Students’ understanding of socio-economic phenomena: Conceptions about the free provision of goods and services

Journal of Economic Psychology 33 (2012) 79–89

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Students’ understanding of socio-economic phenomena: Conceptions about the free provision of goods and services Peter Davies a,⇑, Cecilia Lundholm b a b

School of Education, University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham B15 2TT, United Kingdom Department of Education & Stockholm Resilience Centre, Stockholm University, Sweden

a r t i c l e

i n f o

Article history: Received 3 February 2011 Received in revised form 25 July 2011 Accepted 14 August 2011 Available online 29 September 2011 JEL classification: A21 D01 D14 E39

a b s t r a c t Research on conceptual change has paid relatively less attention to the social than to the physical science domain. In particular, research on conceptual change in economic understanding has been fairly sparse and loosely connected. Given the potential significance of citizen’s economic understanding in delimiting government responses to globalisation (Davies, 2006) this topic is worthy of further study. This study paper investigates conceptions about the provision of free goods and services, drawing on evidence from students in different age groups. In contrast to previous work we focus on the question ‘Should this product or service be made available for free?’ We compare the reasoning of students at different ages across a range of products and services and we explore the ways that they attempt to resolve conflicts within their reasoning. Ó 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

PsycINFO classification: 2820 2840 3040 3900 Keywords: Conceptual change Social science Economics

1. Introduction Research into students’ conceptions in social science has tended to follow procedures adopted in the much more extensive body (e.g. Asoko, 2002) of work on students’ conceptions in natural science. In this paper we wish to explore implications of one difference between conceptions in social and natural science. That is, there is a kind of question that is highly pertinent in social science that would generally be inappropriate to ask in natural science. It makes perfect sense to ask ‘In what circumstances should something be made available to people for free?’ However, we would not expect to find students in science lessons being asked ‘what should be the shape of earth?’ or ‘what should be the relationship between force and velocity?’ That is, there is a whole class of questions that are integral to the development of understanding in social science that have received relatively little attention in the existing body of research. This distinction is quite separate from discussion about the extent to which ideas about natural as well as human phenomena are social constructions (Säljö, 1999). Of course, conceptions about natural

⇑ Corresponding author. Tel.: +44 (0)121 414 4820; fax: +44 (0)121 414 4865. E-mail address: [email protected] (P. Davies). 0167-4870/$ - see front matter Ó 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.joep.2011.08.003

