We’re joined by Doug McKee to talk about how economists can use assessments and experiments to improve teaching and learning. Doug explains how learning assessments can reveal what students actually understand, not just how they feel about a course. We also discuss the Economic Education Network for Experiments (EENE) and why large, multi-institution studies matter for credibility. Our conversation highlights how economics classrooms can double as powerful research labs for understanding learning itself.
In this episode, we talk about:
* Doug’s path into economics teaching and education research
* Why student learning assessments matter more than course evaluations
* How Cornell built a culture around prerequisite and skills-based assessments
* The origins and goals of the Economic Education Network for Experiments (ENEE)
* Using large, multi-school experiments to test what really works in the classroom
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Show notes & references
We’re joined this week by Doug McKee, a senior lecturer in economics at Cornell University and one of the leaders behind the Economic Education Network for Experiments. He’s keeping it simple with high-pulp orange juice, while Jadrian braces for another impending snowstorm with a Dark Starr Dry Irish Stout. Matt has logged in with a flight of beers from the back booth at East End Brewing Company in Pittsburgh.
Our data point challenge this episode focused on the age of Trump’s most recent announcement regarding the next potential Chair of the Federal Reserve, the number of undergraduate students enrolled at Cornell University, and the number of people who have been killed by ICE agents in Minneapolis so far this year.
Doug kicked off the show by sharing his fairly unconventional path into economics education research. After becoming frustrated with the traditional publication process, he realized that he couldn’t stop thinking about teaching. That shift eventually led him to Cornell, where institutional support made it possible to treat teaching as a serious research agenda.
A big part of his research agenda involves measuring what students actually learn. Doug has helped Cornell faculty work together to clearly define learning goals and then build assessments around them. Instead of relying only on student evaluations, these tools provide concrete evidence about which skills students gain before and after course redesigns. The assessments started as internal tools and eventually became the foundation for larger studies across institutions.
By pooling data from many courses and universities, researchers can separate what works in one classroom from what works more generally, across different student populations and institutional types. This motivation led to the creation of ENEE, a collaborative network that allows instructors to run coordinated experiments in real classrooms. Doug walks through current projects, including studies on team contracts in group work and earlier work on AI and classroom practices.
If you could run one large-scale classroom experiment across many universities, what question would you want it to answer?
Pop Culture Corner 🍿
Jadrian shared a clip that was sent his way earlier in the week by Charlie Ben-Nathan, an economics educator in London. The clip comes from Yes, Prime Minister and highlights the economic logic behind cigarette taxes, healthcare costs, and unintended consequences. It’s a great illustration of the tradeoffs policymakers face, especially when dealing with goods that generate externalities.
With award season underway and the Oscars approaching, Matt took the opportunity to revisit La La Land. A decade after its release, the film still holds up for its music and storytelling, and it turns out to be surprisingly useful for economics examples as well, including ideas like search costs.
Doug recommended Ninth House, an adult dark fantasy novel set at Yale and centered on the university’s secret societies. The book blends dark magic, murder, and elite privilege, and it’s written by an author with deep familiarity with Yale’s campus and lore. It makes the setting feel especially vivid for those with New Haven connections.
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