"INTEGRATIVE LEARNING: LEARNERS DESIGN AND REFLECT ON THEIR ""ECONOMIC"" BEHAVIOUR TO COURSEWORK ASSESSMENT "

At various times economics has been defined by either its method or its subject matter (Backhouse and Medema, 2009). Those who emphasise the subject matter tend to focus on market exchanges, for example, the purchase and sales of bread. Those who emphasise the method of economics tend to extend the analysis to non-market exchanges, for example, the economics of crime. Economics is traditionally taught in this sequence. Introductory and intermediate level textbooks focus on the economics of market exchange. It is only specialist advanced level undergraduate textbooks that will focus on the application of economics to non-market settings. Interestingly, if one is to judge by market sales (a standard economics criteria), students who read outside the curriculum's required reading and 'informal' students of the subject tend to read books that use economics as a method of investigating life. Recently there has been a huge growth in popular economics books like Freakonomics, The Undercover Economist, The Economics of Life, and The Economic Naturalist. This would suggest that learners enjoy using economics to investigate non- market activities. The use of economics as a method to investigate life parallels another development in (economic) education - the use of reflective journals (Brewer and Jozefowicz, 2006). Typically, economics students are asked to reflect on the behaviour in a market setting. The purpose of this poster is to explain how economics as a method might be used in reflective journals to reflect on non-market activities.