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phenomena (as exemplified by variation in conceptions of the formation of the earth) are shaped by individual and collective identities within the development of frames of thought. However, the question ’Should this be made available for free?’ is predicated on a belief that whether or not a good or service is made available for free depends on the conceptions that are held by those with power to influence the outcome. Our argument in this paper assumes that relationships between natural phenomena are not dependent on the conceptions that people hold. The question ‘In what circumstances should something be made available to people for free?’ is of particular interest in the context of governments struggling with their responsibilities in the face of environmental pressure and the aftermath of the global financial crisis. Transport costs illustrate the point. Economic growth is accompanied by a greater than proportionate use of roads which produces a range of social costs (congestion and pollution) that are not borne by the individual road user. Government actions in the face of this problem are taken in the light of the reactions of the median voter. If the median voter has no understanding of the ‘tragedy of the commons’ (Hardin, 1968), then the prospects of tragedy are substantially increased. It matters how citizens judge the circumstances in which goods and services should be made available for free (Davies, 2006). If school education is expected to make a difference to the subsequent behaviour of young people as citizens then it is important to consider young people’s conceptions of why something should be available for free so that teachers can help students to develop those conceptions. The remainder of the paper is organised as follows: the next section discusses previous research on conceptions of price and develops three research questions through a discussion of previous research and conceptions of ‘what ought to be’. We then describe and justify the way in which data were gathered and analysed. The first part of the results sections presents and exemplifies four conceptions used by students in responding to the question. The second part of the results focuses on students’ attempts to resolve tensions between the arguments use in different contexts. In the final section we consider implications of these results for understanding conceptions of price in the context of citizenship and also some implications for research on conceptual change. 2. The development of students’ understanding of socio-economic phenomena: the example of ‘price’ In this account of the development of students’ understanding of socio-economic phenomena we use the example of price. Students’ understanding of price has been widely researched and the resulting body of evidence provides a good basis for a review of some key issues. A research programme in social psychology (e.g. Berti & Grivet, 1990; Leiser & Halachmi, 2006; Thompson & Siegler, 2000) has investigated younger children’s (largely 6–12 years) understanding of price by presenting brief fictional stories and asking the children questions such as ‘what do you think will happen next?’ A second research programme in phenomenography (e.g. Dahlgren, 1984; Marton & Pong, 2005; Pang & Marton, 2005; Pong, 1997) has researched the understanding of students in secondary and higher education through in-depth interviews which have investigated ways in which participants account for their experience of the price of particular objects such as food purchased in a university canteen. Despite these similarities, there has been a complete absence of cross-referencing between the two bodies of research which have used different methods of enquiry. Nonetheless, these two separate research programmes have come to some similar conclusions about qualitative distinctions in understanding price: (i) it is appropriate to distinguish between a small number of qualitatively distinct ways of understanding ‘price’; (ii) these categories of understanding can be distinguished in terms of the way they connect price with ‘supply’ and with ‘demand’ and (iii) increasing sophistication of understanding is reflected in the extent to which supply and demand are treated as interacting causes of changes in price. Meyer and Shanahan (2002) present results from a statistical investigation of the categories of understanding of price developed by the phenomenographic studies. They are able to distinguish between two of the categories but not between the more fine-grained distinctions suggested by the later phenomenographic research. All of this provides a vindication for sustained, systematic, research into qualitative differences between students’ understanding of phenomena. However, we wish to argue that more attention now needs to be given to the ways in which changing understanding of socio-economic phenomena such as ‘price’ is somewhat different from changing understanding of the phenomena attended to by science education. This argument is pertinent to the interpretation of previous research, the design of teaching interventions and the focus of future research. In the remainder of this section we discuss ways in which conceptual change with regard to socio-economic phenomena may be, at least partially, different from conceptual change in physical science. Berti (1999) suggests that conceptual change in social science is different from conceptual change in physical science because (p. 115) ‘the societal domain comprises roles, relations and rules that are not perceivable’. This proposition leads her to argue that children’s conceptions of economic phenomena will be weakly embedded in their thinking and therefore relatively easy to change through instruction: an argument which she illustrates through instruction designed to improve children’s understanding of banking. It might be argued that the scope for inference about roles, relationships and rules is also constrained in physical science. However, there does appear to be a difference in relation to the discernment of the intentions in the societal domain. It has been argued (Chi, Slotta, & de Leeuw, 1994) that conceptual development in the natural sciences is characterised by ontological shifts as learners abandon explanations framed in terms of intentional behaviour of entities in favour of explanations framed in terms of ‘processes’. Torney-Purta (1994) applies this line of reasoning to the development of social

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phenomena. Leiser and Halachmi (2006, p. 7), offer what might be considered as a refinement of Torney-Purta’s position: ‘‘Progress in understanding is characterised by a transition from isolated partial systems, to an increasing integration of understanding; by a transition from understanding of economics as motivated by ethical considerations to a realisation that economics has its own logic, distinct from moral considerations (Sevon & Weckstrom, 1989), and from one that relies on the motivation of individuals, to one based on an appreciation of the aggregate effects of the actions and desires of groups of people’’. They recognise that, in disciplinary explanations of socio-economic phenomena, intentions do have a role to play: a general expectation that the price of houses is going to fall is likely to result in a drop in demand and this increases the likelihood that prices will fall. However, since economic outcomes are – according to more complex conceptions – the results of systems there is scope for unintended as well as intended effects. The point here is that in social science explanations, intentions (and the conceptions with which these intentions are associated) matter. But this does not mean that the outcome is a simple aggregation of the intentions embedded in one-to-one interactions. That is, a system level relationship between demand and price might differ in quality as well as scale from that experienced by an individual consumer in relationship to price. The role of intentions in the outcome of socio-economic events means that, in contrast to an analysis of conceptions of physical phenomena, it is meaningful to investigate conceptions of what should be the case. In fact, arguments for including social science in the school curriculum largely turn on the scope for improving the way in which judgements are reached about what should be the case. Davies, Howie, Mangan, and Telhaj (2002, p. 219) found that students who argued that government should provide services such as water and electricity were more likely to believe that government did provide these services (although this view was mistaken at the time the data were collected). This correlation may be the product of two reinforcing relationships: (i) familiar experience, which engenders a particular way of understanding a phenomenon, develops a sense of normality – how things ought to be; and (ii) an awareness that social phenomena (such as whether something is provided free of charge) are products of how (some) people wish them to be. The likelihood of whether a good or service is made available without charge is affected by the preferences of citizens as a whole. Therefore, a change in conception of how something happens may, for a learner, be strongly associated with their sense of what should happen and, indeed, what should be regarded as ‘normal’. It does not necessarily follow that similar categories of response will be found in answers to the questions ‘Why is this the price of X?’ and ‘What should be the price of X?’ However, it does encourage us to make this comparison. This comparison should throw some light on the relationship between socio-economic conceptions of what does happen and socio-economic conceptions of what should happen. We derive three main research questions from this brief analysis. (1) What are the qualitative differences evident in students’ reasoning about the rationale for providing a good or service for free, and are they at all similar to categories that have been identified in analysis of students’ explanations for prices? (2) To what extent is it reasonable to distinguish more or less sophisticated reasoning in response to the question ‘Should these goods and services be provided for free?’ (3) Is students’ reasoning about the basis for providing goods and services for free dependent on the particular good or service that they are considering? 3. Method The sample (see Table 1) was selected to include a range of students at different ages. Females and Males were included at each age level and the students attended institutions with a wide range of socio-economic backgrounds. Very few students in England study economics at school below the age of 16 and the proportion of 16–18 year-olds who study economics is small. None of the school-age students in our sample had studied economics. Whilst the university students were enrolled on a Masters’ degree in economics, their prior experience of learning economics was quite varied. Most of the 17 year-olds in the sample were, amongst other subjects, studying business studies, but this provides a very limited induction into economic reasoning about prices.

