(Abstract)
This study was started with a problem awareness that economic education should be further strengthened in the market economy system, and analysis of economic understanding is essential in economic education. For the study, a questionnaire...
(Abstract)
This study was started with a problem awareness that economic education should be further strengthened in the market economy system, and analysis of economic understanding is essential in economic education. For the study, a questionnaire was reorganized by the Korea Economic Education Association to evaluate the economic understanding of middle school students nationwide and surveyed 331 third-year middle school students in Daegu and Gyeongbuk. ‘Economic literacy’is defined as the degree to which students understand'basic economics-related concepts' and the ability to apply their knowledge to the situation of economic problems faced in everyday life.
As a result of a survey of all 331 students, the average score was 40.03. The lowest score is 0, with 2 (6%), and the highest with 90, with 1 (3%). The mode is 35 points, and the mode is lower than the average. In other words, it is static (positive). This is because each question for measuring economic comprehension has a low level of students and a lot of low scores because the questionnaire question is difficult compared to the level. As a result of comparing 9,598 students nationwide with 940 students in Daegu in 2010 using the same questionnaire, the economic understanding of middle school students in Daegu and Gyeongbuk fell to a low level in 2019. Questions with a high percentage of correct answers are generally concepts related to economic problems that students must solve in their daily lives, or questions that can be guessed at the level of common sense to infer the correct answer. However, the questions with a low percentage of correct answers are concepts that have few opportunities to encounter in everyday life, and are concepts that require learning knowledge through class. If the goal is to increase students' economic understanding, understanding their attitude toward economics is an important prerequisite. In this study, among students' attitudes toward economy, how they think about their level of knowledge about economic concepts. To this end, subjective understanding was defined and investigated as'the degree to which students judge and evaluate the degree of knowledge about economic concepts'. As for the results of the students' subjective understanding, 15.7% answered'I know clearly', 35.5% answered'Normal', and 48.9% answered'I don't know'. Nearly half of the negative responses are. These results are much lower than the level of objective comprehension. In other words, students do not understand their level of objective comprehension well, think that economic concepts are difficult, and think that their knowledge is insufficient. A high or low subjective understanding of economics does not mean a high or low objective understanding. However, in general, it shows that subjective understanding and objective comprehension are generally positively correlated. Students have misunderstandings about their economic concepts, so they have incorrect knowledge or have an uncertain attitude. If the correct answer was correct, but answered'I don't know', the concept was defined as'no confidence'. On the contrary, if the answer was not correct, but answered'I know for sure', it was defined as'misconception'. There is an inverse relationship between uncertainty and misunderstanding. However, there seems to be no correlation between the percentage of correct answers and uncertainty and misunderstanding. In addition to the correct answer, the wrong answer option chosen by many students was defined as'charming wrong answer'. The relationship between the degree of attractive incorrect answers and the percentage of correct answers is not entirely directly proportional, but in general, the higher the attractive percentage of incorrect answers, the lower the percentage of correct answers. In other words, attractive incorrect answers influence the choice of correct answer.