Assessing the Longer-Term Effectiveness of Two Approaches to Teaching Undergraduate Research Methods

Abstract

What research skills are students likely to learn, retain, and later integrate from an undergraduate course in research methods? Many courses aim to teach their students skills that will later be augmented and refined through subsequent opportunities to apply them in upper division courses both in and outside a political science department. This paper will assess the outcomes of two courses in research methods at a small liberal arts university by placing them in the context of the larger departmental program, examining syllabi to compare intended learning outcomes, and determining whether and how students had the opportunities to directly and/or indirectly build upon the skills introduced or acquired in their introductory research methods course. The study uses direct survey responses from students who completed one of these courses to assess their perceptions of the course’s utility and their self-reported learning, and finds that overall, students highly value their methods training and appear to practice it in ways that enhance their academic experience as Government (Political Science) majors.