Table 1 Sample size and characteristics. Schools and catchments’ area

Groups

Age

Number of students

A B C

Comprehensive school (students aged 11–16 years) Comprehensive school (students aged 11–18) Catholic comprehensive school (students aged 11–16)

D

Comprehensive school (students aged 13–18)

E F

Sixth form college (students aged 16–19) University (masters students aged 22–23) Total

2 5 2 2 4 4 3 2

11/12 11/12 14/15 16/17 14/15 16/17 16/17 22/23

7 18 7 6 13 12 10 5 78

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The research aimed to identify categorical differences and relationships in students’ thinking. Therefore, our sample size and composition was designed to limit the risk that we would fail to observe a particular category. Our research questions do not extend to the likelihood that particular types of students would be more likely to express one way of thinking than another. The variation in our sample size (particularly in relation to age) allows only the generation of questions about associations between types of student and ways of thinking. The students were asked to discuss the question ‘‘What should be free to everyone? What should people have to pay for?’’ in relation to seven products or services listed below:       

Sitting on a beach. Take-away beef burger. Fruit. Studying at university. Water. Watching film at the cinema. Driving cars in a road.

This question takes what might be regarded as an extreme case: where the price to the consumer is zero. Since, as far as we know, this is the first study to investigate students’ conceptions of what should be the price of a particular product or service, it seems appropriate to start with a sharply defined case. It is also a case which is highly pertinent to public policy. There were three main considerations in the selection of products and services. First, we wanted examples that were likely to fall within students’ experience. We included two examples (‘studying at university’ and ‘driving cars in a road’) which the younger students in the sample would not yet have directly experienced. These were included because of their prominence in media coverage of debate about ‘free access at point of delivery’. Second, we wanted a mixture of examples which students would typically have experienced differently in terms of ‘free provision’: where access is free and costs are borne unseen by others (beach, road); where payment is made by the household whilst students’ consumption is unrelated to the price (domestic use of water unless household has a water meter (students may also think of bottled water which they might buy in a shop); and where payment is made directly, as with the burger and films. The fruit example was included as that might be provided ‘free’ within the household if it is grown in the garden or might be purchased in a shop. The lead question ‘What should be provided free to everyone?’ was phrased to encourage students to distinguish between examples where some people might be able to supply a service or good to themselves through their own resources and where everyone has access to a good or service for free. Finally, the examples were chosen to highlight a range of positive and negative consumption and production externalities (such as traffic congestion and litter left on a beach). Students were organised into groups of three (or in a couple of cases four) and asked to discuss the questions for roughly 15 min. It was stressed that participants should feel free to state different views in relation to their peers. Also, the students were encouraged to give a personal as well as economics point of view. Whilst students were discussing their ideas a researcher moved between the groups occasionally prompting students to elaborate their views. With informed consent, the conversation of each group was digitally recorded and transcribed. The limited role of the researcher reduced the likelihood that students’ utterances were ‘co-constructed’ with the researcher, but the format encouraged co-construction between the students in the group and this became a specific focus for the analysis. In a minority of cases members of the group spoke with each other about what they had been asked to do – either at the outset of their conversation or later on when one member of the group attempts, in their view, to get the discussion ‘back on track’. These exchanges provided some insight into students’ intentions (see Halldén, Haglund, & Strömdahl, 2007; Lundholm, 2005) in their utterances. It is

Table 2 Categorisation of students’ justifications for views on whether a good or service should be provided for free. Broad conception

Variations within this conception

1

Whether something should be made available for free is a taken for granted reflection of experience of what is ‘normal’

2

Goods and services should be made available for free on the basis of people’s need

a Essential goods should be made available free to all b Some individuals (but not others) should be able to access the good or service for free because they are poor

3

Goods and services ought to provided at a price which covers the cost of providing them

a Price should reflect the value of resources used in provision b Price should compensate owners (e.g. in access to private property) even if no additional cost is incurred c Owners of resources need to be rewarded by the price charged to give them an incentive to provide the good or service

4

The price should encourage the internalisation of externalities

a The price should discourage ‘over-consumption’ that may be bad for the individual even when it is their ‘choice’ b Price should reflect social costs of producing and consuming – any negatives on others.

