Will Students Ever Learn Economic Principles? Are They Really that ObTUCE?

The Test of Understanding in College Economics (TUCE), created in 1968 and revised in 1981, 1991 and 2007, is widely used to assess students’ understanding of economics principles and for research into teaching methods. In this article, we examine the student scores used to "norm" the TUCE post-tests (taken at the end of the course) to assess their understanding of economic principles from 1968 to 2007. Our analysis yields two general conclusions. First, their understanding is extremely low — more than 70 percent of the students who normed the TUCE post-tests would have earned a D or F on these tests. Second, students’ understanding has declined substantially — the proportion of students who would have earned a D or F has risen from 78 percent in 1968 to 93 percent in 2007.