Insecure Participation: Experiments in a One-Day Introduction to Economics, with Revised Experiments and Exercises

Classroom experiments and exercises served as a one-day introduction to economics for students who felt insecure about taking first year business classes. The first experiment addresses demand in isolation, while the second addresses supply. A third integrates supply, demand and equilibrium in a pit market with all students having equal expected profits. A monopoly pricing exercise addresses market failure. Exercises use many incremental questions to reveal principles of microeconomics. Evaluations show that at the end of the program, students were familiar with economic results and concepts, and were more comfortable with taking economics.