AN EXPERIMENTAL STUDY TO EVALUATE THE GIVE AND TAKE INSTRUCTIONAL MATERIALS

Abstract

A study to evaluate the effectiveness of Give and Take instructional materials was conducted in the spring of 1985 by using three experimental and two control high school classes, with a total of 105 students. The groups were equivalent in terms of age, grade point average, pretest scores on the Test of Economic Literacy and pretest scores on Parts I and II of the Survey on Economic Attitudes. The Give and Take films and accompanying print materials were used with the experimental group and a textbook was used with the control group. The same economic topics were covered in both groups. Mean achievement for classes which used Give and Take materials was higher than for classes which used traditional textbook materials. No relationship was found between treatment and student’s attitudes towards economics as a subject or their economic attitude sophistication. The researchers also collected data on students’ age, sex, and grade point average to determine if there was a relationship between those variables and the students’ academic achievement in economics or their attitudes about economics. The only variable that was significantly related was grade point average. Students with high grade point averages made greater gains in academic achievement than students with low grade point averages.