Informal Reasoning and Subject Matter Knowledge in the Solving of Economics Problems by Naive and Novice Individuals

This study was designed to investigate how subject matter knowledge and the use of informal reasoning mechanisms are related to the solving of economics problems by naive individuals (with no formal training in economics) and novice individuals (with training in one or two formal economics courses). The naive groups included individuals having or not having a college education, and both naive and novice groups included individuals having or not having vocational and/or a vocational experience related to economics. Participants answered questions about changes in automobile prices, the federal deficit, and interest rates. Individuals with a college education performed better in relation to economics knowledge than those who did not attend college, and little performance difference was observed between those college educated individuals who did and those who did not have formal economics training and/or relevant experience. The results suggest that classroom instruction in economics does not necessarily lead to superior performance on "everyday" economics tasks and that individuals with a strong intellectual history may not acquire economics knowledge from everyday experience. In addition, application of a model of informal reasoning indicates that college educated individuals differ from those with no college education in (a) quality of problem representation; (b) use of qualifiers, counterarguments, and metastatements; and (c) recovering from argument distortion. Findings are discussed in relation to subject matter learning.