
tional trade and have changed the focus of the content of economics courses (Madsen, 2013). We
adapted the fourth edition of the TEL for use in Germany (see also Förster et al., 2015c) to ensure
the instrument reflected current trends in economic education and to enable compatibility with
international research.
The TEL4 consists of two parallel versions with 45 items each, which are connected with 10
anchor items. All items of the TEL are in multiple-choice format (Walstad et al., 2013) and consist
of a brief description of a situation and four response options, one of which is correct, while the
other three are distractors. The items are based on 20 core content standards by the CEE (2014) and
categorized into three cognitive levels: 6 of the 45 items for each test version are attributed to the
knowledge level, 14 to the comprehension level, and 25 to the application level (Walstad et al.,
2013). The quality criteria of the American test have been examined in comprehensive studies
according to classical test theory (Walstad et al., 2013). For internal consistency of the original
48 Citizenship, Social and Economics Education 15(1)

American test, reliability was very good with Cronbach’s alpha = 0.90 (Version A) and 0.91
(Version B) (Walstad et al., 2013).
At the end of 2013, the TEL4 was translated and adapted into German (TEL4-G) and was vali-
dated comprehensively for use in higher education in Germany. The TEL4-G generally follows the
English-medium original, while cultural aspects were adapted for Germany in agreement with the
test developers as well as experts in economic education in Germany (on the principles of test adap-
tation, see Hambleton et al., 2005). Subsequently, comprehensive analyses were conducted includ-
ing curricular analyses, cognitive interviews with students, factor analyses, and so on (see also
Förster et al., 2015b) with a particular focus on the validation of test content, cognitive processes,
and internal structure (see American Educational Research Association (AERA) et al., 2014).
The aim of the translation and adaptation process was to create comprehensive functional
equivalence between TEL4 and TEL4-G (Bray et al., 2007). To this end, we followed the interna-
tionally established translation, review, adjudication, pretesting, and documentation (TRAPD) pro-
cess model (Harkness, 2008) in connection with a number of validation steps so as to ensure that
the adapted test would assess the same content as the original. To guarantee a professional adapta-
tion according to the Test Adaptation Guidelines (International Test Commission, 2010), experts of
translation studies2 were consulted.3
All 45 items from Versions A and B of the TEL4 were adapted successfully into German. To
ensure that the item content designed for high schools in the United States was applicable to eco-
nomic education in Germany, we surveyed lecturers of principles of economics courses. They
evaluated the extent to which the item content was curricularly valid in the sense of representing
economic knowledge that first-year students of business and economics in Germany should have
at the beginning of their studies. Moreover, textbook analyses were conducted to evaluate the
extent to which the content of the TEL4-G represented content of textbooks for first-year studies
of business and economics in Germany (e.g. Mankiw and Taylor, 2012). Results of these analyses
indicated that the TEL4-G measures study-relevant economic knowledge in Germany and is there-
fore an appropriate tool to assess first-year students of business and economics.

Influences on prior economic knowledge

Economic learning experiences prior to higher education
In Germany, students can learn economic content prior to entering a higher education institution
depending on the educational path they choose (Brückner et al., 2015a: 439). The majority of
school students in Germany graduate from general secondary schools (Federal Statistical Office,
2014), where economic content is not taught systematically, but rather, for the most part, included
in other subjects such as social studies. Economics is offered as a separate subject at general sec-
ondary schools in only a few federal states in Germany.4 One opportunity for students to learn
economic content prior to starting a degree program is to attend a commercial upper secondary
school, where business and economics are taught as separate major or minor subjects.5
Another option is to complete a commercial vocational training program in economics before
starting a higher education program in economics. Commercial vocational training programs
involve learning about theoretical concepts during in-school courses as well as gaining practical
experience. Findings from various studies have indicated that completion of a commercial voca-
tional training program or a major course in economics at a specialized upper secondary school can
influence first-year students’ level of economic knowledge (for the field of economics, see Brückner
et al., 2015a; for accounting, see Fritsch et al., 2015; for financing, see Förster et al., 2015a).
Hence, we formulated the following hypotheses:
Happ et al. 49

H1. Students who have completed commercial vocational training have a higher level of eco-
nomic knowledge at the beginning of their studies.
H2. Students who have attended a major course in economics at a specialized upper secondary
school have a higher level of economic knowledge at the beginning of their studies.

