Abstract
Thinking and writing economics can be an extremely daunting and difficult task, especially for undergraduate students. Few opportunities exist for students to apply their knowledge and write critically in the economics discourse, especially in their undergraduate years of study. With this in mind, the Nedbank and Old Mutual Budget Speech Essay Competition was launched in 1972 with the aim of encouraging young students to participate in important national economic debates. The competition is open to full time and part time undergraduate and postgraduate students from South Africa and SADC countries. A university department at a large residential university in the Gauteng province has instituted a system to encourage students to write the essay in small and regular intervals throughout the first semester of the year. Students are also provided with writing support outside of the classroom and a number of motivational talks are held to encourage students’ participation and academic engagement.
Despite the department’s efforts, many undergraduate economics students choose not to participate in the competition. The aim of this study is to analyse students’ perceptions of writing in order to understand why participation in the writing competition is so low. The study begins by exploring the literature related to the writing process, university writing and writing like an economist. Thereafter, the study briefly explains the model used to encourage writing among undergraduate economics students. Subsequently, the study’s methodology is described and a univariate analysis is applied to survey data from the 2018 cohort of second and third year economics students. Results suggest that students struggle to synthesise large volumes of literature to form their own economic views. Furthermore, students seem to struggle with time management of essay writing amidst their busy academic timetables. The study provides some useful information on how the department could adapt its writing model to assist students to better manage the writing process and subsequently, encourage more meaningful academic engagement and greater competition participation.