The American Political Science Association’s (APSA) last significant review of undergraduate political science education, the 1991 Wahlke Report, advanced 12 recommendations to strengthen political science programs nationwide. This article focuses on two recommendations that subsequently have been supported by a large body of research: (1) that programs provide for “sequential learning,” and (2) that they engage in a learning outcomes approach to curricular design and assessment (Wahlke Reference Wahlke1991, 55–56). Given the growing evidence that these approaches result in stronger learning outcomes for political science majors (Bergbower Reference Bergbower2017; Breuning, Parker, and Ishiyama Reference Breuning, Parker and Ishiyama2001; Deardorff, Hamann, and Ishiyama Reference Ishiyama, Deardorff, Hamann and Ishiyama2009; Hinckley, McGuire, and Danforth Reference Hinckley, McGuire and Danforth2019; Ishiyama Reference Ishiyama2005b; Ishiyama and Hartlaub Reference Ishiyama and Hartlaub2003), this study examines the extent to which political science programs have incorporated these recommendations nationally.

Although the Wahlke Report did not endorse a model curriculum, a central recommendation was that undergraduate programs incorporate sequential learning to enable students to “utilize and build upon concepts, information, and skills they have learned earlier in other courses...and in each course itself” (Wahlke Reference Wahlke1991, 55). This recommendation reinforced a finding by the Association of American Colleges (AAC) that unless students’ knowledge and analytical skills were progressively developed through a structured curriculum, the result would be “shallow learning” (AAC 1985, as cited in Wahlke Reference Wahlke1991, 49). Specifically, the report criticized a dominant disciplinary trend of requiring broad exposure to subfield knowledge “for purposes of ‘coverage’ of the whole field of politics and government,” without regard to scaffolding knowledge and skills (Wahlke Reference Wahlke1991, 51). Whereas scholars have since suggested that some aspects of sequential learning can be achieved through a subfield approach (McClellan Reference McClellan, Ishiyama, Miller and Simon2015, 11), a central critique of the Wahlke Report was that political science programs collectively presented “a picture of disparate and unstructured practices,” which ultimately undermined student learning (Wahlke Reference Wahlke1991, 50).

To address this concern, the Wahlke Report recommended that faculty define their program goals based on institution-specific “resources, talents, and conceptions” and stressed the importance of creating an integrated program that scaffolds knowledge and progressively builds skills throughout the major to achieve their goals (Wahlke Reference Wahlke1991, 56). Scholars and regional accreditation associations have since referred to this as a “learning outcomes” approach and recommend that these goals, or program learning outcomes (PLOs), be kept current and made widely available to students (cf. Kuh and Ikenberry Reference Kuh and Ikenberry2018; Young, Cartwright, and Rudy Reference Young, Cartwright and Rudy2014). They found that when PLOs are published, students better understand broader disciplinary objectives; assess their own progress toward them; and more effectively communicate their mastery of knowledge and skills to future internship coordinators, employers, and graduate programs.

Since publication of the Wahlke Report, scholars (Bergbower Reference Bergbower2017; Ishiyama Reference Ishiyama2005a, Reference Ishiyama2005b; Ishiyama, Breuning, and Lopez Reference Ishiyama, Breuning and Lopez2006) have operationalized three central elements of sequential learning that the report recommended, as follows:

1. 1. A general introductory course, in which students form “an overall grasp of the components, boundaries, methodologies, and major issues of the discipline as a whole” (Wahlke Reference Wahlke1991, 55).

2. 2. A political inquiry (methods) course, in which students “gain familiarity with the different assumptions, methods, and analytical approaches used by political scientists.”Footnote ¹

3. 3. A capstone experience, requiring seniors to “survey their whole learning experience, to recognize the interconnections among its pieces” (Wahlke Reference Wahlke1991, 55).

Although numerous studies have investigated sequential learning as an independent variable, only one (i.e., Ishiyama Reference Ishiyama2005a) has focused on this aspect of curricular design (as defined by Wahlke) as a dependent variable, and only three have provided comparative analyses of PLOs (Ishiyama Reference Ishiyama, Deardorff, Hamann and Ishiyama2009; Ishiyama and Breuning Reference Ishiyama and Breuning2008; Kelly and Klunk Reference Kelly and Klunk2003). We extend this research with an analysis of 110 political science departments from a range of US institutions to determine the extent to which these research-supported recommendations have been incorporated into programs nationally in the nearly 30 years since the Wahlke Report was published.Footnote ²

DATA AND METHODS

Following Ishiyama (Reference Ishiyama2005a), we used US News & World Report (2019) data to construct a stratified random sample of higher education institutions (VanVechten Reference VanVechten2021).Footnote ³ US News & World Report collapses the 12 Carnegie Classifications of Higher Education into four groups, of which we examined three: (1) national universities (PhD-granting), (2) regional universities (master’s-granting), and (3) national liberal arts colleges (bachelor’s-granting).Footnote ⁴ Noting that US News & World Report scores do not correspond with departmental rankings, we first selected five top-ranked institutions from each category and—while monitoring for public/private and regional balance—randomly generated five mid-range and five “Tier 2” institutions, for a total of 15 institutions in each category, or 110 institutions total.Footnote ⁵ We also coded for full-time faculty, student population, and regional accrediting organization (table 1).

