This study aims to evaluate effectiveness of an alternative high school economics textbook
(Next-generation Economics Textbook: NGET) by focusing on how the new textbook effectively
deals with the common economic misconceptions that are strongly held among students. We
collected data on common economic misconceptions by using nation-wide tests in Korea that
were administrated centrally by the Korea Institute for Curriculum and Evaluation (KICE). We
also conducted an experiment to see if the different approaches adopted by the NGET would
make any difference in the student learning process with respect to the two most common
economic misconceptions: opportunity cost and externalities.
The results indicate that the next-generation economics textbook presents more relevant and
rich examples of economic principles and concepts than the other existing textbooks. Reading
material and exploration activities in the next-generation economics textbook contain more
interesting examples and reasonable activities to help students understand the economics
concepts more clearly.
The results from our experiment suggest that the NGET provides better learning material on
opportunity costs. The NGET, however, fails to offer effective learning material for explaining
the concept of externalities. This supports the criticism that the NGET relies heavily on the
market-centered economic perspective to explain and seek answers to economic issues and
problems.