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2005 APSA Teaching and Learning Conference TrackSummaries: Track Five: Research Methods andTechniques

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 August 2005

Cynthia A. Botteron, and
S. Suzan J. Harkness,
Cynthia A. Botteron,
Affiliation:
Shippensburg State University
S. Suzan J. Harkness,
Affiliation:
University of the District of Columbia
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Extract

From February 19–21, 2005, several hundred political scientists metat the second annual APSA Conference on Teaching and Learning inBethesda, Maryland. To facilitate an atmosphere of intensiveinteraction and mutual learning, the conference was conducted in the“European format” where topic-specific Tracks worked as adeliberative community over three days rather than the format ofAmerican conferences—paper, paper, paper, comment, question, then onto a different session. Track Five's task was to exchange ideasabout teaching methodology with the goal of formulating proposalsthat could be disseminated to the discipline. Interestingly, thetopic was taken up by contributors in Track Five from two angles:first, “teaching methods” as a pedagogical issue and second,teaching research methodology.

Information

Type
CONFERENCE TRACK SUMMARIES
Information
PS: Political Science & Politics , Volume 38 , Issue 3 , July 2005, pp. 421 - 423
Copyright
© 2005 The American Political Science Association

From February 19–21, 2005, several hundred political scientists met at the second annual APSA Conference on Teaching and Learning in Bethesda, Maryland. To facilitate an atmosphere of intensive interaction and mutual learning, the conference was conducted in the “European format” where topic-specific Tracks worked as a deliberative community over three days rather than the format of American conferences—paper, paper, paper, comment, question, then on to a different session. Track Five's task was to exchange ideas about teaching methodology with the goal of formulating proposals that could be disseminated to the discipline. Interestingly, the topic was taken up by contributors in Track Five from two angles: first, “teaching methods” as a pedagogical issue and second, teaching research methodology.

Our recommendations come from the deliberation of a very diverse group. Graduate students, junior, and senior faculty were active members. Track Five's members represented the broadest array of institutions, ranging from foreign universities to Research I institutions in the United States to teaching universities throughout the nation; public, private, residential, and commuter schools had representatives, and one participant was from a Historically Black College University (HBCU). The following summary is divided into three sections to accurately represent the material covered. The first section will discuss Pedagogy in Political Science (Teaching Methods). The next will focus on teaching Research Methods in Political Science. The Conclusion presents a summary of the track's recommendations to the discipline.

Pedagogy in Political Science

The conference presented a unique opportunity to learn about innovations in teaching pedagogy. The common theme throughout the participants' presentations was the importance of bringing the course content to life by challenging students to think in innovative and creative ways about political science. One participant created maps using GIS to illustrate demographic shifts important to understanding the changing political landscape. Lloyd S. Etheredge's “The Case of the Unreturned Cafeteria Trays” was a case study that helped students think through the policymaking process and the problem of unintended consequences.

In teaching political philosophy, one participant discussed his use of “Hypotheticals” as thought experiments to assist students in learning the nuance of argumentation and the importance of knowing one's own foundational beliefs. The benefit of having students work through these complex thought experiments was that they were faced with the implications and real impact of their personal orientations and intuitions. Through use of this pedagogical tool, students gained important skills to become not only more thoughtful political scientists but citizens attuned to the importance of foresight when making critical decisions about governance and policy.

The Track also learned of one participant's use of Political Ethnographies to expose students to the contributions made by populations overlooked in standard political science courses, most specifically, those of Mexican Americans. Students were involved in creating this ethnographic database, taping the interviews, posing questions, and learning to read interviewees' non-verbal cues to press for follow-up questions or elaboration of a point. Having this opportunity to participate in creating an important database not only introduces students to qualitative methodologies but gives them a skill that will clearly help them in their future professional life.

A common complaint made about students entering college is that they are woefully unprepared. Students' poor writing, reading, speaking, study habits, and note taking abilities leave many instructors teaching introductory courses frustrated. The challenge of skill-building was the subject of several presentations. One participant discussed their use of Endnote to teach students how to document and evaluate their sources. Interestingly, this participant found that students would retain and build their reference database over the course of their education. When discussing this behavior with advanced students, the instructor found that students began to see themselves as budding young scholars—an identity we would certainly like to establish early on.

One presentation outlined a six-step program that guides students toward creating high quality research using a literacy-based approach. Basically, this effort cues students in to the importance of thinking about keywords and keyword chains to explore research topics and to evaluate resources. Through this process, students create a web of keywords and concepts which provides a very broad range of data and approaches to their topic.

The broad range of institutions represented produced a visible and salient variability in pedagogical approaches. Each pedagogical innovation enriched the learning environment by engaging students across multiple formats while improving their skill-levels and knowledge. While engaging, many in the Track expressed concern about the monetary and class-time costs involved with some of these projects, either due to technology costs or the time involved in applied research. Fundamentally, it comes down to the question of whether the benefits outweigh the costs of each significant investment in time and/or money. This can only be decided by the faculty member and perhaps the department or college.

