Investigating the learning outcomes of adopting active learning strategies that utilize rich resources in order to improve reasoning and analytical skills

Instructors in university macroeconomics units are continuously reminded that tertiary students are not as capable in higher level reasoning skills as required in business. This has been exacerbated in Australian universities by an increased proportion of students from non English speaking backgrounds. Including more innovative sources and teaching methods into learning have been chosen to revitalise curriculum practices. Students will be exposed to more primary data and related visual news summaries as learning strategies to improve their reasoning and analytical skills and demonstrate the relevance of topics studied. A rationale for this intervention is developed based on research, experience and employers’ needs. By guided practise, students gain confidence in interpreting, analysing and critiquing, instead of regurgitating interpretations of a teacher or author. The skills promoted in this intervention require deep and self regulated learning. The paper explains the rationale and methodology of the research. The evaluation techniques include both qualitative and quantitative measures. The SOLO taxonomy is used to measure reasoning skills as an appropriate measure of student cognitive outcomes that has been applied to ranking tertiary learning skills. The study tests students' skills to summarise and analyse data at entry level, again at mid semester and finally at the end of the semester. A necessary part of the intervention includes 'constructive alignment,' that requires learning objectives to be aligned with appropriate assessment tasks. The qualitative evaluation will be undertaken through focus groups, intending to 'tease out' the student perspective of the intervention and provide richer results than the numbers alone provide.