Lecture vs. Lecture-less: A Meta-Analysis from Journal of Economic Education (1969 to 2016)

Abstract

The objective of this paper is to provide empirical evidence on the relative effectiveness of lecture-less against traditional lecture style teaching in economics. The paper examines whether there is any systematic effect of using "lecture-less" experiments in economics teaching. The paper presents a meta-analysis of "lecture-less" teaching pedagogy in undergraduate principles of economics. The meta-analysis presented in this paper captures 47 years of published articles in innovative economic teaching pedagogies. The primary goal is to determine to what degree lecture-less experiments contribute to the learning of economics captured by test score performance. Can students learn economics with "lecture-less" better than traditional "chalk-and-talk" lecture? The meta-analysis demonstrates that the average effect size in comparing lecture-less (experiment group) vs. traditional lecture (control group) instruction does not exceed 0.2 (small effect). That is to say the main effects of lecture-less format in promoting greater economic understanding are not significant. (A20, A22)