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perfectly possible that the students would have expressed different thoughts in other circumstances, but our focus here is on views expressed about the provision of different goods and services under similar conditions for gathering data. It was only in the conversations of the Masters students in which there was overt reference to the researchers’ request to provide ‘economics’ as well as personal justifications and given the lack of prior teaching on ‘economics’ there are reasonable grounds for interpreting the conversations of the school students as attempts to express their views. The exchanges between the 11 year-olds were more extended than those between the 14 year-olds and between the 17 year-olds. This may have been because the older students were more reserved or less interested in expressing the full justification for their views. An alternative explanation could be that the younger students saw the issues as less clear-cut, having previously spent less time developing their views. An advantage of the design of this research is that a key point of interest is the way that the same group of students talk about the issue of pricing in different settings. Any variation in their conversations between the different settings is unlikely to be due to variation in how they interpret the context in which they have been asked to express their views. Initial analysis aimed to identify different ways in which students justified beliefs either that something should be provided free or that it should be paid for. Four main categories of response (Table 2) were identified with a number of sub-categories within each. Each case where a student expressed or explicitly agreed with one of these arguments was noted. Students’ responses were independently categorised by two researchers with an initial agreement percentage of 90.3%. The majority of the disagreements occurred where only one researcher believed there was sufficient evidence to accord a category. The initial disagreements were resolved through further discussion. A second stage of analysis focused on the extent to which students recognised tensions between arguments presented and any attempts they made to resolve such tensions. 4. Results 4.1. Categories of argument regarding whether a good or service should be provided for free In this section we first explain and exemplify the categories of response. 4.1.1. Normality Students’ perceptions of what was ‘normal’ appeared to exert a powerful influence on their thinking. There were cases where each of the students in a group had the same, experience of something and this was most pronounced in the case of the beach. Many of the students found it strange to be asked whether it should be free to use a beach. To these students it was self-evident. ‘‘Why should you have to pay for sitting on a beach?’’ They always got access to a beach for free. There were some instances where students’ taken-for-granted assumptions were challenged by variation in experience across the group. Some members of a group had prior experiences of paying for a service whilst one member of a group had only experienced accessing the service for free. For instance one group of 14 year-old students were discussing whether there should be free access to roads: Student B: What are toll roads? Student A: The roads owned by people and then they make you pay to go on them. Student B: Really! Student C: The M6 toll, have you ever been on it? It is quicker to get to places; you don’t have to go through Birmingham. Student B: So if you drive along the road do you have to stop and give someone money? Student C: Yes there are them booths that you go through and you have to pay different amounts of money for bigger vehicles. Through this conversation the students become aware that what they had taken for granted about payment for roads did not always hold. However, there were no indications that such revelations were sufficient to prompt a change of view during the course of the conversations. 4.1.2. Necessity and equity This category includes all those responses that justified the provision of a free good or service on the basis of need. This category appeared fairly closely aligned to the first category of ‘normality’. That is, students’ judgements about what was a necessity that should be provided for all appeared to be fairly closely aligned with their own experience. The most frequently cited examples in this category were access to university and water. This ‘merit good’ argument was frequently supplemented by a more explicit equity argument: that a good or service should be made available for free because otherwise people on lower incomes would be denied access (As in the following exchange between 11 year-old students): Student C: Okay, studying at university. I think that should be free as it is education. Student B: Yes and with that education we wouldn’t be able to live. Student A: Yes and if it is free it gives poor people a chance to do something good in their life.

