Cross curricular themes in Economics & Business Studies

Since I started teaching, I have been interested to observe links between the subjects I teach at A Level – Economics and Business Studies – and other subjects students have studied at GCSE or A Level. Students love being asked to share knowledge from their other subjects; it surely helps reinforce learning and helps avoid subject material being compartmentalised. For Oxbridge calibre candidates, it helps them see beyond the syllabus and how our work relates to other subject areas. Cross curricular links are important in earlier Key Stages but I’m not sure we give them nearly as much prominence at A Level.

Mathematics
Students who take the Decision Mathematics module seem to know all about critical path analysis and decision trees ... although they don’t draw them quite the same way as we do. Meanwhile, the term ‘real number’ helps explain elasticities – some get confused when we say that a PED of -1.5 is greater than -1.0 and so on. The real number ignores the positive or negative sign and helps overcome this apparent anomaly. Notions of correlation, cause and effect and confidence can give rise to useful discussion of economic and business data with those who have studied statistics.

Psychology
I overheard some of my business students talking about cognitive dissonance today and remembered that this is used in marketing to describe ‘post purchase anxiety’, i.e. ‘did I buy the right product?’. We had a fantastic discussion about how firms these days are using social media and forums to encourage customers to share their experiences about products after they have been sold. How many firms encourage customers to ‘like’ them on Facebook?

Physical Education
PE students know quite a lot about the link between motivation, training and performance as well as SMART objectives although I am not sure I totally agree with the way they define the acronym – perhaps the students had got it wrong!

Geography
Many students seem to know about Human Development Index and the distinction between relative and absolute poverty. I’ve even had a few who knew about the multiplier effect.

History
They all seem to know about hyperinflation in Germany and have vivid pictures of Deutschmarks being used as fuel or wallpaper.

English
We encourage students to use connecting phrases like ‘so that’, in ‘order to’ and so on to build analysis and application in their examination responses. Apparently, they know about this from English where such words and phrases are referred to as ‘discourse markers’.

Physics/Electronics
Serial and parallel circuits are a good analogy to help explain simultaneous engineering and to help in critical path analysis.

Design Technology
DT students are familiar with CAD/CAM (they may have even used it) and with different methods of production. They also study quality management although again, I have come across differences in the way we define terms such as Quality Control.

These are the examples I can remember – I am sure there must be others I have forgotten. Many a time that I have opened discussion of a new topic by asking students of another subject what they know about it. They seem to enjoy it and I’d like to think it makes knowledge stick not only for me but also for my colleagues.

So, for teachers - what are your best examples? Meanwhile to students, try to see how many common themes you can see in your A Level subjects.