THE TEACHING ECONOMIST - William A. McEachern 
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Issue 10, Fall 1995
William A. McEachern, Editor
Cliffs StudyWare for Economics
Cliffs Notes now sells software, what they call StudyWare, in courses that are viewed by students as particularly tough — biology, calculus, chemistry, physics, statistics, and economics. The program in economics comes in an attractive box and lists for $39.95. The box contains a short paperback entitled Economics and a 3.5" installation diskette that contains the software. The paperback also sells separately for $6.85, so the marginal cost of the disk is $33.10. StudyWare claims to be Windows® compatible. A better term would be Windows tolerant — it really makes no use of Windows.
The big come-on with the product is the box. The box has the same title, Economics, as most principles books, which will reassure students they are on the right track. The box looks good and promises goodies inside. For example, the box says the StudyWare contains "Thousands of questions, answers, and on-screen explanations." So how many questions do you suppose the software contains? There are thirty sets of questions, and each set contains about 20 questions, for a grand total of 600 multiple-choice questions. There are no other questions.
The box promises "Useful hints and test taking strategies." I could find no hints or strategies. And the box claims to have "The most complete on-screen glossary, graphs, and figures available." How many graphs and figures do you suppose appear in this "most complete" product? There are a total of 24 exhibits — an average of one exhibit per 25 questions. Most of the exhibits are graphs, which are drab, static, and drawn as thin white lines on a blue background. The box's promise of "color graphics" implies a richer picture than white on blue. Some graphs are poorly drawn. For example, the marginal cost curve often does not intersect at the minimum of the average cost curve. And no diagrams relate to such graph-intensive topics as supply and demand, wage determination, and aggregate expenditure. What's more, the student cannot put the question and the relevant diagram together on the same screen, so the student must flip back and forth between question and graph. Nor can the student print out a copy of the graph as a reference. Many textbooks offer students a much better software package, so the Cliffs Notes claim of superiority is way off.
Whereas the software divides questions into 30 topics, the paperback divides its 156 pages into 14 topics. But there is little correlation between the question topics and the paperback topics. For example, there are software questions on regulation, deregulation, and antitrust — topics not mentioned in the paperback. And, whereas the paperback draws aggregate demand and aggregate supply curves, software questions rely entirely on the Keynesian cross. What most textbooks (and the paperback) call aggregate expenditure, the software calls aggregate demand.
Some of the multiple-choice questions are so specific they would not likely be answered by any textbook. For example, "Which of the following has the highest four-firm concentration ratio? [as of 1982]": Aluminum, lead, coffee, or tires. If you picked lead, you win (I picked aluminum). Even if students mastered all the multiple-choice questions, they would fall far short of any real understanding of the topics. Since the software conveys no idea of a bigger picture, students would be able to answer only questions as posed.
Because some students probably used Cliffs Notes for plot summaries in high school, they may think Economics StudyWare will provide the forbidden fruit from the tree of knowledge. But a student who uses this product will likely end up with three often-conflicting approaches to some topics — the test-bank, the paperback, and the course textbook. StudyWare will claim income and time that could have been spent more wisely. Consider how much more the student could get by supplementing the textbook with text-specific software, the Wall Street Journal, or the study guide.
I think I'm open-minded about approaches to economics (consider my science-fiction pitch). I don't care if students read comic books if that helps them understand economics. But when they are asked to spend $40 plus their time on something so counterproductive, I want to discourage that waste of money and time.