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4.1.3. Using up resources Paying to cover the costs of resources was most frequently referred to in the cases of beefburgers, cinemas and fruit. ‘‘I think you should pay for fruit because, if you think about it, people have taken time to grow them’’ (Aged 11) ‘‘(referring to the beefburger example) They need to make a profit from it and for all the people that they hire and all the people that help.’’ (Aged 11) More elaborated accounts of the same principle referred to the role of prices as an incentive for producers. That is, these statements acknowledged that it was not simply a case of paying what a producer deserved, but providing an incentive to keep the product or service available: ‘‘You should have to pay for that because the cinema has to pay for actually getting the film. They have to pay for that so why should it be free because you are costing the cinema. They will have to shut down because they can’t get any more films. I think you should have to pay for it.’’ (Aged 11) Using up resources was most rarely referred to in the cases of the beach, water and roads. In these cases most students appeared to believe that these resources were virtually limitless. Most students also ignored the use of resources when the person consuming the product or service owned the resource. When the possibility of providing the good or service yourself was discussed this was usually in terms of speculation about how you would do this: Student C: (talking about whether water should be free): But not quite so much as it is, it is a bit too expensive for what it is really. It is just water and you could go and find some in a puddle but . . . Student A: You could filter it yourself if you knew how to you could do it yourself. You would have to pay for the filters and stuff. (17 year-olds Group D4) Such conversations showed no recognition of the costs in time to the individual. Only the Masters level students thought in terms of opportunity cost. For example, in discussing fruit: Student B: It’s not a luxury, but it’s a need, but it should be paid because as we said for the beef burger it can be misused, misused more than if it was free and who would (pause). Student C: Unless someone has plants for themselves. Student A: Yes, just for themselves. Student C: But even who does for themselves it will cost them, spend time buying the things and the season and stuff like this. 4.1.4. Price signal to consumers This characteristic was most frequently referred to in the case of beefburgers, fruit and water. Students spoke of the likelihood that people would waste these products (over-consume them) if they were made available for free. For example, two 11 year-old students worried about the effects on health of free beefburgers: Student A: But it is unhealthy so if it were free you would encourage more people to eat the food because it is free. Student B: More people would want them because they don’t have to spend money on them so more people would go for them and then they would become obese. ... Student C: If it was free people would just take advantage and get as much fruit as they like. (age 11) In the case of water, students’ concern was not just about health, but also about the sustainability of the resource: ‘‘I am thinking that if everybody drinks it what is going to happen when there is a shortage on it? If no-one has to pay for it then that means that more water will be drank so there might become a shortage of it.’’ (Aged 11) Some students also referred to the possibility that there might be under-consumption if a price was charged. ‘‘If you have to pay then it should be less than what it is now because less people are going to go to university.’’ (Gp D3, age 14) However, such students did not provide a basis for deciding what constituted ‘under-consumption’. Some students also used an argument that some services should be paid for because of the social costs imposed on others. This argument was chiefly used in relation to roads: ‘‘Because the pollution, the environment is already bad and we are having a lot of weather changes and the pollution is just making the environment even worse. That is why I think you should pay for it. As well if you are paying for petrol and you already pay for driving in cars it should be dearer, I think, because a lot of people are having floods.’’ (Gp B1, age 11) ‘‘With prices increasing it means that people won’t go or drive that much because petrol and diesel is really expensive so it means that they will drive less, use public transport and then there are fewer emissions into the atmosphere. People are basically paying for the destruction of the world.’’ (Age 17)

