We study student learning outcomes following the redesign of an undergraduate macroeconomics course. Changes were made to focus students’ learning efforts and time in-class on the application and analysis of key concepts. To evaluate changes to student learning outcomes, we use thirteen questions that appeared on final exams both before and after the redesign. The analysis shows that after the redesign student performance on application and analysis questions improved, while performance suffered on memorization and understanding questions. With this paper, we provide a description of our experience and method for others to use in assessing changes in performance after redesigning a large, introductory-level course.

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