Do Graphs Promote Learning in Principles of Economics?

Using Visual Representations to Enhance Students’ Understanding of Causal Relationships in Price

“…This has implications for teaching economics and designing course materials on price, as it questions the use of graphs as the most efficient way of introducing price. In line with earlier research (Cohn et al, 2001;Strober & Cook, 1992), the results of this study suggest that graphs can create problems, or even be counterproductive, for students when learning about price. This study extends earlier research in terms of identifying why, or in what way, supply/demand graphs can cause problems in a learning situation: for novice learners of economics, some critical aspects that seem necessary to discern in order to develop a more qualified conception of causality in price are not necessarily explicitly made visible through the graph.…”

“…In that sense, the supply/demand graph may be very constructive for communicating within the discipline and among non-novices, but not for communicating the foundations of causality in pricing to novice learners in the field. Accordingly, this study does not mainly extend the debate of whether or not supply/demand graphs facilitate learning, which has been the focus of many studies (see, for instance, Cohn et al, 2001;Kourilsky & Wittrock, 1987;Strober & Cook, 1992). However, it does extend the understanding of what understanding is made possible through the use of the graph and suggests that supply/demand graphs only to a limited extent facilitate novice upper secondary learners' development of a qualified conception of the causal relationships in pricing.…”

“…However, previous research has shown that students face problems when learning about price with supply/demand graphs (Colander, 1995;Strober & Cook, 1992), which are traditionally used in teaching. This study builds on earlier research on students' conceptions of price (Pang & Marton, 2003 and of graphs illustrating price (Cohn et al, 2001), as well as the suggestion that different visual representations of the same content facilitate different ways of understanding phenomena (Airey & Linder, 2009;Danielsson & Selander, 2014). The study provides new evidence about how teachers' choice of diagrams affects students' understanding of pricing.…”

“…One question focused on the effect on movie ticket prices when there is an increase in film downloads and the other focused on the effect on prices of ecological and non-ecological hamburgers when the demand for the former increases (see Appendix). Open-ended questions were used instead of multiple-choice items that have been used in previous studies investigating students' understanding of a visually presented content (see, for instance, Cohn et al, 2001;Wheat, 2007a). This is because multiple-choice questions presuppose that possible student conceptions of a certain phenomenon are already known, resulting in a risk of missing other possible conceptions (Davies, 2011).…”

“…This presumes that graphs facilitate learning about pricing by illustrating and simplifying complex processes and relations (Wheat, 2007b). However, research has identified challenges posed to students by this practice and has questioned whether students' learning is helped or hindered by the use of graphs (see, for instance, Cohn et al, 2001Cohn et al, , 2004Colander, 1991;Davies, 2012;Davies & Mangan, 2013;Estrada, 2013;Kourilsky & Wittrock, 1987;Reingewertz, 2013;Strober & Cook, 1992;Zetland et al, 2010). A critical problem with supply/demand graphs is that they portray dynamic relationships in terms of "comparative statics".…”