{"id":3110,"date":"2017-01-18T14:37:39","date_gmt":"2017-01-18T13:37:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.cerge-ei.cz\/?p=3110"},"modified":"2017-01-23T12:45:45","modified_gmt":"2017-01-23T11:45:45","slug":"projects-in-applied-economics-for-talented-students-how-high-school-students-succeeded-in-conducting-research-in-economics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.cerge-ei.cz\/?p=3110","title":{"rendered":"Projects in Applied Economics for Talented Students: How high school students succeeded in conducting research in economics"},"content":{"rendered":"

On Monday 12th<\/sup> December 2016 we saw the Economics Projects for High School Students come to an end after students spent 12 weeks learning the basics of Economics and undertaking research using real life data, with support from their allocated supervisors.\u00a0 The project received 60 applicants which were filtered down to 24 participants who came from 11 different schools; 8 in Prague and 3 from other regions in the country.<\/p>\n

During the former part of the project, the students received six lectures from Sherzod Tashpulatov and Samuel \u0160koda. Samuel is a researcher in the IDEA think tank and he taught the Czech speaking group, while Sherzod, who is a CERGE-EI PhD alumnus and a teacher at several Czech universities, taught the English speaking group. During the lectures students gained an understanding of econometrics, statistical concepts, randomized trials, linear regression, working with data and much more. After the lectures, students conducted research in their topic areas under the supervision of their tutors \u2013 CERGE-EI\u2019s PhD students and graduates.<\/p>\n

The groups researched different areas of economics. Eva Hromadkova\u2019s group researched into why teenagers smoke. Factors such as age, gender, class, were explored to understand the extent to which they influence teenage smoking. Primary research was carried out and suggestions were made on how to decrease the number of teenage smokers. Georgi\u2019s group explored the economic strengths of the Czech Republic compared to other European countries by using secondary data and analyzing industries such as construction, agriculture and real estate. Iuliia\u2019s group carried out secondary research \u00a0to investigate the factors that influence salaries in the Czech Republic, such as living in the capital, having a family and the type of industry worked in. Sasha\u2019s group researched whether social distance influences prosocial behavior, and conducted first-hand primary research into two different schools to obtain data. Michal\u2019s group explored a connection between political donations and the allocation of public procurement contracts in selected regions of the Czech Republic.<\/p>\n

During the final presentations, the students presented their research to the other teams, faculty members and the jury consisting of Kresimir Zigic, Deputy Director for Graduate Studies at CERGE-EI, and Vilem Semerak, researcher at the IDEA think tank; they were asked questions and were given feedback on their work. All the students undertook comprehensive research and answered all questions asked by the jury and audience in a responsive way. After deliberation the jury awarded a first and joint second place to the winning teams.<\/p>\n

First place<\/strong><\/p>\n

Topic: \u2018Does social distance influence prosocial behavior?\u2019 <\/strong><\/p>\n

Tutor: Sasha Prokosheva, Ph.D.<\/p>\n

Research group: Jan Martinek (Gymnazium Jaroslava Heyrovsk\u00e9ho), Jan Kostkan (Mensa gymnasium), Daniel Mareda (Gymnazium Oty Pavla), Petr Jen\u00ed\u010dek (Nov\u00fd PORG)<\/p>\n

Joint second place<\/strong><\/p>\n

Topic: \u2018Why do teenagers start to smoke?\u2019 <\/strong><\/p>\n

Tutor: Eva Hromadkova, Ph.D.<\/p>\n

Research group: Maty\u00e1\u0161 Marek (Gymn\u00e1zium a St\u0159edn\u00ed pr\u016fmyslov\u00e1 \u0161kola elektrotechniky a informatiky, Fren\u0161t\u00e1t pod Radho\u0161t\u011bm), Samuel Galan (Gymn\u00e1zium Jana Keplera), Jakub Horyna (Gymn\u00e1zium Na V\u00edt\u011bzn\u00e9 pl\u00e1ni), Karol\u00edna Kochov\u00e1 (Gymnazium Oty Pavla), Filip Chudoba (PORG Libe\u0148).<\/p>\n

