Disciplinary thinking involves the combination of concepts, skills and processes to

see the world through the lens of an economist. In order to achieve disciplinary
thinking, students needs to move from superficial learning to deep learning and
gain deeper understanding of threshold concepts such as that of opportunity cost. It
is a divergence from rote-based learning in which students are spoon-fed with
information and regurgitate information to get good grades. The decision making
approach is useful to help students develop disciplinary thinking by arming students
with a framework to organize concepts learnt for deep learning and which could be
applied on the analysis of economic issues, policies and choices. It is important for
students to acquire disciplinary thinking for economics because experts have
several characteristics which are desirable. Experts organize their knowledge in
manners which illustrates deep understanding and are able to retrieve them easily.
In addition, experts are able to pick out critical pieces of information and are flexible
in their application of concepts, skills and processes to new situations. Students who
possess such attributes will be able to able to make rational decisions through an
understanding of trade-offs and be more financially literate in management of their
wealth. Accordingly, the assessment of students have also changed to include
questions from the higher levels of Blooms Taxonomy in which students apply
economic concepts to real-world situations, evaluate based on present and
changing circumstances.
The decision making framework is useful as a tool to help students achieve
disciplinary thinking.
Firstly, it explicates the links between the various topics which is useful for cognitive
constructivism in which students learn via assimilation and accommodation of new
information into schemas. Prior to the decision making framework, teachers attempt
to use mind maps to connect between chapters of Economics. This is helpful but it
is more confusing especially when multiple lines have to be drawn to connect
between more than one topics. The decision making frameworks strength lies in it
being the single framework used to make the connections and is less content heavy
than having multiple mind maps.
An emphasis on the decision making framework is useful as an organization of
concepts learnt in a manner that exhibits deep learning rather than a simple
collection of information. This is helpful in preventing cognitive overload and helps
students in recalling information from their long term memory. The prevention of
cognitive overload comes when students realise that certain concepts are being
repeated in different situations and they simply have to adapt what they have learnt
to the new situation rather than learn completely new information. For instance, the
labour market is a content heavy at first glance but as long as students understand
that it is essentially a market albeit one where the good and service at hand is
labour, then it connects that wage is the price of labour. The decision making
framework is helpful in the grouping of such concepts, such as the marginal
concept. When used properly, students learn the marginal concept and will be able
to extend it to topics such as firm decisions and market failure in the form of
marginal revenue and marginal benefits respectively.

Moreover, it allows students to revisit concepts learnt during the learning process.
When students are first exposed to a concept, it is likely that they achieved only
superficial understanding. For instance, the marginal concept is not achieved
initially with tell-tale signs of students distinguishing marginal revenue from
marginal. Teachers need to consistently revisit the marginal concept present in the
decision making framework when teaching topics such as firm decisions and market
failure when teaching. This will help students rework what they have learnt to
achieve deep learning.
The introduction of the decision making framework as early as theme 1 is also
useful in the development of critical thinking in students. One learning outcome
from H2 Economics is the ability to use evidence to make strong economic
arguments and arrive at rational and considered decisions, in other words, students
need to evaluate and make rational judgements on situations presented to them.
This tends to be summarized through mnemonics such as the FEAST and STRAW
which organizes possible areas of evaluation which students utilize to brainstorm for
ideas of evaluation. The new decision making framework encompasses the ideas
brought up and is structured in a manner which is more aligned with what students
learnt. For instance, the point on feasibility within FEAST is discussed through the
considerations of the constraints of the economic agent. When students are
exposed to the decision making framework from topic 1, it is actually a form of
scaffolding in which students are first trained to remember the steps taken in
making decisions before they are trained to study each step more critically to
assess judgements.
One learning outcome of H2 Economics students is that they should develop a habit
of reading critically to gain information about changing economic activities and
policies at national and international levels. The decision making framework helps
students achieve this outcome through the introduction of the need to review
decisions made due to a lack of perfect information. This strengthens the
understanding in students that economics is dynamic and they will need to gain
more general knowledge in order to be able to explain the different decisions made
by each economic agents.
Moreover, we must acknowledge that there are students who learn with a
performance goal rather than subject mastery. This results in theme 1 of the subject
to be slighted by students. That is evident through my conversations with
graduating students who informed that they skipped theme 1 in their revision
because they didnt find it important. This is harmful to students learning in general
because theme 1 alone contains threshold concepts such as the opportunity cost
which is essential as a fundamental concept in future topics. The decision making
framework adds weight to theme 1 and is a signal to students that it is an equally
important topic.