Political Science Classroom Research Articles

An Experimental Test of Using Digital Media Literacy Education and Twitter to Promote Political Interest and Learning in American Politics Courses

Digital media affordances create interesting potential opportunities for educators to integrate these technologies into the classroom in an effort to achieve greater student success. While there are many reasons to suspect that using digital media in the political science classroom may yield positive effects, there are few experimental studies of these effects. In this study, I leverage a longitudinal experimental design to study the effectiveness of using Twitter in introductory American politics courses to increase political interest, news consumption, and student learning outcomes. The findings show that using Twitter in the classroom has no significant influence on political interest or news consumption when controlling for prior levels of these variables. However, there may be a small positive influence on student learning outcomes that should be further explored.

Closing the Gap: Collaborating with Research Librarians to Improve Information Literacy in the Political Science Classroom

This article discusses a collaborative effort between political science faculty members and a research librarian, designed to determine whether structured library interventions with students over the course of a semester yield improvement in students’ information literacy skills. Using the ACRL Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education as the basis for an information literacy pre- and post-test, faculty conducted a two-wave survey of students enrolled in political science courses, taken at the beginning and end of a semester, while the librarian taught an information literacy session with select political science courses. We then compared the survey results to measure information literacy gains of all students. The results reinforce findings from other studies that collaborating with a research librarian contributes positively to student learning, and the methodology used to evaluate information literacy gains here can be used to provide additional assessment in the future.

Blogging Your Way to a Research Paper: The Benefits of a Semester-Long Blogging Assignment in the Political Science Classroom

Although the benefits of undergraduate research for students are broadly understood, implementation of undergraduate research in the college classroom can be challenging. In this article, I explain how blogging assignments can be used to enable students to successfully complete course-long research projects and achieve many of the content and skill development benefits of undergraduate research, even in courses in which undergraduate research is less common—such as those with high enrollment numbers, those at earlier points in a political science major, or those with many non-major students. I draw on several forms of student feedback and assessment to identify the strengths and weaknesses of using blogs as a way to build a research paper. Additionally, I outline the components of one set of blogging assignments and provide suggestions for implementation of blogging research projects in other courses.

Producing Political Knowledge: Students as Podcasters in the Political Science Classroom

Given the increasing prevalence of podcast listening, especially among young adults with college education, it is important to consider how student-produced podcasts can impact the student experience in the classroom, contribute to a more participatory course, and help achieve learning objectives. To engage these issues, this article reflects on the podcast assignment completed by five courses of students, three introductory American Politics classes and two Political Ideologies classes. This article seeks to examine how podcasts can work as a tool for students to research, analyze, synthesize, and present political information in a specific pedagogical and rhetorical setting; in the course of doing so, students become actively engaged with the audio public political sphere. I focus on assignment design, learning objectives, and my own pedagogical reflections in order to reach some tentative ideas about the pedagogical potential of podcasts in the political science classroom.

Review of American Difference: A Guide to American Politics in Comparative Perspective

In the average political science classroom, professors are frequently confronted with the daunting task of fostering open and insightful discussion, while skating around the pitfalls of controversi...

Data-Based Teaching: An Introduction and Call for Collaboration

ABSTRACTPolitical science instructors increasingly use interactive pedagogies that emphasize active learning over traditional lecture formats. I contribute to this effort by developing a data-based teaching method that relies on student-generated data to illustrate course concepts and to serve as a foundation for a variety of activities in political science classrooms. This article summarizes the technique based on my experience in an introductory course in American government. However, given that this method is not intrinsically limited to any topic or area, I also provide examples of how the basic framework may be applied to other subfields in political science. I conclude by calling for the creation of a network of teacher–scholars interested in developing, sharing, and refining best practices related to data-based teaching.