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4.1.5. Comparisons The instances of each viewpoint expressed within each group are presented in Appendix A. The final four rows present the frequencies for each good or service. Apart from the case of ‘the beach’, expressions of the viewpoint ‘normality’ (1a) are fairly evenly spread across the different products and services. However, beyond this, one viewpoint dominates (taking at least 40% of the remainder of occurrences and generally over 50%). In the cases of beach, beefburger, fruit and cinema, the dominant viewpoint is ‘cost of resources’. In the cases of beefburger, fruit and cinema the argument is cast in terms of providers needing some revenue to cover their costs. In the case of using a beach the viewpoint was usually expressed that access should be free because the provider incurred no cost. From this comparison it appears that students’ reasoning about the basis for providing something for free (Research Question 1) does depend on the type of good or service. In answer to the second question it does appear that there are strong similarities between categorical differences in the type of reasoning in these judgements about whether a good should be provided for free and the categories of conceptions that have been suggested by research investigating explanations of price. The first category ‘normality’ appears similar to conceptions of price as an inherent characteristic of a good, category two focuses on need (demand) for a good and category three focuses on cost (supply). Category four (incentives to avoid over or under consumption) presumes some understanding of the interaction between supply and demand. Consequently, it appears reasonable to think of increase sophistication in reasoning about the ‘should’ question in the same way as reasoning about the causation question. 4.2. Tensions and attempted resolutions When different arguments were presented within a group these differences were handled in a number of ways: (i) No recognition of the differences; (ii) Differences recognised, but left unresolved; (iii) Resolution suggested by the maxim ‘it should be paid for, but it should be cheaper’; (iv) Resolution suggested on the basis of taxation to cover the cost of providing the good or service; In a number of cases when students put forward contradictory arguments no attempt was made to resolve the disagreement. This may have been because the measure of disagreement was not recognised. However, there were instances where one or more members of a group recognised the problem but had no way of dealing with it: Student A: I would agree with both of them really. I think it should be free but there would be too many cars on the road otherwise so I don’t really know. (Aged 14) This lack of resolution was sometimes the outcome of some thoughtful discussion as in the case of the 14 year-old students in Group D3: Student A: Sitting on a beach should be free because no-one tends to own it. Student B: Yes but then again people need to pay for the cleaning up and stuff I suppose. Student A: Yes but then they should pay for parking and then the money from parking should pay people to clean the beach up. Student C: This is a tricky one. Student B: What do you think Sam? Student C: I’m not quite sure but I think if it was going to cost money all the money should have gone to cleaning up the beach that is why you have to pay money because of all the public litter. The most frequently suggested method of resolving different arguments was a suggestion that whilst something should be paid for it should be cheaper than the current price. ‘‘I think fruits should cost but not too high, it should be a normal amount. The farmers that grow it need to buy the growing products which make the tree grow; they have to pay for it so you can’t just get it free for ourselves unless we grow it.’’ (Aged 14) Whilst suggestions like this recognised that producers needed some return for their efforts they failed to recognise an effect of the level of price on the amount that suppliers would put on the market. The next extract shows a group (D1) of 14 year-old students adopting this resolution in relation to access to university: Student B: I think you should but not as much as you actually have to because it is loads of money. Students can’t actually afford to pay that. Interviewer: So what happens then? Student B: They are in debt and can’t afford food. Interviewer: Do you think so too? Student C: It should be priced but not as expensive. Student A: You should have to pay for it but it does cost a lot. Student B: Yes, they have to pay the teachers so it should be priced but it should be cheaper because it is really expensive.

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This attempt to resolve the tension by suggesting that ‘it should be cheaper’ was a common response when such tensions were recognised by the group. There is no consideration in this resolution for whether this would indeed cover the cost of the resources. Previous studies of conceptions of price have noted explanations that refer to the cost of supply. However, here we can observe reasoning that refers to cost without addressing the question of whether a price is sufficient in relation to cost to encourage providers to offer goods and services for sale. This conversation can be contrasted with a group of 17 year-old students who initially adopt the same resolution, which is then disrupted by one student in the group who recognises an equity problem with the resolution. This group had already stated that they thought going to university should be free, but then talked about benefits of going to university coming to the individual, raising the question of whether the individual should pay. Student A: Yes but we pay for it with taxes. Student B: So then taxes would just be raised again. Student A: Yes, so you would just be paying for it anyway. Student B: But then there are people that just don’t want to go to university who shouldn’t be forced to pay for other people to go. One group of Masters students (Group F1) initially argued that accessing the beach should be free, but then they started to consider other characteristics: that other services like beach equipment might be provided to enhance the ‘beach experience’ and that rubbish might need to be cleared away. The implication of these other characteristics is that users ought to pay for access to the beach, but the group has voiced strong commitment to the beach being free, not least because paying for the beach might exclude some people on lower incomes. They resolve the tension by agreeing that the costs associated with the beach should be paid out of local taxes. They do not consider who pays the taxes compared with who benefits from the beach and they do not consider the effect of free access on the quantity of beach users. Student A: If it is provided privately then people should have incentives to make it, or to get the money back. Student B: Yes. Student A: So it’s a way that people have to pay for it, other people it takes time to do it, it’s not a public good, but it’s a private good, that other people do make it, they waste time making that, so they should be paid something. Student C: Resources. Student B: Yes. Student A: They should be paid something, yes. Student B: If it was free then it would be misused. Student A: It would be misused and who would be making that? This group of students attempted to find a resolution in more instances than any other group although they overlooked any distributional effects of their resolution in the case of water as well as the case of access to university. In the case of water they attempted to resolve three critical features: the resource cost of providing water, their view that water is a merit good and ought to be equally available for all and the likelihood that if water was free it would be over-consumed or wasted. They resolved this by suggesting that the bulk of the costs ought to be met by the state and a small amount by the consumer. 5. Discussion and conclusions 5.1. Differences between conceptions of price identified in response to questions framed in terms of ‘why this price?’ and questions framed in terms of ‘what should be the price?’ Across a range of contexts we found some views about whether a good or service should be made available for free expressed only in terms of what was seen as ‘natural’. This conception was thrown into clear relief when students discussed their views with other students who had a different experience. There is evidence here of a normalising effect such that when they experienced no variation in whether they have accessed a particular product or service for free they tend to take this for granted. We might, on this basis, interpret the category of understanding price as a characteristic of a good or service in Dahlgren’s (1984) research as normalisation. This finding emphasises the challenges confronting democratic governments through pressures on resource allocation, particularly of the kind presented as a result of global warming. If the median voter relies on norms from past experiences and makes judgements about what ought to be freely available in different ways from setting to setting it will be very difficult to convince voters to accept changes in the way that resources are allocated so as to take account of social costs and benefits that are not reflected in current prices. This suggests there is a strong case for investigating whether teaching can make a difference to students’ thinking and whether such changes persist as they progress into adult life. Previous research focusing on students’ explanation of prices has consistently categorised conceptions in terms of: (i) demand; (ii) supply; and (iii) supply and demand. To some extent our data are consistent with this broad classification. We found instances where individual students and groups of students argued a case for the provision of a good or service for

