| Purpose. The purposes of this study were to assess basic understanding of economic concepts and cognitive levels of junior high school students in Taiwan, and to assess whether selected student, teacher, and school characteristics could be used to explain a portion of the variance associated with the scores on economic knowledge.;Procedures. Two-stage sampling procedures were used in selecting the sample. A sample of seventeen junior high schools were contacted. A total of 34 ninth grade classes with 1480 students were utilized as the sample in this study. The economic literacy status of the students' knowledge was measured by using the Test of Economic Knowledge (TEK). Each test item was categorized by a content category and a cognitive level. Demographic and related data were also collected.;Findings. The mean for the Taiwan Version Test of Economic Knowledge (TVTEK) of the sample was 25.26 with a standard deviation of 6.41. Of the four economic content categories, students correctly answered the highest percentage of questions in the area of "International" economic concepts, followed by "Fundamental", "Microeconomic", and "Macroeconomic" concepts. Of the three cognitive levels students had the greatest percentage of correct responses to questions at the "Comprehension" level, followed by "Application" and "Knowledge" level. Data analysis revealed significant differences in the mean economic knowledge scores as well as the average percentage of correct responses from the four content categories and the three cognitive levels of the test items between junior high school students in Taiwan and in the United States consistently favoring Taiwan students. The stepwise multiple regression procedure revealed six characteristics that were significant in explaining a portion of the variance in the knowledge scores of the respondents.;Conclusions. The following conclusions were drawn from this study. (a) Taiwanese ninth graders score significantly higher on the Test of Economic Knowledge than do American ninth graders with economics instruction. (b) Taiwanese ninth graders perform relatively well on international economic concepts. They perform a little less well in the other three content categories, that is, fundamental economic, microeconomic, and macroeconomic concepts. (c) The best predictor of economic knowledge test scores is the students' "Overall GPA". This variable accounts for about 55 percent of the variance of economic knowledge scores. (d) The other significant predictors in combination with student's GPA are: The student's future goal (whether going on to school or not), teacher's years of teaching economics, teacher's number of economics course credits, class size, and family income level. These five variables in the regression equation explained about 4 percent of the variance in students' score on economic knowledge beyond that which can be predicted by GPA. |
