Diego Mendez-Carbajo, Senior Economic Education Specialist at Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, is Diego Mendez. This article is based upon his presentation at the 2021 Economics Teaching Conference. These are his views and not his employer’s.
The impact and volume of data-focused work in Economics has increased over the past few decades. Sometimes called an “empirical turning”, the increasing importance of economic data over mathematical theories is rarely reflected in classroom practices. What are the essential skills for Economics data literacy? How can instructors help students acquire the data literacy skills that will best position them to achieve professional success?
Let’s begin by explaining what economic data literacy is. Next, we will discuss several resources that can be used to teach data literacy. An example that you can use as a teaching tool will be shown.
What is Economic Data Literacy?
The combination of specific skills expected by students in Economics and the broad data literacy requirements of the workforce can be described as economic data literacy. Although the scholarly literature on Economics education has identified several data-related skills, and the professional literature on library science emphasizes the importance of general information literacy skills for economic data literacy, there is no narrow definition currently.
Data literacy in Economics refers to the combination of three skills that students can learn through undergraduate education.
According to the American Library Association, information literacy is a set or abilities that requires individuals to recognize when information is needed and to be able to locate, evaluate and use the information effectively.
According to the National Numeracy Network Numeracy includes “ability to communicate at an important level about quantitative issues in daily life.”
According to the American Economic Association, economics is the study of a wide range of social issues using “theoretical models” or empirical data.
This means that a literate person can effectively combine economic analysis and quantitative information to answer questions related decision-making.
FRED(r), Teaching with
Since 1991, Economics instructors have had easy access to a vast amount of quantitative information via Federal Reserve Economic Data (FRED). As the largest online aggregator of U.S. statistics–currently containing 816,000 individual data series from 107 different sources, the FRED(r) portal was visited by more than 8 million users in 2020. Multiple authors have documented its usefulness in Economics teaching.
We have listed here several resources to teach with FRED(r), which were created by the Economic Education Team at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.
Lesson Plans:
These self-contained resources are listed on the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis’ economic education page. They provide instructors with ready-to-use educational interventions that are fully articulated and ready to use on a variety of topics. Each lesson plan includes a step-by–step description of how to use the lesson plan in the classroom. The lesson plans emphasize small-group discussion and discussion to encourage student engagement.
The lesson plan “Neighborhood Redlining” describes a small-group activity in which students evaluate FRED(r), data on home values, and racial segregation to see how wealth accumulation is across racial groups. Similar to the lesson plan “Data Literacy and The Composition Effect”, students use FRED (r) data for calculating and comparing the unemployment rate for different races and ethnicities.
FRED(r), Interactive Modules
These online modules are accessible through the Econ Lowdown portal and introduce students to active learning with economic data. FRED(r), embedded in hands-on, interactive instruction, is embedded into these online modules. Each FRED(r), Interactive module includes two types of activities: a graph building exercise and a graph reading questionnaire.
Instructors can use the 12 modules available to facilitate student learning on topics such as the difference in nominal and real wages, and why the 2007-2009 recession has been called “The Great Recession”.
FRED(r), Blog Reading Question and Answers
These short reading assignments, which can be accessed through the Econ Lowdown portal provide students with an introduction to economic data and their interpretation. Each of the 34 modules currently available includes a four-question multiple-choice quiz. They are based on curated FRED(r). Blog posts. These questions are designed to help students develop information literacy, numeracy and economic analysis skills through their reading of each blog post. Independent students can take the online quiz and have it graded automatically.