Study Success and Opportunities for Refugees in Higher Education – an Effectiveness Analysis

Constantly high numbers of refugees, particularly among young individuals, require effective approaches to providing this group with access to higher education. Findings from studies with refugees and comparison groups, such as migrants or international students, indicate that refugees are characterized by specific factors that distinguish them and their educational challenges from other student groups. In the tertiary sector, attempts are being made to support refugees’ access to higher education through online study platforms. However, there are hardly any findings on how effective these platforms are, nor what requirements they have to meet to effectively address the needs of the target …

Validating Test Score Interpretations by Cross-National Comparison

Cross-national assessment of students’ competences in higher education is becoming increasingly important in many disciplines including economics but there are few available instruments that meet psychological standards for assessing students’ economic competence in higher education (HE). One of them is the internationally valid Test of Understanding in College Economics (TUCE), which has been adapted and employed successfully in HE systems in various countries, but the test results have seldom been used for international comparisons of students’ Economic Content Knowledge (ECK). Here, we compare the German and the Japanese test adaptations of the TUCE with reference to the American origin…

Gender-specific differences in economic competence

The Impact of Entry Preconditions on Student Dropout and Subject Change in Business and Economics

The proportion of students dropping out of higher education economics is remarkably high at approximately 25 % and has been constant for years. The results on the entry preconditions of dropping out and changing subjects in Bachelor’s degree programs in business and economics presented in this paper are based on a representative longitudinal study in Germany. In two survey waves, the cognitive entry preconditions and characteristics of business and economics students related to their study and learning processes were tested. Dropouts have lower levels of previous knowledge than students changing subjects and students who continue to study business and economics. The students’ characteristic…

Gender Effects in Assessment of Economic Knowledge and Understanding: Differences Among Undergraduate Business and Economics Students in Germany, Japan, and the United States

Gender effects in large-scale assessments have become an increasingly important research area within and across countries. Yet few studies have linked differences in assessment results of male and female students in higher education to construct-relevant features of the target construct. This paper examines gender effects on students’ economic content knowledge with a focus on construct-relevant explanations. Moreover, we compare gender effects cross-nationally between Germany, Japan, and the United States. To assess economic content knowledge of higher education students, we used translated, adapted, and validated versions of the Test of Understanding in College Economics (TUCE, 4th ed.), …

Assessing the previous economic knowledge of beginning students in Germany: Implications for teaching economics in basic courses

Study-related prior knowledge plays a decisive role in business and economics degree courses. Prior knowledge has a significant influence on knowledge acquisition in higher education, and teachers need information on it to plan their introductory courses accordingly. Very few studies have been conducted of first-year students’ prior economic knowledge or differences among students in such knowledge. In this article, the prior economic knowledge and the influence of personal factors on first-year students’ prior economic knowledge are examined. For this purpose, an adaptation of the fourth, revised edition of the American Test of Economic Literacy was administered, which was adapted in 2014…

Integrating refugees into higher education – the impact of a new online education program for policies and practices

Gaining access to higher education (HE) is a serious concern for refugees. Although studies on the integration and success of refugees in HE are scarce, the challenges associated with this issue as...

Results from the test of economic literacy in Germany and Japan: A critical discussion on the gender effect

University lecturers and coordinators of business and economics courses around the world are faced with the challenge that beginning students in these courses have heterogeneous entry conditions in terms of personal characteristics. This article focuses on the economic knowledge of German and Japanese beginning students in a business and economics degree programme. The German and Japanese versions of the US-American Test of Economic Literacy were used for the assessment of the economic knowledge of German ( N = 901) and Japanese ( N = 571) students. The TEL consists of 45 items in two questionnaire versions and is based on 20 globally accepted core standards of economics. The analyses in th…

Die Signalwirkung von Hochschulrankings - eine empirische Studie unter Studienanfängerinnen/-anfängern der Wirtschaftswissenschaften

