When are Students Ready for Research Methods? A Curriculum Mapping Argument for the Political Science Major

For many political science programs, research methods courses are a fundamental component of the recommended undergraduate curriculum. However, instructors and students often see these courses as the most challenging. This study explores when it is most appropriate for political science majors to enroll and pass a research methods course. The hypothesis posits that the number of prior introductory-level political science courses can be a strong precursor to research methods success, even for those who are upper-class students and majors. This hypothesis is tested by analyzing data from six sections of an undergraduate research course offered at a midsized public university. The results demonstrate that students are most likely to succeed in their research methods course if they are majors with at least five previous political sciences courses completed. Recommendations for course prerequisites and specific curriculum mapping are offered in light of these findings.     

Policy Diffusion: Seven Lessons for Scholars and Practitioners

The scholarship on policy diffusion in political science and public administration is extensive. This article provides an introduction to that literature for scholars, students, and practitioners. It offers seven lessons derived from that literature, built from numerous empirical studies and applied to contemporary policy debates. Based on these seven lessons, the authors offer guidance to policy makers and present opportunities for future research to students and scholars of policy diffusion.     

The Statecraft Effect: Assessment,Attitudes, and Academic Honesty

Abstract

This article uses a multimethod research design to compare Statecraft to non-Statecraft assignments and courses along three dimensions: student engagement, political attitudes, and academic honesty. The results indicate that Statecraft increased student engagement and academic honesty. In terms of political attitudes, students generally remained on the left side of the political spectrum, but shifted toward the right and became more hawkish by the end of a semester. Changes in attitude are more strongly associated not with playing Statecraft, but taking a political science class by the coauthor, or some other external variable. Statecraft, however, did reduce support for pacifism.     

Audience,Purpose, and Civic Engagement: A Reassessment of Writing Instruction in Political Science

In the present study I examine meaning-making as an integral aspect of successful writing assignments in political science. Results of a semester-long quasi-experimental pilot study show that meaning-making writing tasks help students in Introduction to American Politics courses become more politically engaged through the inculcation of civic skills.     

Transforming Bloom’s Taxonomy into Classroom Practice: A Practical Yet Comprehensive Approach to Promote Critical Reading and Student Participation

This article presents the Critical Reading Topics approach, a pedagogical method employed to promote deep thinking in a variety of politics courses. Derived from principles articulated in active learning, critical thinking, backward design, and flipped classroom literature, this method utilizes Bloom’s Taxonomy as the scaffolding for students to create and evaluate pointed and relevant discussion topics written by themselves and their peers. By utilizing this method, faculty can increase students’ contemplation of the course texts, enhance students’ classroom contributions and quickly gauge the extent to which students understand the readings’ main ideas. This approach also enables students to gain authorship of the material, and it gives them additional in-class time to process the complex information they encounter. Evidence collected from six different political science courses is provided to document the approach’s effectiveness. Key findings include an improvement in the quality of relevant and focused discussion topics, a high percentage of students completing reading assignments with corresponding high quiz grades, and significant participation and recognition for all students, even those who are traditionally quiet in class.     

Undergraduate Research at Two-Year Community Colleges

There is a growing movement in academia that focuses on increased efforts at undergraduate research. Historically, this movement has been driven by faculty in the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields and has only recently become a focus for social sciences in general and political science in particular. For students to be successful at conducting undergraduate research, they should be exposed to it as soon as they are ready. This requires exposing students to undergraduate research in the freshmen and sophomore years. There is no reason this exposure should be limited to four-year institutions. To that end, a new journal has been created for students in political science and other social science courses at two-year colleges so they can be recognized for their undergraduate research. The Social Science Text and Academic Research (STAR) Journal is a peer/faculty-reviewed journal limited to students at two-year colleges.     

