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Michelle Dion, Georgia Institute of Technology
Leland M. Coxe, Randolph College
Margaret Carne, Rhodes College

A diverse group of 25 faculty and graduate students participated in the 2008 Teaching Research Methods (TRM) track. Participants represented a range of institutions—public and private, urban and rural, domestic and international, large research universities and teaching colleges. Presentations provided evidence of the heterogeneity in methods instruction and of pedagogical innovations in course design and delivery. The discussion in this year’s meeting echoed and built upon prior meetings, reflecting the workshop format and participation of several track members in successive Teaching and Learning Conference meetings. The recommendations formulated by the track will be discussed following a brief summary of the presentations and discussion.

The track began with two presentations that illustrated the variation in research methodology courses, both in terms of whether the course is a required part of the undergraduate curriculum and the course content. The first presentation compared the content and number of required methods courses in United States departments to those of international departments. Compared to many European and Australian departments, U.S. departments are less likely to require methods courses as part of the undergraduate curriculum and appear to offer fewer methodology courses. U.S. departments also appear to provide less extensive training in research compared to other disciplines, including psychology, sociology, and business. The second presentation, by providing a comparison of the content of over 20 textbooks used and marketed for research methodology courses also highlighted variation in course content. Just as previous track meetings have demonstrated that course objectives in research methods can vary significantly across programs and instructors, textbooks also vary in terms of their content and approaches.
Several presentations illustrated innovative approaches to teaching research methods. For example students often complain that research methods courses are boring, inaccessible, or irrelevant to their everyday lives. Presentations described how community-based research was seen as a way of relating political research to events and developments that affect students. Students also often report anxiety related to research methods courses. Several presentations suggested ways to address student apprehension. Prior Teaching Research Methods tracks recommended integrating research methods into other political science classes to address student anxiety and foster appreciation of the practical applications of political research. Based on this recommendation, one presentation described how quantitative research methods were incorporated into an introductory public policy class. Presentations and discussion in the track also suggested that hands-on, or active, learning is likely to both reduce student anxiety and enhance student engagement. Active learning may also better prepare students for their roles as consumers or producers of research. Two presentations described methods courses designed around student-centered small-group research projects, including development of a survey and then data collection and analysis. Another presentation illustrated how a data collection exercise for students can be used to promote understanding of both research methodology and a substantive issue in non-methodology classes. 

In large part, the diversity of approaches to teaching research methods reflects the diversity of track participants and the discipline in general. Participants appreciated the variety and recognized that one single approach would not serve all institutions or instructors. The discipline is far from establishing best practices for undergraduate methods instruction, and more systematic evaluation of methods training and teaching innovations would benefit departments and instructors. Based on these conclusions, the track offers the three recommendations. First, innovations in methods instruction need to be subjected to more rigorous evaluation and testing to develop best practices. The results have been mixed for some experiments testing teaching innovations. Several members of the track plan to collaborate on the design and implementation of such experiments in the future. Second, given the lack of established best practices for undergraduate methods education in political science, programs and instructors would benefit from more widespread collaboration and sharing of information. To this end, the participants again expressed desire for a central repository of syllabi, lecture notes, exercises, and problem sets for methodology courses. Though the Society for Political Methodology maintains an online collection of syllabi,¹  it does not provide other types of teaching resources. A proposed web site that would not only serve as an archive of syllabi, lecture notes, assignments, and answer keys but also enable collaboration on the development of both undergraduate and graduate textbooks (as a wiki) that could be downloaded and edited by instructors may address this need.²  Third, leadership is needed to help establish best practices and guiding principles for undergraduate methodology instruction. Though APSA recently convened a task force on graduate education, a similar effort has not occurred for undergraduate education. In this regard political science is behind other disciplines, including sociology. The sociology initiative had buy-in from the National Science Foundation, which provided resources for program evaluation. Track participants felt that such leadership would help improve undergraduate education in research methods.

Notes

  ¹Available at: http://polmeth.wustl.edu/syllabi.php
  ²Available at: http://web.ku.edu/keds/statswiki.html