More Than Multiple Choice: A Toolbox for Incorporating Clickers Into Political Science Courses

“Active learning” strategies—peer instruction, simulations, hands-on activities, and the like—improve student performance and engagement. However, instructors often struggle to incorporate these techniques into their courses. Doing so can be especially difficult in large lecture courses, where the number of students makes activities time-consuming and unwieldy. Student response systems (SRS, or “clickers”) provide useful tools for incorporating active learning techniques into political science courses regardless of size. While prior research has shown that clickers improve student engagement and mastery of course content, these tools remain underutilized in the political science classroom. Drawing on existing research, an original survey of faculty who use clickers, and our experience using clickers in multiple undergraduate courses, this article aims to provide a “toolbox” of clicker-based techniques and activities that political science faculty can use to align their courses with educational best practices. We offer suggestions for using clickers to implement these best practices, as well as to teach some of the specific concepts and skills that political science courses frequently cover. Finally, we describe some of the challenges that faculty face when they incorporate student response systems, and provide suggestions for addressing them.

The Contemplative Pause: Insights for Teaching Politics in Turbulent Times

A quiet revolution is unfolding throughout higher education in the form of contemplative pedagogical practices. The mind’s ability to adopt a metaposition relative to its own contents, thereby consciously integrating somatic, emotional, and mental experience, has profound implications for learning. According to its proponents, contemplative pedagogies can enhance student attention, cognition, emotional wellbeing, and creativity, as well as reduce stress. These capacities are increasingly vital in the face of escalating world tensions, political polarization, and electronic distractibility, yet political scientists are surprisingly invisible in this quiet revolution. This essay offers a general description of and rationale for contemplative education, making the case that these practices are particularly valuable in the political science classroom and for subjects like climate change that will profoundly affect our students’ future. Attending to the “inner curriculum” can foster new skills for self-awareness, tolerating intellectual and emotional ambiguity, embracing diversity, civic discourse, and collaborative action. Some specific practices are offered, along with general guidelines for educators who might wish to experiment with contemplative practices. Finally, survey data from students in several courses suggest that they clearly find value in these practices. While these preliminary data are encouraging, they also raise many questions for a larger research agenda for assessing the value of contemplative practices in the political education.

Show Me What You're Thinking: Using Student-Generated Photography to Flip the Political Science Classroom

University instructors have increasingly turned to flipped classrooms as a way to promote engaged, student-centered learning. At the same time, scholars across disciplines have shown the power of visual assignments for developing critical thinking and achieving higher level learning. In this article I discuss a flipped class design that uses student-generated photography in the Political science classroom to cement core concepts, help students critically analyze and evaluate academic theory, encourage students to identify class concepts in their daily lives, and develop a dynamic learning environment that encourages active participation both in and outside of the class.

Methods Discussion and Active Learning in a Volatile Age: A Reflection and Analysis

From 2012 to 2016, American news headlines were dominated at various times by the killing of black men either stopped by police or presumed to be engaging in suspicious activity, and protests that spread through the Internet social media hashtag #blacklivesmatter. In this piece, the author revisits his time in teaching at an historically black university (HBCU) during this era, as a White professor. In so doing, the piece analyzes how teaching and using strategies and tools borrowed from the teaching of political science research methods, and active learning strategies generally, can help political science instructors at all weary of taking on similarly explosive issues in their classes—especially, but not exclusively, when the backgrounds of students and faculty differ considerably. Issues are analyzed through a literature review that focuses on issues and matters including: Whether to keep current events discussion and related activity and the emotional reactions they can provoke out of the classroom, incorporating research methods into and promoting scientific thinking in undergraduate classes, and the need for critical thinking and active learning in the political science classroom.

Teaching Students to Hear the Other Side: Using Web Design and Election Events to Build Empathy in the Political Science Classroom

ABSTRACTResearch suggests that technology in the political science classroom may enhance student experiences and help instructors achieve their student-learning outcomes. Yet, how technology may foster more empathy for opposing viewpoints—an essential characteristic of deliberative democracy—has received less attention. This article outlines an assignment that required students to use WordPress to construct a campaign website for an opposition candidate and write a paper justifying their content and design choices. After completing this assignment, students demonstrated increased knowledge of the candidates for whom they designed websites. Additionally, they displayed a greater level of confidence in the competence of those candidates and a greater understanding of why the candidates would appeal to certain voters. Students also expressed a belief that the assignment provided a tangible professional skill that they would use in the future, and they indicated that their belief in the demonstrated utility of the assignment made it more enjoyable and engaging. This assignment provides one example of how technology may be used in the political science classroom in a way that facilitates student engagement and democratic citizenship, while also helping the instructor to gauge students’ ability to apply course content to contemporary events.

