World Cup Application Project
- 2 hours ago
- 6 min read
Overview
The World Cup Application Project is designed to help students develop their macroeconomic application and judgement skills. Although the project uses the structure of the World Cup, the focus is not on football (I have a blog post coming out with Economics of the World Cup links soon for that!)
Students use the countries in World Cup groups as case studies for researching economic conditions and applying macroeconomic policy decisions.
The project has two main stages:
Students research and present economic profiles of countries in a World Cup group.
Students apply a randomly generated policy to those countries and assess where it would be most and least effective.
The project can be completed individually, in pairs, or in small groups.
I would estimate this would take three lessons:
Researching and preparing the presentation
Students give presentations
Students are given a policy and assess it's effectiveness for each country
Grouping Students
There are 12 World Cup groups, each containing four countries. You do not need to use every group.
Assign each World Cup group to a student/pair/group of students.
For example, with a class of 20 students, you could put students into pairs and assign 10 World Cup groups. It is not necessary for every group to be covered.
If you need more combinations of countries, you could use a World Cup tournament tree instead, you can find these online or in the newspapers. This will give you additional country pairings as teams progress through the tournament structure.
Stage 1: Country Profiles
Research
Students begin by researching the four countries in their assigned World Cup group.
For each country, students should create a country profile that focuses on the most interesting and economically relevant features of that country. They should not simply collect the same generic information for every country.
Students should be encouraged to ask:
What makes this country economically distinctive?
Which economic indicators are especially relevant for this country?
Are there any unusual or important features of its economy?
What economic challenges does this country currently face?
What economic strengths does this country have?
For example, one country might be particularly interesting because of its demographics, while another might be more interesting because of its natural resources, tax system, public spending, unemployment rate, inflation rate, debt position, trade pattern, or level of development.
Students should avoid producing a list of disconnected facts. Where they use data, they should contextualise it.
This might include:
comparing current data with the country’s own past performance
explaining whether the indicator is rising or falling
comparing the country with other countries
identifying whether the figure is relatively high or low
explaining why the data matters economically
For example, if students discuss unemployment, they should try to explain whether unemployment is high or low compared with previous years or compared with other countries. If they discuss government debt, they should consider whether the debt level is particularly significant in context.
Presentation
Students should present their country profiles as a slideshow.
For each country, students should include:
a title slide with no other info
a short spoken summary of what students have learned, without notes! I recommend maybe 30s?
more detailed slides using relevant evidence, data, charts, graphs or images
The requirement to speak briefly without notes is intended to encourage students to learn and understand the material they have researched, rather than relying entirely on copied information or AI-generated text!
After the spoken summary, students should then move into the more detailed slides for that country.
Rubric
A presentation rubric is included with the resource. You can adapt the weighting of each section depending on your priorities.
A suggested weighting would be:
Content: x3
Opening spoken summary: x2
Slideshow design: x1
Delivery: x1
This keeps the focus on the quality of the economics, while still recognising the importance of clear communication.
The rubric can also be used for peer assessment if you would like students to assess each other’s presentations (good if you have a ton of reports to write!)
Stage 2: Policy Application
Preparation
For the third lesson, students should bring in all the notes they made during their research.
These notes might be:
handwritten notes
printed notes
annotated slides
research sheets
summary tables
The next stage should ideally be completed as an analogue task, without computers. Students should therefore have access to all the information they need before the lesson begins. This is important because the purpose of the second stage is for students to apply their own knowledge and reasoning, rather than simply generating an answer using AI.
Assigning a policy
Use the random policy generator to assign each group a policy. You might want to give them three options to stick or twist for a bit of added pizazz. Students must assess how effective that policy would be in each of the four countries they have researched.
Students should not be told the policy before the lesson. This helps ensure they are applying their research to a new situation, rather than preparing a pre-written or AI-generated response in advance.
Applying the policy
Students should begin by explaining why the policy might be effective in theory.
They should consider questions such as:
What problem is this policy trying to solve?
Which macroeconomic objective or objectives could it support?
How could the policy affect economic growth, unemployment, inflation, the balance of payments, inequality, living standards, productivity, development or government finances?
What is the economic logic behind the policy?
This section should not focus on a specific country yet. It should explain the general theoretical case for the policy.
Students should then apply the policy to each of the four countries in their assigned group.
For each country, students should explain:
which features of the country make the policy suitable
which features of the country make the policy less suitable
whether the policy should be recommended overall
Students should use the research from their country profiles to support their arguments.
For example, a policy that funds research into disease prevention and treatment may be suitable for a country with a strong university sector, skilled scientific workforce and pharmaceutical industry. However, it may be less suitable for a country that has more immediate public health needs, limited government funds, or a shortage of specialist workers. The key requirement is that students should not give the same answer for every country. They should show how the effectiveness of the policy depends on each country’s specific economic conditions.
For each country, students should then justify whether, overall, this policy should be recommended.
Finally, students should rank the four countries in order.
They should decide:
where the policy would be most effective
where the policy would be least effective
Students should justify their ranking. This is an important part of the task because it requires them to compare, weigh up and make a judgement.
Suggested Formats
You can decide how students should present or submit their policy application work.
Possible formats include:
a written essay
a report
a poster
a presentation
a structured comparison table
If students are working individually, a written essay or report may work well.
If students are working in groups, a poster may be more suitable, as different students can work on different countries or sections.
Recommended Structure for a Written Response
If students are completing the task as a written response, they could use the following structure:
Theoretical case for the policy
Country 1: reasons the policy may be suitable
Country 1: reasons the policy may be unsuitable
Country 1: overall recommendation
Country 2: reasons the policy may be suitable
Country 2: reasons the policy may be unsuitable
Country 2: overall recommendation
Country 3: reasons the policy may be suitable
Country 3: reasons the policy may be unsuitable
Country 3: overall recommendation
Country 4: reasons the policy may be suitable
Country 4: reasons the policy may be unsuitable
Country 4: overall recommendation
Final ranking of the countries, from most suitable to least suitable
An exemplar answer is included with the resource. This is written in essay style, but the same structure could be adapted for a poster or presentation.
Use of AI
Students may use AI during the research stage if you are happy for them to do so, but they should still be required to understand, check and contextualise the information they use.
The presentation stage includes a short no-notes spoken summary to encourage students to learn the material properly.
For the policy application stage, it is strongly recommended that students do not use computers. This is because AI can complete the application task very easily if students enter the countries and policy into a chatbot.
The purpose of the second stage is for students to practise applying knowledge to an unfamiliar policy scenario. This is much closer to the kind of thinking required in examination responses.
Shorter Version
If you want to reduce the time required, you could skip the presentation element.
In that version, students would:
Research their four countries
Bring their notes to the next lesson
Complete the policy application task. They could just compare two of their 4 countries if that's easier.
This would still allow students to practise macroeconomic application and judgement, but with less time spent on presentation preparation and delivery.