Does Reacting to the Past Increase Student Engagement? An Empirical Evaluation of the Use of Historical Simulations in Teaching Political Theory

Within the teaching of political theory, an assumption is emerging that Reacting to the Past simulations are an effective tool because they encourage greater student engagement with ideas and history. While previous studies have assessed the advantages of simulations in other political science subfields or offered anecdotal evidence of their effectiveness in political theory courses, less attention has been paid to the empirical assessment of simulations in political theory. This study uses data — in the form of presimulation and postsimulation surveys, as well as focus groups — collected from two political theory courses in order to gauge levels of student engagement inside and outside of the classroom. We ask if students’ levels of engagement increase during the simulation in their political theory courses. We also explore the mechanisms involved in driving higher levels of student engagement during the simulation. We conclude by arguing that it is the liminal nature of the Reacting to the Past simulations that most likely explains increased levels of student engagement.     

The volatility of volatility: Measuring change in party vote shares

Volatility is a widely used term in political science, but even the most widely used measure of volatility, Pedersen's index, can mask as much as it reveals. His simple and elegant calculation has become part of the political science toolbox, but scholars employing this tool have tended to produce distinctly different results thanks to a series of decisions about measurement and classification. Using examples from Central Europe the critical role of decisions related to party continuity and threshold of inclusion are identified. The article not only unpacks the underlying questions addressed by different uses of Pedersen's index, but offers standards for choosing particular methods over others and outlines steps that should be followed in creating a more accurate measure of volatility.     

Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Methods? Methodological Games and Role Play

In terms of gamification within political science, some fields—particularly international relations and American politics—have received more attention than others. One of the most underserved parts of the discipline is research methods; a course that, coincidentally, is frequently cited as one that instructors hate to teach and students hate to take. Given the well-documented merits of games in promoting student engagement and the key role of methods as a building block to student understanding of political science, this article attempts to rectify this oversight by introducing three games—Zendo, Murder Mystery, and the Archeologist’s Quandary— geared at teaching key concepts and approaches in research methods.     

Scaling up Utopias: E.O. Wright and the Search for Economic Alternatives

For over fifty years, successive waves of critique have underscored that the apolitical character of much of political science research betrays the founding mission of the discipline to have science serve democracy. The Caucus for a New Political Science was originally based on such a critique, and the perestroika movement in the discipline included a call for more problem-driven as opposed to theory- or method-driven work that would better connect political science research to ongoing political struggles. In recent years, movements for a public sociology and public anthropology as well as dissonant movements in economics and related fields have added to the insistence that social science research was too often disconnected from the real world. Phronetic social science has emerged out of the ferment for change in the social sciences, starting with the much-debated book by Bent Flyvbjerg, Making Social Science Matter (Cambridge, 2001). Flyvbjerg critiqued the social sciences for mimicking the natural sciences, while proposing an alternative approach that focuses research on helping people address the problems they are facing. Today, phronetic social science goes beyond the call for an alternative approach to social inquiry and its growing adherents are providing evidence that this alternative approach to doing research can enrich the social sciences by more effectively connecting research to efforts to address real world problems as people experience them. This article provides a genealogy of efforts to connect political science to politics, a review of the major critiques of mainstream research, an explication of the rationale for more problem-driven, mixed-methods research, a specification of the key principles of the phronetic approach, and examples of its application in the public realm. The article concludes with implications for realizing a more political political science by way of taking a phronetic approach.     

Teaching Party Systems: A Culinary Demonstration

Abstract

Duverger’s Law—the principle that first-past-the-post systems tend to promote two major political parties while proportional representation systems tend to promote multipartism—is a commonly taught topic in introductory and some upper-level political science courses across subfields. However, it also contains concepts that are difficult for undergraduate students to grasp, particularly those who are unfamiliar with other electoral systems. In partial response to these concerns, this article introduces a memorable in-class demonstration that utilizes food items to illustrate the logic behind Duverger’s Law. The demonstration serves as a flexible blend between lecture-oriented and active learning techniques, and can be adapted to teach other topics—such as directional and proximity models of voting, the Median Voter Theorem, and other topics in rational choice theory. Preliminary evidence presented suggests that students enjoy the demonstration, remember the concepts, and perform better on assessments related to the topic. The article concludes by challenging political science educators to develop and share more demonstration-type activities, which are commonly used in STEM and other fields.     