Using Game of Thrones to Teach International Relations

ABSTRACTDespite the known benefits of long-term, game-based simulations they remain underutilized in Political Science classrooms. Simulations used are typically designed to reinforce a concept and are short-lived, lasting one or two class sessions; rarely are entire courses designed around a single simulation. Creating real-world conditions in which students operate often requires the development of distinct cultures and shared experiences that only long-term interactions can generate. These long-term interactions create a community where the past interactions of players matter when making decisions about future action. Long-term role-playing also gives students a forum to fully immerse themselves in the material resulting in deeper content comprehension. This article presents a framework for using a long-term, game-based simulation based on the popular television show Game of Thrones. The simulation uses an active learning approach to help students understand a variety of topics related to International Relations and related fields. The article concludes with a discussion on how the simulation can be modified to fit a variety of non-Political Science courses as well as provides the framework for an experimental design to test the effectiveness of the simulation.

Helicopter Parenting and the Policy Attitudes of College Students

ABSTRACT Helicopter parenting is a phenomenon that is attracting sizable attention from university administrators and instructors. We examine the implications of helicopter parenting for both the political science classroom and for public opinion. Using a survey conducted at multiple universities in the United States, we find that helicopter parenting has a significant impact on the policy attitudes of college students. Specifically, students with helicopter parents are more likely to express support for both government surveillance and nanny state policies than are students without helicopter parents. Given the growing trend of helicopter parenting, these findings will likely have substantial implications for both the political science classroom and public opinion in the near future.

The Omnipresent Android Device and Political Science Teaching Methods

The political science classroom, in 2016, has Android devices in the hands of almost all students who attend classes. The computing strengths of these smartphones and tablets have authentic potential for instructional innovation. Realizing the classroom gain that might occur confronts substantial difficulties, however. Classroom devices include a mixture of various versions of Android. Everything from Android 4.0 to Android 6.0 provides the OS for student smartphones and tablets. The differences in the performance capabilities of these various versions of Android is great. Confusion exists about what Android is because these differences in performance ability are meaningful.Implementing ideas for classroom support for Android instruction may face difficulties. ICT implementation has seen famous cases where best ideas for technology have failed to gain popular support. Possibly, anti-competitive allegations about Google have a negative influence on implementation of Android for the classroom. Implementing Android ideas may not be effortless, but the incentives for accomplishing these ideas are substantial.Android is useful in word processing, learning statistical concepts, and accomplishing statistical analysis. The perceived need for better ICT in all these educational objectives is great. The friendly, ever-present Android device could accomplish much in improved instructional techniques in these areas. Reasonably, improve student performance could be anticipated were more use made of Android to attain these educational objectives. Beyond this, Android's ability to support Chromecast and Miracast is the best instructional projection system that now exists. Anything that appears on a smartphone or tablet screen can be seen on the classroom television presentation system. Everything from Netflix to a demonstration of a statistical app can readily be presented to the classroom.The usefulness of encouraging more use of Android in developing student computer literacy has been presented as significant. The increasing sophistication of each version of Android recommends this OS as a valuable learning tool in developing ICT strengths. Positive developments in data presentation, editing, security, and knowledge presentation all convince of Android's potential in improving student computer abilities. Plans for the next version of Android include emphasis on virtual reality. The possibilities for virtual reality in the classroom are many including helping students learn about political institutions and the political process.

Working Together: An Empirical Analysis of a Multiclass Legislative-Executive Branch Simulation

ABSTRACTMuch of the research on the use of simulations in the political science classroom focuses on how simulations model different events in the real world, including political campaigns, international diplomacy, and legislative bargaining. In the case of American Politics, many simulations focus on the behavior of Congress and the legislative process, yet do so only in isolation, leaving unexamined the complete role of the branch in the policy-making process. We address this gap in the literature through the use of a novel, multiclass simulation that explores the role of the legislative and executive branches in the U.S. policy-making process. Using a quantitative approach, we examine student perceptions of a joint seminar in legislative-executive relations taught at Bowling Green State University in the spring of 2015. The results suggest the multiclass simulation enhanced perceived student learning when compared to traditional lecture or single-course simulations. These effects were conditional upon the student’s assigned role, GPA, and political interest. Our findings add to the growing pedagogical literature on the use of simulations in the university classroom and offer suggestions for practical implementation as well as future research.

