Nuffield Curriculum Centre

Business and Economics

A level Economics: Looking ahead
Author: Nancy Wall

www.economicsnetwork.ac.uk

A recent Nuffield Curriculum Centre meeting, 'A level Economics: Looking ahead', brought together economists, examiners, curriculum developers and teachers. They discussed the draft subject criteria from QCA and the content of the existing specifications of AQA, Edexcel and OCR. They recommended ways in which A level Economics courses could be brought up to date.

For some years there has been limited contact between professional economists, examiners and teachers of A level Economics. Meeting at the Nuffield Foundation made it possible to explore possibilities for changing A level courses in a way that would reflect current developments in the subject area.

The group examined the draft QCA criteria and some A level course specifications. Speakers emphasised the importance of ensuring that the course forms a coherent experience for students who will not study the subject further.

Presentations included contributions from:
John Sloman (University of West of England and Economics Network), who set out the key requirements for a course that would provide a good introduction to the subject
Andy Ross (Head of Learning and Development for the Government Economic Service), who urged us to think about reworking the course content to include new areas of the subject which have obvious relevance to the lives of individuals.

Both speakers made the case for setting out the QCA criteria in the form of threshold or core concepts. These would be applied in a range of different contexts. The traditional way of organising course content, by outlining topic areas, encourages the teaching of these in isolation from one another. Adopting a conceptual approach emphasizes the inter-relatedness of the fundamental concepts. This approach would provide scope for updating the course content while still leaving awarding bodies with considerable freedom to develop interesting specifications.

The meeting also provided an opportunity for participants to consider the content of a number of specific modules. They made recommendations for some new approaches and for judicious cutting of content that has become less useful with the passage of time.

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