Not So Scary: Using and Defusing Content Warnings in the Classroom

Content warnings — notices to students that class material may evoke their past traumas — have become entangled in (over)heated debates about the role of free speech on campus. Critics denounce content warnings as silencing tools intended to promote censorship, preclude discussion of difficult topics or punish professors who hold unpopular views. Supporters too often conflate content warnings with broader demands for classroom “safe space” that fail to recognize the distinct features of posttraumatic stress as a form of mental illness. In this article, I reconceptualize content warnings as a way to facilitate access to course material for students with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). I then offer a set of concrete strategies for employing content warnings in political science courses. These strategies aim not only to support students struggling with trauma but also to de-escalate the controversy around content warnings by emphasizing how such warnings work to encourage engagement, access, and discussion.     

Teaching Community Organizing and the Practice of Democracy

This article builds on the political science literature on the pedagogy of civic engagement by discussing a recent pedagogical experiment that treats community partners as leaders and full participants in the design and implementation of community-engaged learning. The courses discussed here combine democratic theory, community organizing and leadership development, and partnership between students and a community organization in carrying out research and action projects on affordable housing.     

Understanding the Past: Statistical Analysis of Causal Attribution

Would the third‐wave democracies have been democratized without prior modernization? What proportion of the past militarized disputes between nondemocracies would have been prevented had those dyads been democratic? Although political scientists often ask these questions of causal attribution, existing quantitative methods fail to address them. This article proposes an alternative statistical methodology based on the widely accepted counterfactual framework of causal inference. The contribution of this article is threefold. First, it clarifies differences between causal attribution and causal effects by specifying the type of research questions to which each quantity is relevant. Second, it provides a clear resolution of the long‐standing methodological debate on “selection on the dependent variable.” Third, the article derives new nonparametric identification results, showing that the complier probability of causal attribution can be identified using an instrumental variable. The proposed framework is illustrated via empirical examples from three subfields of political science.     

Did the Egalitarian Reforms of the Swedish Educational System Equalise Levels of Democratic Citizenship?

In the mid‐1990s an extensive reform of the Swedish educational system was initiated in order to create a ‘school for everyone’ intended to function like a ‘social equaliser’. The new unified gymnasium initiated longer educational programmes with an extended curriculum of social science courses. This article examines whether the well documented gap in levels of democratic citizenship indicators between students in theoretical and vocational gymnasium study programmes persisted after this massive reform. Given the vast amount of empirical research that has shown that education promotes democratic citizenship, the reform could be expected to result in a decreased civic gap. However, contrary to the conventional wisdom in research on the impact of education, little evidence is found linking the initiation of longer educational programmes with more social science courses to an increase in the levels of the examined dimensions of democratic citizenship. The egalitarian reform of the Swedish gymnasium, which provided more civic education, did not produce hypothesised positive effects on any of the dimensions under study (i.e., political participation, political knowledge and political attentiveness). Rather, results support the pre‐adult socialisation models since the gap between citizens from theoretical and vocational gymnasium study programmes remained after the unification of the educational system.     