Hochschulrankings sind in den letzten Jahren auch in Deutschland gerade in den Wirtschaftswissenschaften sehr popular und damit zunehmend zum Gegenstand der Forschung geworden. Allerdings erweisen sich die Erkenntnisse sowohl zur generellen Bedeutung von Rankings bei der Hochschulwahl als auch zur Wirkung der Rankings in Abhangigkeit bestimmter personenbezogener Eigenschaften der Studieninteressierten bislang als begrenzt. An diesem Forschungsdefizit setzt der vorliegende Beitrag an, indem zunachst die Wirkungsweise von Rankings theoretisch betrachtet wird, bevor Befragungsergebnisse von 1.314 Studienanfangerinnen und -anfangern der Wirtschaftswissenschaften prasentiert werden. 19.12.2014 |…

Assessing the Quality of the Bachelor Degree Courses: An Analysis of their Effects on Students' Acquisition of Economic Content Knowledge

Qualitat der Bachelorstudiengange auf dem Prufstand: Analyse der Effekte auf den Erwerb des okonomischen Fachwissens Die Erfassung, Bewertung und Optimierung der Leistungen im Bereich der Lehre sind entscheidende Bestandteile einer Qualitatsentwicklung im Hochschulbereich. Fur die neuen BA- und MA-Studiengange liegen jedoch Ergebnisse objektiver Messungen zu zentralen Leistungsindikatoren wie Fachwissenserwerb der Studierenden bislang nur vereinzelt vor. Um diesem Erkenntnisdefizit zu begegnen, wurde in einer Langsschnittstudie das betriebs- und volkswirtschaftliche Wissen von Studierenden des BA/MA-Modells im Vergleich zum „alten“ Diplomstudienmodell erfasst und unter Kontrolle einer Vielz…

Validating a Test for Measuring Knowledge and Understanding of Economics Among University Students

Abstract. University students' knowledge and understanding of economics have mostly been investigated cross-sectionally; however, longitudinal analyses are needed to determine which factors influence knowledge development and to draw valid conclusions based on test results. In the WiWiKom II project, a quasi-experimental longitudinal study was conducted assessing bachelor students of business and economics over the course of their studies in Germany (N = 39 universities). In this project, running from 2016 – 2019, the test-takers complete the WiWiKom II-test of economic knowledge (adapted TUCE4G and TEL4G items) and a general cognitive ability test (BEFKI 11) at four measurement points, ea…

Experiences of Refugees When Entering Higher Education and Over the Course of Their Studies: A Literature Review of Structural and Personal Challenges

In view of the significantly increasing number of individuals around the world who are forced to flee their country of origin, research discussions about integrating refugees into education are gaining relevance. A central research area is their entry into and study success in higher education, focusing on the associated challenges this learner group faces. Though the results of studies dealing with this topic often overlap, they usually focus on individual sub-areas and set specific thematic priorities. As a result, certain sub-areas such as administrative challenges are examined far more frequently than others. In this literature review, data from 14 English-language studies published bet…

The relationship between migration background and knowledge and understanding of personal finance of young adults in Germany

Abstract Financial knowledge and understanding is needed to function well in society; however, young people with a migration background in Germany have been found to perform worse on tests of financial knowledge than those without. Very little investigation has been made into the relationship between financial knowledge and language ability, and ostensibly no in-depth investigation has been made into the connection between frequency of use of the local language and how it correlates to performance on such tests. In this paper we examine the relationship between migration background and knowledge and understanding of personal finance of young adults in Germany. We administered a validated Ge…

Identification of Vulnerable Groups in Terms of Language Proficiency in Higher Education

The language proficiency of university students is considered a key factor for knowledge acquisition and success in higher education. Recent research has revealed a connection between language proficiency and academic performance. Some studies identified certain groups of learners who show deficits in language proficiency when entering higher education and who can be considered to be vulnerable groups who need particular support. The present study analyzes the level of proficiency in the language of instruction among two vulnerable groups of students at the beginning of their university studies: (i) students with a refugee background and a mother tongue other than English enrolled in Englis…

The relationship among gender, interest in economic topics, media use, and the economic knowledge of students at vocational schools