Table 1

Characteristics of Sampled Institutions (N=110)

Notes: *Regions as defined by U.S. News & World Report. **Standard deviation.

Following previous research (cf. Ishiyama Reference Ishiyama2005a; Young, Cartwright, and Rudy Reference Young, Cartwright and Rudy2014), we reviewed department websites, university catalogues, and available syllabi for information about curricular structure, required courses, and PLOs.Footnote ⁶ For evidence of a subfield approach, we counted the number of traditional subfields (i.e., American politics, comparative politics, international relations, and political theory) required at lower- and upper-division levels. Based on the Wahlke Report and Ishiyama (Reference Ishiyama2005a), we also coded for the three sequential learning elements described previously. Replicating earlier research, we counted “a general introductory course” if it provided a required common broad introduction to the major. For the “political inquiry/methods” requirement, we counted broad-based courses that addressed research design and multiple methodological approaches, excluding statistics-only courses (Ishiyama Reference Ishiyama2005a; Wahlke Reference Wahlke1991). For the “capstone experience,” we counted required senior seminars that included integrative learning through a major research paper.Footnote ⁷ For evidence of a “learning outcomes” approach, we coded for published PLOs,Footnote ⁸ curricular maps linking PLOs to required courses, and substantive content of PLOs.

RESULTS

Based on program-level and institutional data, we report our findings on current trends in curricular design and patterns among PLOs in political science programs nationally.

Wahlke Elements

According to our sample, emphasis on subfield knowledge remains dominant in undergraduate political science curricula nationally, with slightly more than half (51.8%) of institutions requiring that students take courses in all four traditional subfields, and an overwhelming majority (85.4%) requiring a minimum of three or four subfields (table 2).

Table 2

Required Number of Traditional Subfields* (N=110)

Note: *American politics, comparative politics, international relations, and political theory.

We also found evidence that the subfield approach proliferates without respect to sequential learning because we observed no relationship between the number of recommended Wahlke elements for sequential learning and the number of subfields required. In fact, 45.7% (N=43) of programs that require three or four subfields either incorporate none or only one Wahlke element.

Moreover, based on our sample, we found that the sequential approach has had relatively minimal impact on undergraduate political science programs, with only 18.2% of institutions including all three recommended elements

Additionally, we found that the sequential approach has had relatively minimal impact on undergraduate political science programs, with only 18.2% of institutions including all three recommended elements

(table 3). Additionally, we found that 86.4% of institutions require at least one element, the most common of which is a senior capstone experience, required by more than two thirds of departments (68.2%), followed by a broad-based methods requirement (55.5%) and a common introductory course (34.5%) (table 4).

Table 3

Programs with Wahlke Elements (N=110)

Table 4

Wahlke Elements in Political Science Programs (N=110)

Our most robust finding is that program size, as measured directly by number of department full-time faculty and indirectly by total student population, is negatively correlated with each of the three recommended elements of sequential learning. Specifically, the greater the number of faculty, the less likely the department is to require its undergraduate majors to take a common introductory course (Pearson correlation = -0.243, p≤0.01), a methods course (-0.250, p≤0.01), or a senior capstone course (-0.456, p≤0.001). Explaining why this is the case requires further study, but we hypothesize that as the number of faculty increases, so do the challenges in reaching consensus on curricular decisions. Another plausible explanation is that as the number of majors increases, so do the logistical challenges of requiring sequenced courses. Because a majority of students nationally are currently enrolled in PhD- and MA-granting institutions (56%) as opposed to smaller liberal arts institutions (only 4%) (Center for Postsecondary Research 2019), they are less likely to experience sequential learning.Footnote ⁹

Program Learning Outcomes

Given that regional accreditation associations began requesting evidence of student learning in the late 1980s, another surprising finding is that fewer than half of political science departments in our sample (41.8%) publish PLOs either on their website or in their university catalogue, as recommended by research and accreditation associations. We also found that departments posting PLOs were more likely to be accredited by the Western Association of Schools and Colleges (California); those accredited by the Higher Learning Commission (Central United States) were least likely to post.

Table 5 compares our analysis of PLOs to that of Ishiyama (Reference Ishiyama, Deardorff, Hamann and Ishiyama2009). Consistent with his findings from more than 10 years ago, we found that discipline-specific knowledge, critical thinking, and methodological and written communication skills are still prioritized—in fact, today they are nearly universally articulated as PLOs. Noticeably less emphasized are civic education, ethics, career development, and cultural competencies. It also is interesting that information literacy was not measured as a goal 10 years ago but is found in almost one third of the PLOs we analyzed, signaling its emerging importance.

Table 5

Program Learning Outcomes

Even as political science faculty develop PLOs for their majors, it is not clear whether these goals are well incorporated into curricular design. Only three programs in our sample published curriculum maps, and only one provided evidence of sequential learning across its curriculum. Further research could demonstrate whether and how well PLOs align with curricula and whether sequential learning of any type is deliberately embedded in program structure.