The Role of Theory in Experimental Design: Experiments Without Randomization

Some who have written about the logic of experimentation arguethat random assignment of subjects to treatment conditions isan essential attribute of an experiment. Others disagree. Ratherthan treating this as a matter of dueling definitions, we considerexperiments without randomization from a theoretical perspective.Our central contention here is that, for some research questions,theory dictates systematic (not random) assignment of respondentsto experimental conditions. Two such areas of inquiry are researchon political tolerance and on institutional legitimacy. Thisarticle gives cursory attention to the former body of work anddetailed attention to the latter, based on an experiment conductedin a survey in 2001 on the consequences of the American presidentialelection for institutional legitimacy. Because in both instancestheory requires nonrandom assignment, the problem becomes oneof identifying the costs of nonrandomization (threats to internalvalidity) and specifying analytical techniques that might amelioratethose costs. Consequently, we present results from a statisticalapproach that addresses the problem of nonrandomization. Themost important claim of this article is that theory ought tospecify research design, including experimental designs, andthat dogmatic attachment to one definition of experiment willnot serve the discipline of political science.     

From Active Learning to Taking Action: Incorporating Political Context Into Project-Based,Interdisciplinary, International Service Learning Courses

Educational approaches that enable students to actively and directly participate in “real-world” projects are increasingly recognized as valuable pedagogical tools and, as such, being incorporated into university curriculums worldwide. Though not traditionally associated with political science courses, project-based international service learning presents a tremendous opportunity to bring classroom concepts and theories to life, provide an active approach to addressing international challenges, and assist students in the development of the hands-on, problem-solving, team-based, critical-thinking skills that are increasingly important to employers across all sectors. This article seeks to encourage political science faculty to incorporate international service learning—and/or project-based approaches—into their educational offerings. Through examination of the course Global Synthesis in Liberal Arts and Engineering Studies at California Polytechnic State University, we have identified multiple factors that can help promote successful execution of project-based international service learning as a pedagogical tool, and provide additional suggestions for faculty interested in adopting specific aspects of these educational approaches, and/or in doing so closer to home.     

Vote Oswego: Developing and Assessing the Campaign-as-Course Model

College campuses have taken on increased responsibility for mobilizing young voters. Despite the discipline’s commitment to civic engagement, political science departments play a minimal role in this programming. This article outlines a course structure—including learning objectives, course outline, and assessments—that treats a campus-wide voter mobilization drive as the basis of an applied political science course. Transforming a campus voter mobilization program into a political science practicum offers advanced skill-building for students seeking political careers and links learning objectives to real world activities. Participants report gains in both knowledge of campaigns and grassroots campaign skills. We argue this type of course particularly benefits students attending colleges and universities in geographic areas that receive little attention from political campaigns as well as those students for whom the traditional route of gaining political experience—an unpaid, off-campus internship—is impractical or even impossible.     

Building Political Participation: The Role of Family Policy and Political Science Courses

This mixed-methods study examined the long-term associations between two kinds of politics courses—required political science courses and required family policy courses—and the political participation, knowledge, skill, efficacy, and politically engaged identity of child and family studies alumni. Two special cases were examined: those who remembered their required political science and policy courses compared with the other groups. Additionally, open-ended responses were coded and analyzed. Together, the quantitative and qualitative data suggest that college courses impacted alumni political awareness in college but political awareness did not translate as strongly into later political participation as previous literature has assumed. Findings highlight the importance of postcollege personal connections and work experience in shaping political participation. Educators and researchers should consider this complex relationship between what students learn in college and what they may later experience in adulthood when developing curriculum for students who are not political science majors.     

Political Science Research on China: Making the Most of Diversity

This article aims at stimulating debate on the future development of political science research in and on China by bringing into clearer view the diversity of social science research in the West. It argues that far from monolithic, political science is itself engaged in a broad controversy on common goals and shared standards. Secondly, addressing international students of Chinese politics the article observes that we are currently witnessing a transformation of the field as we experience a slight shift toward more quantitative work. However, those China scholars working in a qualitative tradition should not see this as a hostile takeover of the field. Rather they should take this as a stimulating opportunity to employ more refined methodologies from within their own tradition as well as engage in multi-method research. The challenge is to make the most of diversity and to engage in fruitful cross-cultural dialogue based on respect for each other’s viewpoints. Three major divides need to be bridged: between qualitative and quantitative approaches, between political science and area studies as well as between Chinese and Western scholars.