The results of numerous studies indicate that male students achieve better results on economic knowledge tests than their female classmates. Although this phenomenon has been known for a long time, the gender-specific mechanisms of this gap have not been explored in depth. According to social and educational scientific theories and the current state of research, interest and media use could be related to gender. In this study, we administered a German adaption of the internationally accepted Test of Economic Literacy to explore the gender gap in the economic knowledge of 983 students from 62 classes at 7 vocational secondary schools and commercial vocational schools specializing in business…

Digital Approaches to Integrating Refugees into Higher Education—Frontiers and Advances

This SpringerBriefs volume illustrates the potentials of digital learning opportunities in higher education for refugees with different educational, social, cultural, and linguistic backgrounds from various perspectives and based on research conducted in several countries. Global challenges for academic success that refugees face when seeking to enter higher education are outlined. One possibility to reduce the obstacles for refugees entering higher education is to offer digital learning platforms. A selection of international digital education platforms for refugees are presented, which are based on a variety of approaches to accommodate the needs of prospective refugee students. Based on …

An analysis of economic learning among undergraduates in introductory economics courses in Germany

In this article, the authors present the findings of a pretest-posttest measurement of the economic knowledge of students in introductory economics courses in undergraduate study programs in Germany. The responses of 403 students to 14 items selected from the Test of Economic Literacy (Soper and Walstad 1987) were analyzed to identify four types of economic learning: positive, retained, negative, and zero learning. In addition, a survey was conducted to gather data on the students' personal characteristics to determine their effect on the learning process. Retained learning prevailed for most items, followed by zero learning and positive learning. To determine which factors influence beginn…

Validity and fairness of a new entry diagnostics test in higher education economics

Abstract Research has been focusing increasingly on measuring students’ prior economic knowledge in higher education. However, in German-speaking countries, valid instruments are rare. A diagnostic study investigated the validity and fairness of an internationally established economic knowledge test (adapted German version of TUCE IV and TEL IV) with a representative sample of 7664 students from 46 universities across Germany. Previous findings with the dataset ( Zlatkin-Troitschanskaia et al., 2019a ) suggest that native language significantly predicts missing answers in the knowledge test. Similar effects can be found for gender. After coding missing answers as incorrect, students with a …

Using the U.S.Test of Financial Literacyin Germany—Adaptation and validation

ABSTRACTIn this article, the authors present the adaptation and validation processes conducted to render the American Test of Financial Literacy (TFL) suitable for use in Germany (TFL-G). First, they outline the translation procedure followed and the various cultural adjustments made in line with international standards. Next, they present results from the validation of the TFL-G's content and relations between test scores and external variables, including test takers' prior economic education and interest in economic topics. Preliminary analyses of data gathered from expert interviews and cognitive labs, and the results of the first administration to first-year higher education students (N…

Young adults’ knowledge and understanding of personal finance in Germany: Interviews with experts and test-takers

In recent years, the financial education of young adults has gained importance in Germany; however, very few valid test instruments to assess the knowledge and understanding of personal finance are suitable for use in Germany. In this article, we describe results of a survey in which experts in Germany in areas related to personal finance judged the relevance of the items of the American Council of Economic Education’s Test of Financial Literacy for use in Germany. Overall, they found the German version of the Test of Financial Literacy to be a valid instrument for assessing the knowledge and understanding of personal finance of young adults in Germany. Also, we conducted cognitive intervi…

How migration background affects master degree students’ knowledge of business and economics

ABSTRACTIn this study, we examine the knowledge of students in a master program in business and economics and explore whether migration-specific influences can be determined. We tested the knowledg...

A Multilevel Analysis of Economic Literacy Among International Students

International student mobility has increased in the past years. The inclusion of a highly heterogeneous group of students requires updated recruitment and admission strategies. A particularly vulnerable group of international students are refugees, who have an exceptionally high risk of dropping out of their studies. We present an entrance assessment of incoming international students from 77 countries who are at the beginning of their studies in Germany. Based on this unique sample, we examine (i) whether there are systematic country-specific effects on the economic literacy of beginning students of business and economics and (ii) whether refugee students differ from the group of internati…