Preservice Elementary Education Major’s Knowledge of Economics

Abstract

The authors present evidence from the research literature that elementary school children possess inadequate knowledge of economics. Four arguments are given for the importance of economic education in the public schools. It is argued that poor pupil performance on economics achievement tests might reflect vacuous social studies texts in the primary grades and an inadequate stock of economics knowledge possessed by teachers. Data from the present study support the latter claim; the mean score for this sample of preservice teachers was less than 50% on the Test of Economic Literacy. It is argued that providing teachers with additional training in economics could increase the stock of economic knowledge possessed by their students.