Developing Students’ Analytical and Data Presentation Skills Using Infographic Assignments in Principles of Macroeconomics and Economics of Immigration

Abstract

This paper describes applied assignments designed to give students hands-on experience working with data. It develops students’ data analysis skills, critical thinking, and data presentation skills. There are three active-learning applications presented: two for students in undergraduate principles of macroeconomics and one for economics of immigration. In these assignments, students create an infographic documenting various macroeconomic indicators, or characteristics of the immigrant population. Students must think carefully about the visual presentation of quantitative estimates, consider what is the right graph type or style, the right scale, how to structure categories, and how to label them. The assignments can be assigned as group projects in larger classes, and all materials necessary for implementation in your course are available online. These include detailed instructions and guidelines for students, as well as suggested grading rubrics that you can utilize in your learning management system. These examples create a useful framework and will allow you to modify the criteria for application to different courses.

Appendix

Student Instructions for Macroeconomics: State Infographic

The main purpose of this assignment is to give you an opportunity to work with data, carefully and thoughtfully analyze the data, and create a report in the form of an infographic to represent your findings visually. For many of you, this will be a significant portion of your future jobs, synthesizing information and presenting it to your team or supervisors. Your choice of how to present the data will impact how your audience processes it, how they understand it, and their main takeaways. This assignment also allows you to practice basic research skills and requires you to revisit the concepts and definitions we study in the course. It will also challenge you to link the data and concepts appropriately and to present them as a combined overview. An infographic is a visual representation of data. It is not a poster where you include a lot of text. The power of presentation here is in the visual experience: graphs, charts, and pictures.

Each student is to create an infographic about the basic macroeconomic indicators in one US state compared to the US average. These include GDP, per capita GDP, unemployment, and labor force participation. Inflation is generally not reported at the state level. Additionally, you need to present a “deeper look” into at least three of the indicators. For example, you could consider changes over time, or look at different groups of the population. Use your creativity. Please use FRED (https://fred.stlouisfed.org/) as your main data source, but you must create your own graphs and figures. You may add information from other sources as well; just be careful and cite your sources.

It is up to you how you want to present the macroeconomic indicators of “your” state. The final infographic should provide an accurate insight into the data and you should find creative ways to present the data by using charts, graphs, and images. When creating the infographic (one page only), please consider the following suggestions for visual presentations. Use 2 to 5 colors with good contrast (color-blind-sensitive). Use easily readable font and color for text. Do not crowd the infographic and use white space well. Be careful with copyrighted materials when using external media, as they must be used with permission and you must include the appropriate credit line. Tips on infographic creation are available at Piktochart.com but you can use any software you want. Once finished, you will save the infographic as an image (.jpg or .pdf; remember, one page only) and submit it by the due date.

Section of Student Instructions for Macroeconomics: Country Infographic

Each student is to create an infographic about the basic macroeconomic indicators of a foreign country and compare those to the USA. These include GDP, GDP growth rate, inflation, unemployment, the trade balance with the USA, and exchange rate with the USA. dollar. Additionally, you need to present a “deeper look” into at least three of the indicators. For example, you could consider per capita GDP, unemployment of different groups, an analysis of statistics over time, trade with other countries, government debt, interest rates, and macroeconomic policy. Use your creativity. Reliable data sources to create your own graphs and figures include FRED (https://fred.stlouisfed.org/), the World Bank’s World Development Indicators (https://databank.worldbank.org/source/world-development-indicators), OECD (https://stats.oecd.org/), and the IMF’s World Economic Outlook (https://www.imf.org/en/publications/weo). You may add information from other sources as well; just be careful and cite them.

Section of Student Instructions for Economics of Immigration: State Infographic

Each student is to create an infographic about the immigrant population in one US state. You must report the percentage of immigrants in the state and the most common countries of origin. Your job is to figure out in the data how to identify immigrants. I want you to present at least three additional descriptive statistics using the data sample. Some other variables that you could consider are race, age, age at migration, years in the USA, citizenship status, educational attainment, marital status, occupation, and income. You decide how to present the information and what you may want to look into deeper. Think carefully about the variables and how they are defined. You should always check the codebook to understand what each variable means and what it measures.

To access the data, go to https://usa.ipums.org/usa/. You will need to create a free account with your email. Use the most recent 5-year sample of the American Community Survey (ACS) data and provide information on the share of immigrants and their characteristics. You must use these data, as it will be used to check the accuracy of your statistics, but create your own graphs and figures. You have two options for data analysis. The first is to use the online analysis tool to generate tables and cross-tabulations. It is interactive and user-friendly, and no previous coding experience is needed. A detailed guide on how to use it is provided separately. Alternatively, you may download the Stata file, after which you will need to run the “command file” that comes with your data extract in the folder where you saved the file, and attach all the labels to the variables to make the data file usable.