Teaching Forecasting Without Teaching Methods

Abstract

Election forecasting has become the centerpiece of media coverage of elections. Yet for all the attention paid to forecasting, public understanding remains low and increasingly distrustful. We can improve citizen knowledge and comprehension and increase student engagement by giving students the opportunity to develop their own election forecast. However, the complex methodology associated with forecasting provides barriers for courses that are not methodologically oriented. In this paper I outline a strategy on how to teach forecasting and have students produce their own without the need of using complex quantitative methods. Students engage in qualitative assessment of quantitative data and develop their own forecast. This pedagogical approach gives students the hands-on learning they need to understand the intuition behind forecasting and increases their comprehension of models of elections and voting behavior.