The presentations on teaching pedagogy in political science generated a lively discussion about the efficacy of innovative as opposed to standard teaching methods. This led to the issue of assessment and how to measure the relative merits of approaches to ensure critical transfers of information and skills. Fundamentally, we were asking to what degree do new technologies, new ways of teaching, or a revision of best practices improve and expand our students' learning? A deeper question emerges: given measurement tools currently available, is it possible to accurately track and evaluate these critical transfers?

Teaching Political Science Methods

At the undergraduate level, it is nearly a universal truth that students avoid taking research methods if possible and if not, put it off until the very last moment. Curiously, very few of the faculty in this Track specialized in research methods as graduate students and came to teaching methods for a variety of other reasons. Therefore, participants in this Track were highly cognizant of the challenges faculty face when dealing with students who fear taking this topic almost more than any other: many of us were those students! Pedagogical innovation in teaching research methods was especially appreciated. Although demystifying the abstract concepts inherent in research methods is one mechanism to lower the fear factor, the depth and breadth of the topic must be retained, which means that faculty must find ways to help students cope with complexity.

All Track participants recognized the importance of devising hands-on, applied work in the dual effort to make research methods a course less feared by students while adding body to a necessarily abstract topic. One participant's students undertook faculty-guided survey research by conducting a public opinion poll. Students selected their topic, wrote questions, selected their population, conducted telephone interviews, compiled data, entered the data into SPSS, and analyzed the outcomes.

Contributing to this approach was another presentation on ICPSR and the SIMI initiative at the University of Michigan. The SIMI initiative archives 54 instructional modules and data sets for classroom use. Having students work with data as they test hypotheses and observe the complexities of interpreting data outcomes clearly adds both to the content and significant interest of the topic.

Two issues arose specific to these pedagogical innovations. First, is the issue of money. Surveys require call lists, phone banks require equipment, space, and lines, software and data all require an investment of resources. With ever-tightening budgets, hands-on research requires not only strategic innovation, but innovative funding approaches from committed departments and faculty.

The second issue is the tension between skill-building (as enhancing analytical skills) and course content (discipline-related information); a class minute can be used only once and providing students with skill building opportunities takes time away from the topic. There was no consensus and this is not a conversation that can be taken up by only one small committee in a very large field. However, political scientists must discuss what we want our undergraduate students to take away from the discipline and take with them into the world.

The next topic dominated much of the conversation beyond paper presentations: the timing and scope of methods training in the curriculum. In comparing course offerings and requirements for undergraduate majors, we found that only some schools required Research Methods. We also discovered that the research methods sequence varied from one to as many as four courses of mixed composition. The courses themselves focused on both qualitative and quantitative approaches, but it would not be entirely unrepresentative to say that quantitative methods claimed the majority of the course content.

In spite of the variety of approaches to teaching methods, we agreed that the research methods sequence or course, by and large, came too late in the student's undergraduate experience and appeared as an isolate from other courses. As we know, discipline content is the result of research; students should become more aware of this fact. Therefore, the Track participants agreed that methods should be required early as a way to acquaint students with the discipline and that a discussion of course content should not shy away from how that content was obtained. In other words, substance and method should be combined across the curriculum.

A model for this approach, a pairing of Research Methods with Comparative Politics, was presented. Examples and the end-of semester research project required in the Methods course reflected the content in the Comparative Politics course, and the content of the Comparative Politics course never strayed too far from discussions of critical concepts in the field and how those concepts shaped research design, analysis, and testing. Through joint exams and projects, students experienced the complexities and difficulties of research and information generation.

This conversation led to the general conclusion that we, as educators, can help students understand how inextricably bound knowledge is to research methodology. Rather than fear that conversation, we are bound to provide students with the skills to become critical consumers of other's analyses and to provide them with a skill set to create their own base of knowledge, that is, to become life-long learners.

Conclusions

At the end of the three-day session, the group formulated what it saw as the most important goal to be achieved by the discipline: Enhancing scientific literacy and knowledge of multiple modes of inquiry, which include problem identification and problem solving, analytic thinking, critical analysis, and being able to construct a logical argument from premises to conclusion. To achieve this goal we present four recommendations:

  • First, there should be greater engagement with existing resources and experts in teaching pedagogy through accessing built knowledge in other disciplines, determining what works, and disseminating best practices to others in and outside the discipline.
  • Second, subjects in the discipline (especially methods) should be made relevant and “real” to students through the use of hands-on exercises and applied research embedded in substantive classes.
  • Third, methods classes should be required and introduced early in the program as a means of acquainting students with the discipline.
  • Fourth, methods should be taught across the discipline.