mcEmpirics (pronounced "em-cee Empirics") stands for multiple-choice Empirics. It is an online learning platform that helps undergraduate students in economics and business practise and review the statistical and econometric knowledge required for applied empirical research — through interactive quizzes aligned with leading textbooks.
mcEmpirics is designed primarily for undergraduate economics and business students who are studying introductory statistics and econometrics. It works well both for independent self-study and as a supplement to lectures, seminars, and course reading. Teachers and professors can also use mcEmpirics to set online tests for their students.
Each quiz question comes with a context — a passage of text, a table, or a graph — that provides the background information needed to answer it. This mirrors the structure of real empirical research and exam questions, rather than testing isolated definitions. Additionally, questions are linked to journal articles published in leading economic journals, so you can explore the research behind the methods you are learning.
Yes, you need a registered account to play quizzes or take tests. Registration is free. To access quizzes for self-study, you also need an active subscription. If your university has a campus licence and you have been enrolled in a course, your access is covered — you do not need to purchase a separate subscription.
Click "Sign up" on the mcEmpirics homepage and enter your username, email address, and a password. If your university has a campus licence, register with your university email address so that your access is activated automatically.
On the login page, click "Forgot password?" and enter your registered email address. You will receive a reset link by email within a few minutes. If it does not arrive, check your spam folder.
Log in, go to "My Profile", and click "Email". Add your new address — it will show as "Unverified" until you confirm it via the link we send you. Once confirmed, click "Make Primary" to make it your active email address.
Usernames cannot be changed directly in your account settings. If you need to change yours, please contact us at info@mcempirics.com.
Yes. Your time zone is set in "My Profile". This affects how test start and end times are displayed to you, so it is worth keeping it accurate, especially if you are studying abroad.
In "My Profile", you can opt in to the mcEmpirics newsletter. We send one to three emails per year with updates about new content and features. You can unsubscribe at any time.
Each quiz consists of up to ten questions. Every question has a context, displayed on a grey background, which provides the information needed to answer it — this might be a short text, a table, or a figure. Below the context you will find the question itself.
There are three question types:
Your result is shown immediately after you finish the quiz.
Playing a quiz by textbook or book chapter does not mean the questions are taken directly from the book. Rather, the questions are developed independently by mcEmpirics and assigned to the chapter whose content you need in order to answer them. If you have read, for example, Chapter 12 on Instrumental Variables in Stock & Watson, you should be able to answer all mcEmpirics questions assigned to that chapter.
mcEmpirics currently offers over 1,300 questions — in true/false, multiple-choice, and fill-in-the-blank formats — covering 18 textbooks and referencing over 80 journal articles from leading economics journals. Topics range from foundational concepts like ordinary least squares (OLS), hypothesis testing, and regression analysis, to more advanced methods such as instrumental variable (IV) regression, difference-in-differences (DiD), and regression discontinuity design (RDD). We are continuously adding new questions and expanding our topic, textbook, and journal coverage.
Yes. You can filter quizzes by keyword (e.g. "instrumental variables", "heteroskedasticity") as well as by textbook chapter. This is useful if you want to target a specific concept regardless of which book you are using.
Yes. Log in and go to "My Profile" to see your quiz history, your correct-answer rate across all finished quizzes, and how many mcE points you have earned. This gives you a clear picture of which topics you have covered and where you might want to practise more.
You earn one mcE point for each quiz in which you answer 80% or more of the questions correctly. mcE points are a measure of consistent, high-quality performance — not just participation. You can see your current total in "My Profile".
mcEmpirics works on mobile browsers, but the platform is optimised for desktop and laptop use. Many questions include tables, equations, and graphs that require a larger screen to read comfortably. For the best experience — and to make sure you can see all the context information clearly — we recommend using a computer or tablet.
Yes. Questions are linked to journal articles published in leading economic journals, and where relevant, to YouTube videos on the topic. You can follow these links to explore the research behind the methods you are practising.
Registration is free. To access quizzes for self-study, you need an active subscription. There are three plan options — three months, six months, or twelve months — with a lower monthly rate the longer you subscribe; see our subscription plans for details. If your university has a campus licence, your access is covered by that and you do not need to subscribe separately.
We currently accept PayPal for individual subscriptions.
Yes. An invoice is generated automatically once your payment is confirmed and can be retrieved from your account.
When your subscription period ends, you lose access to quizzes. Your account, quiz history, and mcE points are retained, so if you renew, everything will still be there.
No. If your university holds an active campus licence and you have been enrolled in a course or have registered with your university email address, your access is covered. Contact your lecturer if you are unsure whether your university participates.
This section is for lecturers and teaching staff with a campus licence or teacher account.
Get in touch with us at info@mcempirics.com — we offer personal onboarding sessions to walk you through setting up your first course and test.
With a teacher account connected to a campus licence, you can create courses, enrol students by invitation, build tests from the mcEmpirics question library or your own questions, set time windows for tests, and view individual student results.
In your course dashboard, go to "Invite students" and enter one or more student email addresses (separated by commas, semicolons, or line breaks). Each student receives a personalised invitation link by email. Clicking the link enrols them directly in the course — no additional steps required on their side. Students who do not yet have an mcEmpirics account will be guided to register first.
The invitation link is tied to the email address you entered. If the student is logged in with a different email address, they will be asked to log out and sign in with the correct one. If they have not registered yet, they should create an account using exactly the email address the invitation was sent to.
In your course dashboard, create a new test, give it a name and description, and set the start and end date/time. You can then add questions from the mcEmpirics library or from your own question pool. The system will confirm how many questions you have selected, and you can set how many of those each student will actually see (e.g. 10 out of 20, drawn randomly per student).
Yes. When creating or editing a test, you can choose between "Random order" (each student receives the questions in a different sequence) and "Custom order" (all students see the questions in the sequence you define). "Random order" is the default and is recommended for invigilated assessments.
Yes, in two ways:
You can choose one of four feedback modes when setting up a test:
By default, no. Each student can take the test once, and their result is based on that attempt. However, when setting up the test you can enable "Play again". If activated, students may repeat the test as many times as they like once the official test period has ended — but this does not change their recorded result, which is always from their first attempt.
Yes. In your course dashboard, navigate to the test and open "Results". You can see each student's score, their answers to each question, and which questions they did not attempt. This view also shows unanswered questions separately so you can identify students who ran out of time.
Yes. If your university has a campus licence, you can create your own true/false, multiple-choice, and open-answer questions and add them to a test alongside mcEmpirics questions. You organise your questions by context — a context is a text passage, table, or figure that one or more questions refer to. Your own questions are private to you and are not visible to other teachers by default.
No. mcEmpirics questions are copyright-protected and may only be used within mcEmpirics. Exporting or reproducing them in any external system is not permitted.
Yes. We offer campus licences for universities and other institutions, giving all enrolled students and staff full access without individual subscriptions. For pricing and terms, see our Campus Licenses page, or contact us directly at info@mcempirics.com.
Yes. We offer Campus Trial Licences that let you set up and run a full test with your students before committing to a campus licence. Get in touch with us at info@mcempirics.com to request one.
We take data protection seriously. Our full Privacy Policy explains what data we collect, why, and for how long.
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Email us at info@mcempirics.com (also linked in the footer under "Contact Us" and "Student Feedback"). We aim to respond within one to two business days.