Using economics to explain course design choices in teaching

Given that I am an economist, it probably comes as no surprise that I use economics insights in designing the papers I teach. So, extra credit tasks that incentivise attendance in class can be explained using opportunity costs and marginal analysis (marginal costs and benefits), and offering choice within and between assessment tasks can be explained using specialisation. I also illustrate related concepts in the examples I use. For example, in my ECONS102 class the first tutorial includes a question about the optimal allocation of time for students between two sections of the test.

Although economics underpins many of my course design choices, I don't make the rationale for those design choices clear to students, but that's exactly what this 2018 article by Mariya Burdina and Sue Lynn Sasser (both University of Central Oklahoma), published in the Journal of Economic Education (sorry, I don't see an ungated version online), promotes. They recommend that:

...instructors of economics use economic reasoning when providing the rationale for course policies described in the syllabus. In this context, the syllabus becomes a learning tool that not only helps economics instructors increase students’ awareness of course policies, but at the same time makes course content more applicable to real-life situations.

To me, the problem is that making these choices clear and using economics to explain them engages students with concepts and explanations that they are not necessarily prepared for, since those concepts will not be fully explained until later in the paper. It's also not clear from Burdina and Sasser's article that the approach even has positive benefits. They present some survey evidence comparing one class that had economic explanations as part of the syllabus discussion and one class that didn't, but they find very few statistically significant differences in attitudes towards the course policies. This is very weak evidence that the approach changes students' understanding of the rationale for course design.

Overall, I'm not convinced that Burdina and Sasser's approach is worth adopting. I'll continue to use economic rationales for course design decisions, but I will continue to make those rationales clear only when students explicitly ask about them.