Grade upon leaving school

A student’s grade upon leaving school is the most common criterion for admission to universities
and universities of applied sciences in Germany (Uthmann, 2009). This is linked to the expectation
that a student’s grade upon leaving school correlates with his or her intellectual abilities (Happ
et al., in press). With a view to the field of study of business and economics, Rindermann and
Oubaid (1999) confirmed the explanatory power of a student’s grade upon leaving school as an
influence on his or her knowledge acquisition. However, to date, the extent to which a better grade
upon leaving school correlates with a higher level of study-relevant prior economic knowledge
scarcely has been examined. Hence, we formulated the following hypothesis:

H3. A better grade upon leaving school correlates positively with prior economic knowledge at
the beginning of studies.

Gender
Numerous studies have shown that male students obtain higher test scores than their female fellow
students on assessments of economic content knowledge with standardized test instruments (see
Asarta et al., 2014; Förster et al., 2015c; Happ and Zlatkin-Troitschanskaia, 2014; Heath, 1989;
Siegfried, 1979; Walstad et al., 2007; Watts, 1987; Williams et al., 1992). To date, there has been little
research on the reasons behind this gender gap (Asarta et al., 2014). Additionally, in many of these
studies, students were not assessed at the beginning of their studies in higher education. The extent to
which the differences between male students and female students exist prior to starting their higher
education studies has only rarely been subject to examination and is examined in this study:

H4. Male students show a higher level of prior economic knowledge than their female fellow
students when assessed with the TEL4-G.

Mother tongue
In recent years, higher education in Germany has seen an increase in numbers of first-year students who
are not native speakers of German, for example, because they or their parents immigrated to Germany
(Middendorff et al., 2013).6 Anderson (2005) points out that language is of fundamental importance for
knowledge acquisition. Regarding secondary education in Germany, studies indicate that, on average,
students whose mother tongue is not German perform less well in school (Chudaske, 2012). For higher
education and especially for the field of economics, positive effects on the knowledge level have been
observed for native speakers of German (Happ et al., in press).7 In the following, we investigate whether
first-year students in economics show the same effect and how pronounced the effect is.

H5. Students with German as their mother tongue show a higher level of economic knowledge
at the beginning of their studies than students with a different mother tongue.
50 Citizenship, Social and Economics Education 15(1)

Empirical findings
Sample
At the beginning of the summer term 2014, students of business and economics at universi-
ties in Germany were assessed using the TEL4-G, and a subsample of 241 first-year students
completed test Version A.8 The assessment was conducted of students enrolled in introduc-
tory courses before the beginning of the semester to ensure that students had not yet acquired
any content knowledge at university. In the subsample, 12.4% of first-year students had
completed commercial vocational training before starting university, and 37.5% had com-
pleted a major course in economics at a specialized upper secondary school.9 Male students
constituted 59.3% of the sample. The average grade upon leaving school was 2.2 (with a
standard deviation of 0.43) and the span of grades upon leaving school ranged from 1.0 to
3.3, which is a wide range (1.0 = best grade, 4.0 = lowest pass grade). It is also notable that
the average grade upon leaving school was 2.25 for male students and 2.13 for female stu-
dents, which was a significant mean difference (p < 0.05) to the benefit of the female stu-
dents. At this higher education institution, 17.8% of the test participants stated that their
mother tongue was not German. Thus, the sample showed significant heterogeneity in the
entry conditions of first-year students. Whether these had an effect on students’ prior eco-
nomic knowledge is examined in the following.