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free: (i) only in terms merit or equity (demand-side argument); (ii) only in terms of costs of production (supply-side argument); and (iii) in terms of a balance between demand and supply side arguments. In our case the demand side argument is expressed only in terms of ‘need’ rather than ability to pay. The relationship between conceptions expressed by an individual regarding ‘what should be the price’ and ‘what causes price’ remains an issue for future research. For example, are conceptions of ‘what ought’ in terms of ‘need’ associated with conceptions of ‘what is’ in terms of ‘demand’? Our data also suggest some ways in which categorisation of students’ thinking about price could be extended. First, students’ thinking about the demand in relation to price may draw upon their beliefs about need and justice as well as ‘ability to pay’. Second, some responses indicated recognition of the role of prices as a signalling mechanism, particularly in relation to ‘over-consumption’ and externalities. These responses draw attention to the significance of understanding interaction between supply and demand rather than just understanding causation in terms of ‘supply effects’ and ‘demand effects’. This distinction has been frequently glossed over in the reporting of previous research. Third, our data draw attention to variation in the recognition of, and attempts to resolve, tensions between arguments that are put forward either on the basis of equity, cost or signalling. The limited nature of these resolutions is inconsistent with Leiser and Halachmi’s (2006) conclusion that by the age of 12 students consistently manage to articulate the relationships of supply and demand. In certain carefully guided circumstances they may do so, but when asked to make judgements about economic phenomena secondary school students consistently failed to manage relationships between supply and demand. The extent to which voters recognise and attempt to resolve competing arguments is critical to the kind of pressure they are likely to place on democratic governments. The type of reasoning revealed in this study is likely to lead these young people to generate pressures that foster dysfunctional government responses actions in terms of equity (given the strength of the normalising effects) and externalities. For example, if young people’s notions of what constitutes a ‘fair price’ is based on their ‘normal experience’ the scope for addressing embedded inequalities is limited. 5.2. To what extent it is possible to identify different qualities of reasoning about whether a good or service should be provided for free? We tentatively suggest the following hierarchy on the basis of our data: (i) (ii) (iii) (iv)

Whether something should be provided for free depends on what the individual has experienced as ‘normal’. Refers to any one out of ‘need/equity’, ‘cost of production’, ‘signalling effects’. Refers to more than one of ‘need/equity’, ‘cost of production’, ‘signalling effects’ but does not recognise tensions. Refers to more than one of ‘need/equity’, ‘cost of production’, ‘signalling effects’ and attempts to resolve tensions.

There is a clear similarity here with the hierarchies that have been suggested by research on explanations of price, but this suggestion also incorporates the differences we have noted between our results and previous research. These differences may be important to the design of teaching and assessment that aims to improve students’ understanding in a way that will support more carefully reasoned arguments. 5.3. Do students offer similar justifications in support of their judgements about whether different goods or services should be made available for free? Our data show students aged between 11 and 23 providing different justifications for whether a good or service should be provided for free according to the setting. The extent of this revealed variation was similar for students aged 11, 14 and 17, however one group of Masters students who were studying economics were far more consistent across settings in their arguments. This finding suggests that conceptions of price are not invariant across settings and, for this sample of students, we found no evidence that maturation or general schooling (since these students were not receiving explicit instruction in economics) was making any difference. Variance across settings is more consistent with the ‘knowledge in pieces’ view of the development of conceptual structure (DiSessa, Gillespie, & Esterly, 2004). However, the stability of the ‘normality’ conception across goods and services is consistent with the ‘alternative frameworks’ view of conceptual development (Vosniadou, 1996). One interpretation of apparent coherence in naïve thinking is that it is constructed through operational procedures in working memory (Leiser, 2001). An alternative view is that an ontological difference (Chi et al., 1994) between conceptions in terms of ‘normality’ and any of the conceptions highlighting supply, demand or supply and demand reveals something about the structure of awareness. That is, it may be that conceptions of whether something should be made available for free are constrained by an ontological framework of ‘normality’, until an individual begins to think in terms of goods and services being provided by one person or organisation for others. One interpretation of the evidence is that a number of students are not yet thinking about access to a beach as being ‘provided’ even though they are thinking about all the other items in this way. 5.4. Implications for curriculum policy We suggest that it is possible to describe more sophisticated responses to the question ‘Should X be provided for free?’ in terms of referring to more than one of ‘need/equity’, ‘cost of production’, ‘signalling effects’ and attempts to resolve tensions.

