Using Microsoft Excel to Enhance a General Education Economics Course

General education economics courses like “Survey of Economics” or “Principles of Economics” are notoriously difficult environments for fostering student engagement and retaining student interest. From the standpoint of students, the value-add of economics as a field, and frameworks for economic thinking may not be obvious, nor will the connections between economic theory and the world outside the classroom be apparent. This work outlines a simple exercise to incorporate into general education economics courses that nurture student engagement and expose students to basic spreadsheet applications such as Microsoft Excel for data manipulation, generation, visualization, and description. This exercise is designed to be conducted like a “lab” with explicit instructions and an in-class tutorial. The data students are provided and end results should relate course content to real-world phenomena, enabling students to see the value between the course material and its application outside of the classroom.

by Corey J.M. Williams

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Williams, C. (2025). Using Microsoft Excel to Enhance a General Education Economics Course. Journal of Economics Teaching, 10(3), 207-224. DOI: 10.58311/jeconteach/9096a292fce5c53b285f71087da402942dd21aea

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