Regression analyses
In the following statistical analyses, the sum score of the TEL4-G served as the dependent vari-
able in a multiple linear regression analysis. The highest possible score was 45 points; the mean
score on the TEL4-G for all 241 participants at this university was 29.64 points (with a standard
deviation of 6.96 points). The skewness was −0.617 (with a standard deviation of 0.157) and the
kurtosis was −0.221 (with a standard deviation of 0.312). Figure 1 shows the distribution of test
scores in a histogram.
To test H1 and H2, we examined the influence of economic learning experiences students
had prior to their studies, that is, the effects of completion of a commercial vocational train-
ing program or a major course in economics at a specialized upper secondary school, at the
economic knowledge level. Both were coded as dichotomous variables depending on whether
or not students had completed them. Furthermore, the students’ grades upon leaving school
(H3) were included. The grades upon leaving school were interpreted as a quasi-metric
scale.10 The gender of first-year students (H4) and their mother tongue (H5) were included in
the regression analyses as dichotomous variables. Table 1 shows the findings from the linear
multiple regression analysis.
These variables explained 23.5% (adjusted 21.8%) of the variance in scores on the TEL4-G
Version A. First-year students who had not previously completed an economic course or program
had a lower level of prior economic knowledge. Students who had completed a major course in
economics at a specialized upper secondary school responded correctly to an average of 2.5 items
more than their peers who had not, and students who had completed a commercial vocational train-
ing program responded correctly to an average of five items more than their peers who had not.
Thus, the first two hypotheses were confirmed; the results indicated a positive effect of economic
learning experiences prior to university. The hypothesis of a positive correlation between grade
upon leaving school and prior economic knowledge (H3) also was confirmed. The negative sign
indicates that students responded correctly to an average of 3.47 items more for each grade point
Happ et al. 51

Figure 1. Histogram of the Test of Economic Literacy (TEL)4-G (Version A).

Table 1. Regression on the TEL4-G sum score for Version A.

R2 = 0.235 (Adjusted R2 = 0.218)

TEL4-G Version A
(Constant) 34.96 ***
Gender (female) −3.74 ***
Mother tongue (German) 2.81 **
Major course in economics at a specialized 2.81 ***
upper secondary school (attended)
Commercial vocational training (completed) 5.04 ***
Grade upon leaving school −3.47 ***

TEL: Test of Economic Literacy.

***p < 0.01; **p < 0.05; *p < 0.1.

their school leaving grade was better (i.e. lower) than their peers’ grade. Moreover, as expected, we
found large gender (H4) and language effects (H5). Male students had 3.74 points more than
female students. This still applied when we controlled for other relevant influence factors such as
grade upon leaving school and previous learning experience. The regression analysis on the
TEL4-G Version A also indicated that first-year students whose mother tongue was German
responded correctly to an average of 2.8 items more than their fellow students with other mother
tongues.
52 Citizenship, Social and Economics Education 15(1)

