The project aim is to extend and refine an innovative and promising application of intelligent tutoring systems developed collaboratively by the University of Pittsburgh's Economics Department and Learning Research and Development Center. The methodology is a pioneering attempt at teaching major portions of the introductory microeconomics syllabus as a laboratory science. The direction taken is likely to serve as a model for economics departments at other schools, given the way it addresses a pervasive dissatisfaction with the current methods of teaching beginning economics courses. An important feature of the project is the vast amount of data which it will gather on student learning difficulties at the University of Pittsburgh and other college and universities. Results derived from this project should reinvigorate what has been a declining interest over the past several years in instructional research on the post-secondary teaching of economics.
