Abstract
The College Fed Challenge is a competition between undergraduate students from different colleges and universities. It is designed to enhance the development of research, critical thinking, and presentation skills. This paper analyzes the value of the competition as an instrument for improving undergraduate economics education. We argue that the College Fed Challenge incorporates many of the recommendations in Educating Economists: The Teagle Discussion on Re-Evaluating the Undergraduate Economics Major (2009). We present results from surveys of (a) students from schools that participated in regional competitions in 2010 and in 2011 and (b) graduates from the University of Delaware who participated in past years. A focus of the surveys was to determine whether participation improved the skills described by Hansen. The results reflect the impressive effect on student learning outcomes. We conclude that the visibility of the College Fed Challenge can be an important factor in determining its impact. If the competition were national in scope, if the judges were carefully selected so that success in the competition were more meaningful, and if the American Economic Association were to provide stronger support, then the competition could conceivably have a significant and positive impact on economics education in the United States.
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The survey was administered in partnership with the Eastern Economic Association (EEA) in three regional competitions: the Second Federal Reserve District with eight participating schools; the Third Federal Reserve District with nine participating schools; and the Seventh Federal Reserve District with seven participating schools.
David Simon, a graduate student at the University of Delaware, administered these surveys and collated the results. He is currently reviewing the responses of a control group of non-participants and intends to compare these results with the responses of competition participants.
“Harvard College Fed Challenge promotes economics literacy both on campus and in our community by creating opportunities for students to participate in the Fed Challenge, a national economics competition sponsored by the Federal Reserve Bank.” http://www.hcs.harvard.edu/~fed/index.html.
The final graduation grades in the honors program at Swarthmore College are determined by outside examiners who first give a written exam to graduating seniors and then follow through with an oral exam. Students take exams in six areas. The final graduation grades (highest honors, high honors, honors, no honors) are determined in a meeting of the outside examiners after the oral exams are completed. What is most striking to outside examiners when coming out of this meeting is the crowd that greets them. It is not the students — but the faculty wanting to know how their students performed. Administrators and faculty at Swarthmore College believe that their honors program is an important reason for its excellent reputation. In essence, their faculty is constantly being evaluated by outside reviewers. The College Fed Challenge creates a similar atmosphere where the faculty and students work in a cooperative environment to impress outside reviewers. The reputation of the school is on the line.
A total of 47 students responded to the survey in 2010; nine schools located in the Third Federal Reserve District.
A total of 131 students responded to the survey: eight schools in the Second Federal Reserve District; nine schools in the Third Federal Reserve District; and seven schools in the Seventh Federal Reserve District.
In previous years, the University of Delaware and Lafayette College competed in the Fourth Federal Reserve District competition organized by the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, Baltimore Branch.
The competition is administered in partnership with the EEA.
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Acknowledgements
We wish to thank the two anonymous referees whose thoughtful comments were incorporated. We also wish to acknowledge the contribution of David Simon, a graduate student at the University of Delaware, for administering the surveys in 2011 and collating the results.
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Brusentsev, V., Miller, J. The Educational Value of the College Fed Challenge Competition. Eastern Econ J 41, 513–526 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1057/eej.2015.13
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/eej.2015.13