Topic:\u00a0 \u2018Which factors have a major influence on salaries?\u2019 <\/strong><\/p>\n

Tutor: Iuliia Kuntsevych, M.A.<\/p>\n

Research group: Jakub Tab\u00e1\u0161ek (Gymn\u00e1zium Olgy Havlov\u00e9, Ostrava-Poruba), Khoi Nguyen (N\u011bmeck\u00e9 gymn\u00e1zium v Praze), Stanislav Fiala (Mensa Gymn\u00e1zium), Tram Nguyenov\u00e1 (Gymn\u00e1zium Oty Pavla)<\/p>\n

Other groups<\/strong><\/p>\n

Topic: \u2018<\/strong>Does a contribution to a political party increase the likelihood that a firm will be awarded a public procurement contract<\/strong>?\u2018<\/strong><\/p>\n

Tutor: Mgr. Michal \u0160olt\u00e9s<\/p>\n

Research group: Miroslav L\u017ei\u010da\u0159 (Gymn\u00e1zium Jana Keplera), Denis Charalambidis (Gymnazium Oty Pavla), Adam \u0160torek (Nov\u00fd PORG), Daniel Bartu\u0161ek (Gymnazium Oty Pavla), Martin Hu\u0161ek (Gymn\u00e1zium Jana Keplera), Pavel Kantner (Mensa gymnasium)<\/p>\n

Topic: \u2018In what economic activities is the Czech economy stronger than other European economies?\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n

Tutor: Georgi Burlakov, Ph.D.<\/p>\n

Research group: Vojt\u011bch \u010cavojsk\u00fd (Gymn\u00e1zium, Z\u00e1kladn\u00ed \u0161kola a Mate\u0159sk\u00e1 \u0161kola M\u00c1NESOVA, Sokolov), Adam Blahuta (Nov\u00fd PORG), Jaroslav \u0160\u00e1lek (Nov\u00fd PORG), David Chytil (PORG Libe\u0148), Jakub L\u00e1la (Nov\u00fd PORG)<\/p>\n

What they had to say? <\/strong><\/p>\n

This was CERGE-EI\u2019s first time conducting a project like this and indeed no project of this kind had been undertaken before at any institute in Prague. Here\u2019s how it helped both students and supervisors:<\/p>\n

Tutor Iuliia Kuntsevych, M.A.:<\/strong> \u201cThis was a new and interesting experience not only for the high school students, but also for me as their teacher. My group was working on the labor project – correlation between wages and education – and I hope that the results they achieved will be useful to them in the future \ud83d\ude42 I think that these Economics projects are a good idea, since they help participants to decide what they want to do after graduation from the program and whether they want to pursue economics.\u201d<\/p>\n

Student Jakub Lala<\/strong>: \u201cI found the project to be interesting and rewarding. It gave me a better idea of how economics and statistics are used in real life to prove or disapprove some hypotheses on correlations. I believe I gained a key knowledge base of on how statistics work, which will greatly help in my future studies for my diploma and at university.\u201d<\/p>\n

Student Martin Hu\u0161ek<\/strong>: \u201cI found the course very motivating as regards my future interest in studying Economics. I had already been pretty keen on studying Macroeconomics before, although I had never studied \u201chigh level\u201d Economics in terms of the application of\u00a0 Mathematics and Statistics. I would highly recommend this experience, and I will miss studying at Cerge and hope that somehow we can continue with our projects.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On Monday 12th December 2016 we saw the Economics Projects for High School Students come to an end after students spent 12 weeks learning the basics of Economics and undertaking research using real life data, with support from their allocated supervisors.\u00a0 The project received 60 applicants which were filtered down to 24 participants who came … Continue reading Projects in Applied Economics for Talented Students: How high school students succeeded in conducting research in economics<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":3112,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3110","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.cerge-ei.cz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3110","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.cerge-ei.cz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.cerge-ei.cz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cerge-ei.cz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cerge-ei.cz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3110"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cerge-ei.cz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3110\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3116,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cerge-ei.cz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3110\/revisions\/3116"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cerge-ei.cz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3112"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.cerge-ei.cz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3110"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cerge-ei.cz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3110"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cerge-ei.cz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3110"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}