Economics 101: Where Do We Stand?.

Nearly everyone in the economics profession appears to have a profound interest in the introductory college course—what it should contain, how it should be taught, how effective it is, etc. In this paper, one of the nation's best-known teachers of that course gives his own ideas on some of these issues. In addition, McConnell describes the ADAPT (Accent on Developing Abstract Processes of Thought) program at the University of Nebraska. The results of a two-year evaluation of the ADAPT program, which he briefly summarizes, suggests the possibility that such a program can help students cope with the abstract concepts inherent in economic theory.