5 Benefits of Interactive Learning for Economics

Interactive learning for economics supplies a number of pedagogical advantages including enhanced student retention, comprehension, and engagement.¹ With the help of visual and graphical examples from Summatic's online courses in Microeconomics and Econometrics, we illustrate five key benefits of using interactivity to "bring the dismal science to life."²

1. Enhanced Retention & Recall

Students can easily forget or misconstrue concepts when they are not activating or applying them after initial instruction.³ With interactive learning, student retention is instead boosted through engagement with content like graphs and tables which can spark more academic cognition compared with static text.⁴

Research shows that students learn up to 60% more through engaging with interactive subject material than through just reading text alone.⁵

By providing a comprehensive picture which also stimulates the brain's visual centre rather than just ‘rote learning,’ interactive content has been shown to help with student recall by positively impacting both short-term episodic and long-term memories.⁶

2. Simplifying the Abstract

Economics is an abstract science which entails a large number and wide variety of concepts. The use of interactive multimedia can illustrate conceptual interrelation at an advanced level, helping students to better grasp connections between underlying principles.⁷

The imaginative use of illustrations and interactivity is recommended for making abstract topics like game theory and option value more fun to teach and to learn.⁸ For these subject areas of complexity, multimedia approaches are espoused to more fully engage both student interest and comprehension.

See below for Summatic's visualization of responses in the Nash Equilibrium Calculator, which makes it easier for students to understand the best response function in game theory. The Calculator constitutes part of our Intermediate Microeconomics course coverage, designed and developed by our CEO Dr Charles Roddie, a fellow in Economics at the University of Cambridge and an expert on game theory.

3. Structured Comprehension

Visual aids such as graphic representations of theories and knowledge schemata provide ready-made and easily accessible structures for knowledge comprehension by illustration.⁹ In Teaching at its Best, author Linda B. Nilson describes how this structure is essential for students to recognize the 'holistic idea ‘big picture’ of patterns, generalizations, and abstractions that define a concept.¹⁰

According to Nilson, "the very structures of [these] graphics themselves supply retrieval cues."¹¹ She rests her advocation for such holistic illustrations on the premise that younger generations of students are more facile with visuals than they are with text.

See below for Summatic's illustration of the ‘Robinson Crusoe Competitive Equilibrium,’ which provides students with this visual ‘big picture’ by showing how each embedded economic component connects through the movement of interactive graphical elements:

The plethora of concepts, variables, diagrams, and models involved in economics can be a source of confusion for students. Furnishing students with a visual ‘big picture’ that illustrates the ways in which those numerous, diverse concepts connect can improve comprehension.¹² Without having this structure of the material in a visual format, students can fail to comprehend and retain new material.

4. Enhanced Engagement

Active learning, or learning by ‘doing,’ is renowned by educators as an optimal strategy for getting students to engage.¹³ Prompting students to 'predict, experience and reflect,'¹⁴ interactive content can transform education from passive to active through the movement of dynamic elements that directly respond to student use or input.¹⁵

Students can struggle to grasp the underlying economic intuition between shifting curves and solving equations, but by visualizing results through plots and graphs, computer-based simulations can help them understand the causal mechanisms embedded within a model.¹⁶

Whether in lectures or assignments, the use of multimedia is proven to stimulate greater student engagement and cognition by teaching fluid and intuitive conceptualizations of core economic principles such as thinking at the margin, rationality, trade-offs, and opportunity cost.¹⁷

5. Adaptable Lesson Planning

Active use of media and technology in economic education can have a measurable impact by generating real-time feedback that faculty can use to assess learning.¹⁸ One method of interactive learning, ‘Just-in-Time Teaching’ (JiTT), developed initially for physics but adapted for economics by Simkins and Maier in 2004, encourages ‘just-in-time’ modifications to in-class activities based on student responses to interactive material.¹⁹

Through this method, students carry out simulations, solve problems, analyse data, or draw and manipulate graphs through online exercises just before class. Instructors then review responses to identify challenges amongst cohorts and to prepare in-class activities targeting those areas of challenge.

JiTT exercises may resemble traditional assignments but their purpose is different. In addition to visualizing concepts for students, they also help to visualize student thought-processes for educators. With Summatic, instructors receive real-time feedback on student attempts and engagement with interactive material. They can review these attempts prior to class via our online mark book, which can enhance their teaching preparation before each session.

Active Learning Activates Benefits

Whether providing a ‘big picture’ or breaking down embedded components of mathematical models, online interactive learning can simplify complex economics concepts in a manner that allows students to easily visualize, structure, digest, and retain material. In addition to increasing student engagement, interactive learning tools also allow academics to review and act upon student responses.

You can improve the overall academic performance of your students by activating their learning with interactive content. You can read more about the benefits and features of our Economics course offerings here to discover how Summatic makes the ‘dismal science’ come alive.