Implications for further research and practices in economics

education
When considering the effects found in our study in Germany in the light of findings from the TEL4
in the United States (Walstad et al., 2013), we see significant parallels: Results of the studies con-
ducted in Germany and the United States indicated a gender influence in favor of male participants.
Similarly, in both countries, there were significant differences in test scores relating to whether or
not students had completed economic training in school (Walstad et al., 2013: 34). In both coun-
tries, participants obtained better scores if the test language was their mother tongue. These paral-
lels between Germany and the United States regarding influence factors on prior economic
knowledge need to be examined in greater detail in further international comparative analyses (for
cross-national comparisons using the TEL3, see Yamaoka et al., 2007; for international findings on
the Test of Understanding in College Economics (TUCE Version 4), see Brückner et al., 2015a;
Förster et al., 2015c).
To date, the literature offers no clear indications of the reasons for differences between male
students and female students (Asarta et al., 2014; Brückner et al., 2015b). In a few studies, the item
format (multiple-choice) was examined as a potential explanation (Ben-Sakar and Sinai, 1991).
Multiple-choice items are used in numerous performance assessments in schools as well as in uni-
versities, especially in fields of study with very large numbers of students such as economics.
Biggs (1999) suggested that the higher test scores of male students were a result of a systematic
bias of multiple-choice items in favor of male students. This, however, can by no means be consid-
ered proven in the literature. Given that the TEL4 is widely used in economic education, the gender
gap in test scores should be examined in further studies.
The influence of German as a mother tongue on test scores on the TEL4-G was confirmed.
In the United States, participants who rated their language skills in English better than in any
other language scored better on the American test (Walstad et al., 2013: 34). The question
arises as to how higher education institutions can use these findings to support learning. An
important question would be whether measures of the acquisition of economic knowledge can
be improved by offering preparatory language courses for non-native speakers or language
courses and support over the course of studies (Collier, 1987; Kaplan, 2010; Swain, 1985). In
further studies, the linguistic abilities of students need to be assessed by means of language
tests in order to gain an objective picture of possible linguistic disadvantages of non-native
German speakers.
With a view to the findings from the TEL4-G regarding gender and mother tongue, the follow-
ing approach is certainly of interest for future research. While students’ mother tongues may con-
tribute to differences in students’ German-language knowledge and test performance, gender-related
differences in students’ ability to respond correctly to multiple-choice items may depend on their
language skills. Discussion on the gender gap could turn into one on students’ linguistic abilities in
connection to their gender. This approach has been taken, for example, by Schwabe et al. (2014)
with promising results. Follow-up studies using the TEL4-G to assess economic knowledge could
address the question of whether the gender gap can be explained in terms of differences in linguis-
tic comprehension between the genders.
The results discussed here are of a study conducted at one university. It is important to investi-
gate whether the findings can be replicated in a larger sample across several higher education
institutions. By means of multilevel analyses (see Hox, 2010; Rabe-Hesketh and Skrondal, 2012),
future research could examine whether selection effects concerning economic knowledge occur as
early as during transition from secondary school to university. Moreover, a longitudinal study
could show whether differences among groups of students decrease, remain the same, or even
Happ et al. 53

increase over the course of their studies at higher education institutions (see Arnold and Straten,
2012; Happ et al., in press).
Although the findings are from one higher education institution only, we can discuss implica-
tions for higher education in general. After controlling for well-known socioeconomic and apti-
tude factors, the main conclusion to be drawn from the positive and significant contribution of
completing either a major course in economics at a specialized upper secondary school or a
commercial vocational training program is that learning about economics prior to attending uni-
versity courses in the field makes a difference in students’ economic knowledge acquisition over
the course of their studies. This conclusion is consistent with knowledge production models
(Krohn and O’Connor, 2005). The implications for higher and secondary education are related
to commitment to economics and are as follows: First, university students’ fundamental knowl-
edge of economics should be enhanced by completing economics courses at upper secondary
school, where such courses should be integrated into the core curriculum. Second, as evidence
from the United States suggests (Allgood and Walstad, 1999; Watts and Bosshardt, 1991),
instructors’ economic knowledge may have an enhancing effect on student performance. Hence,
the economic knowledge and teaching abilities of school teachers of various subjects that include
economic content should be assessed.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publi-
cation of this article.

Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Notes
1. The findings presented are from analyses of first-year students at one higher education institution.
Although the findings may not be generalizable, they can provide insight and examples of approaches
for further studies.
2. These experts were from the Faculty of Translation Studies, Linguistics, and Cultural Studies of Johannes
Gutenberg University Mainz.
3. For a description of the individual steps in the adaptation and validation process, see Förster et al.
(2015b).
4. The situation in the United States is similar (CEE, 2014), as only 22 states mandate that high school
graduates take a semester-length course in economics.
5. When economics is studied as a major subject, students need to learn considerably more economic content,
which is why we controlled for completion of a major course in economics in our empirical analysis.
6. In recent years, there has also been a significant increase in first-year students coming from abroad to
study in Germany.
7. These results reflect findings from other studies of fundamental content knowledge (see Owen, 2012;
Wakeford, 2001).
8. In the following, only findings from Version A of the (Test of Economic Literacy) TEL4-G are presented,
as they coincide with those from Version B.
9. Only 11 of the first-year students had completed both commercial training and a major course in eco-
nomics in secondary school.
10. It is important to note that as better grades are represented by lower numbers in the grading system in
Germany (1 = best grade; 4 = lowest passing grade), a positive influence of this variable is indicated by a
negative sign in the regression analysis.
54 Citizenship, Social and Economics Education 15(1)

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