Using sports-related empirical research to teach critical reading skills in intermediate microeconomics

Even at highly selective colleges, advanced economics majors' ability to read the professional literature is highly variable. Additionally, students in theory courses often have a difficult time understanding how theoretical models are operationalized into testable hypotheses. To mitigate this problem, the Skidmore College economics department now explicitly teaches the process of reading the professional literature in intermediate theory courses. This both helps students increase critical reading while simultaneously increasing their understanding of theoretical concepts. In this regard, the sports economics literature serves as an excellent vehicle to accomplish these goals. Using sports-related papers has a number of benefits: (1) Students find the papers inherently interesting; (2) excellent data availability allows for straightforward tests of theoretical concepts; (3) students come to see the power of the theoretical models in context; and finally (4) teaching students to read journal articles in step-by-step fashion increases their ability to do so in advanced courses.