Assessing a Political Skills Curriculum

Abstract

In the past few years there has been considerable interest in the teaching of values. While this interest is important in itself, there has been very little concern with the participatory skills of today's students. This article describes the curriculum of a political skills laboratory in which undergraduate students were given training in specific political skills, such as organizational development, leadership, bargaining, stress management, crisis management, and coalition-building. For purposes of evaluating the political skills laboratory, a quasi-experimental design was used (pretests and posttests). A number of instruments were employed to measure political attitudes, task performance, personality, perceptions of decision-making, and the general evaluation of the course. Statistically significant changes were found in the area of perceptions of decision-making, where attitudes shifted in the direction of increased pragmatism. Participants also reported changes in perceptions of “self,” along with a...