Born Digital: Integrating Media Technology in the Political Science Classroom

ABSTRACTU.S. higher education institutions spend a large amount of time, money, and energy on technology. Educators face a student population that has never been without the Internet—they are “Born Digital.” Students expect that faculty and universities utilize more technology. Higher education is faced with the question whether technology provides students with the experience they need to succeed or whether it hinders development of valuable skills that are achieved through traditional classroom instruction. We must be sensitive to what pedagogical approaches are helping students to gain technology skills that will aid them to engage in civic and political life. Consequently, few studies have shown a connection between increasing use of technology and improved student performance. Does academic performance improve with increased use of technology? This is the question our study attempts to answer. Our experimental design involves a pretest–posttest experiment examining student knowledge of political topics as well as their use of news media and products in introductory American Government courses. Students experienced different levels of exposure to technology to determine any differences in learning outcomes. Two important themes were explored: (1) How information technology promotes and enhances student learning and (2) how qualitative and quantitative research methods can be used to investigate the online learning experience.

A Pedagogy of Civic Engagement for the Undergraduate Political Science Classroom

ABSTRACTThis article provides an overview of a classroom project, titled the Priorities Project, which is designed to promote responsible and informed civic engagement on the part of students in upper level political science courses at Drake University. It provides an overview of the Priorities Project, a brief summary highlighting the process and results of this project, and preliminary assessment data. The article discusses this classroom assignment in the context of more general pedagogical debates regarding the relative advantages of service-learning in comparison to traditional models of teaching and learning focused on knowledge acquisition. The Priorities Project demonstrates a pedagogy of civic engagement grounded in a participatory conception of citizenship that represents a “third way”—between a traditional, lecture-based classroom focused on the development of personally responsible citizens and a service-learning model emphasizing a justice-oriented conception of citizenship—of balancing the priorities of knowledge acquisition and civic responsibility in the undergraduate classroom.

Fantasy Presidents: A Game That Makes Research More Exciting

ABSTRACTUsing the core principles of fantasy sports, I propose the notion of using fantasy drafts in political science classrooms. I begin by introducing the basic concept of fantasy leagues. Then I describe an original 30-minute game in which students draft US presidents and “compete” against one another along a number of dimensions. Next, I present possible writing assignments related to the game. The conclusion discusses the contributions of “Fantasy Presidents”—namely, it offers interesting essay prompts and informed discussions, and it encourages students to take the initiative in their own learning.

Metacognitive Strategies in the Introduction to Political Science Classroom

ABSTRACTThis article examines metacognitive-based teaching strategies and provides preliminary evidence about their effectiveness in the political science classroom. In a 2013 Fall semester Introduction to Political Science course, three metacognitive-based teaching strategies were designed and implemented for improving student learning through greater self-regulation and awareness. This article compares the student learning outcomes to a previous version of the course and also assesses student learning over the semester, including a pre- and postassessment of course-based knowledge. By assessing changes in student learning, the article investigates, identifies and isolates specific and transferable classroom interventions for improving student learning and proposes using metacognitive-based teaching strategies in a political science classroom.

Overcoming Barriers to Heterogeneous-Group Learning in the Political Science Classroom

ABSTRACTDespite positive findings, small-group activities continue to lag behind lectures in political science classrooms. This article argues that one barrier to wider adoption of more innovative activities is uncertainty about how to efficiently and fairly create teams that each are heterogeneous and as a set are balanced across relevant characteristics. We first describe recent findings and strategies for creating teams; we then detail our concrete, general approach for incorporating several student characteristics into team creation. We then describe implementations of this approach using freely available software in two undergraduate political science courses—one in American politics and one in political methodology. In these applications and in a variety of simulated data, we demonstrate that teams created using our method are better balanced than those created by randomly allocating students to teams.