Civic and Political Engagement Outcomes in Online and Face-to-Face Courses

Abstract

In recent years, two significant trends in higher education have emerged in the scholarship of teaching and learning research (SoTL). In response to the declining levels of civic engagement in America identified by Putnam (2000) and others, scholars, particularly in political science, turned their attention to identifying ways to create pedagogies that cultivate students’ civic and political engagement. Through this scholarship, scholars and educators have significantly increased knowledge about the development and implementation of effective pedagogies of engagement. Recent scholarship has shifted from identifying pedagogies of engagement, and has begun to focus on measuring and assessing the effects that these pedagogies have on students’ civic and political engagement. At the same time that scholars identified and began to study declining civic and political engagement, online learning in higher education gained popularity. The number of students enrolling in online courses has continued to increase (Means et al. 2009). Currently, 32 percent of all college students take at least one online course during their studies (Allen and Seaman 2013).