Based on results from a 1999 national survey, William Becker and Michael Watts found that student evaluations of teaching were by far the most widely used, and often the only method used by economics departments, to evaluate teaching in undergraduate economics courses. To investigate whether departments of economics have moved beyond the use of student evaluations of teaching, in 2011 the current authors conducted a national survey of departments based largely on questions used in the 1999 survey. The surveys included items on how courses and teaching are evaluated, and on how that information is used in departmental promotion and salary decisions.

Reports on the desirable goals and characteristics of economics programs, and reforms proposed to attain such programs (e.g., W. Lee Hansen, 1991; Hirschel Kasper et al., 1991), have ignored the issue of how economics is to be taught. That is surprising because several popular trade books have recently appeared condemning teaching practices at American colleges and universities. Some of these books were written by economists (e.g., Martin Anderson's [1992] Impostors in the Temple) and used economics courses as notable examples of these problems. Long before these reports and books appeared, the National Council on Economic Education (NCEE), together with the American Economic Association's (AEA) Committee on Economic Education, began sponsoring programs to improve the teaching of economics and to promote innovative teaching methods. In Becker and Watts (1995), we describe many of these improvements and explain how economists could use alternative teaching methods in different undergraduate courses. Until now, however, we could not provide data on how widely those approaches were used. We do that here, based on responses to a national survey.'

What Students Remember and Say about College Economics Years Later by Sam Allgood, William Bosshardt, Wilbert van der Klaauw and Michael Watts. Published in volume 94, issue 2, pages 259-265 of American Economic Review, May 2004

We conducted a national survey of department Chairs to investigate whether departments of economics changed course requirements for bachelors degrees since the Siegfried and Bidani (1992) paper using 1980 data. There have been few changes to course requirements. Most notable are a large increase in the number of departments requiring econometrics and a drop in departments requiring courses such as money, banking and economic history--courses once required in many business schools.

Assessment Practices and Trends in Undergraduate Economics Courses by Georg Schaur, Michael Watts and William E. Becker. Published in volume 98, issue 2, pages 552-56 of American Economic Review, May 2008

Research in Economic Education: Five New Initiatives by Michael K. Salemi, John J. Siegfried, Kim Sosin, William B. Walstad and Michael Watts. Published in volume 91, issue 2, pages 440-445 of American Economic Review, May 2001