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A median voter who is aware of, and recognises a need to try to resolve tensions provides a more promising context for the formation of government policy than a voter who remains unaware of these tensions. Our evidence suggests that: (a) school age students can (and a few do) think in these terms, (b) it is possible to describe this outcome in a way that can inform the design of curriculum and teaching, and (c) students do not currently achieve this way of thinking simply through maturation and increasing experience. It is an issue for curriculum policy and schools to address. Appendix A. Students’ viewpoints when discussing whether something should be free (by group). Group

Age

Beach

Burger

Fruit

Uni

Roads

Water

Cinema

av.

% of viewpoint 1

A2

11

1A 3Ba

4A

2A

4B

2A 4A

3A 4B

1.71

0.08

A1

11

1A

3A 4A 4B 3A 4A

1A

4A 4B

2A 2B 4A

2A 3A

2.14

0.13

B1

11

1A 4B

1A 3A

3A 4A

2A 2B 3A 4A 2A 2B

2A 4A

3A

2.00

0.14

B3

11

1A

1A

3A 3C

2.14

0.27

11 11

1A 3A 4A 1A 3A

1A 1A

4B 1A 4B

3A 1A

1.71 1.86

0.33 0.54

B2 D1 D3

11 14 14

1A 1A 1A 3A

1A 3A 1A 2A 4A 2A 3A 1A 3A

2A 2B 3A 4A 2A 4A 1A 2A 4A

1A 3A

B5 B4

1A 2A 3A 1A 3A 1A

2B 4A 4B 3A 4B

1A 4A 3A 3A 4B

1A 3A 2B 4B

1A 3A 1A 3A

1.33 1.33 2.00

0.63 0.25 0.36

C2 D2

14 14

1A 1A

1A 4A

3A 3A

2A 2B 2A

1A 2A

1A

1.60 1.43

0.38 0.40

C1

14

1A

2A

3A

1A 3A

1A

1A 2A 3A

1A 3A

1.86

0.46

D4

14

1A 2B

1A 3A

3A

2B

1A

1A 2A

1A

1.71

0.50

D8 C4

17 17

3B 2B 3A 3B

1A 3A 3A 4A

3A

2B 4A 1A 2B

2A 1A 2A 3A

2A 3A 2A 3A

1.67 2.71

0.20 0.26

E3 E2

17 17

1A 1A 4A 1A 1A

1A 1A 4A 1A 4A 1A 4A 2A 1A

1A 4A 4B 4A 4B 4B

1A 2A 1A 2A 3A 1A

3A 3A 3B

1A 3A 2A 3A

2A 2B 3A 1A 2A 3A

3A 2A 3A

2.00 2.43

0.29 0.29

D6 D5

17 17

1A 1A 3A

3A 3B 2A

3A 1A 2A

1.67 1.86

0.30 0.31

E1 C3

17 17

1A 3A 1A 2A 3A

1A 3A

1.71 1.86

0.42 0.46

D7 F1

2A 3A 4A

3A

1.33 2.57

0.50 0.06

F2

3A

1.17

0.14

3A 2A 3A

1A 3A 1A 3A 4A 1A 3A 3A

1A 2B 4B 1A 4B 1A 2B 4B 1A 2B

1A 3A 1A 3A

2A 3A 1A

1A 4A 1A 3A

2B 1A

17 23

1A 3B 2B 3A

23

1A

1A 2A 3A 4A 2B 4B

3A 2A 3A 4A 3A

2A 2B 4A 2A

1A 2B 4B 4B 1A 4A

1A 3A 4B 1A 4B 1A 3A 4B 2A 2B 3C 4B

a

Each label (e.g. ‘1A’ or ‘3B’) refers to one of the categories of conception shown in Table 2. The layout of the table means that the 11 year-old students in group A2 expressed two lines of argument (1A and 3B) when discussing whether access to a beach should be free, but only one line of argument (4A) when discussing whether fruit should be made available for free.

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