Integrating the “Science” and “Practice” of Politics in a Single Course: A Proof of Concept

Abstract

How can we merge the science of politics and the practice of politics into a single course? In a 16-week, upper division course on state politics, I address the need to develop students’ social scientific skills and practical skills through journal article analysis (JAA) teams and public policy project (PPP) teams. I use a within-subjects, pretest post-test, research design and rely on student self-assessments of their scientific and analyst abilities before and after the course. I find that students self-identify a positive change in their scientific and analyst abilities.

Keywords:

• Undergraduate education
• curriculum
• information literacy

Acknowledgements

I thank two anonymous reviewers for their feedback. I appreciate the pedagogical training provided by Anali Makoui, Adriana Signorini, and James Zimmerman, the geographic information systems training offered by Erin Mutch, and the participation of my students enrolled in my fall 2017 California Politics course. I thank Nathan K. Mitchell for constructive feedback. And I appreciate the feedback from attendees of the UC Merced Political Science Program’s inaugural Working Paper Seminar Series Workshop.

Notes

Notes

1 I completed a search on College Navigator with the follow criteria: states: no preference; programs/majors: American Government and Politics, Political Science and Government General, and Political Science and Government; Other; level of award: Bachelor’s; institution type: 4-year. This yielded 500+ results (https://nces.ed.gov/collegenavigator/?s=all&p=45.1002+45.1001+45.1099&l=93&ic=1). I added an additional criterion using the “Use Map” feature to search by region. This yielded eight exportable tables. After combining tables, there are 1,116 college and universities that meet the original criteria.

2 College Navigator, https://nces.ed.gov/collegenavigator/?s=CA&p=45.1002+45.1001+45.1099&l=93&ic=1.

3 U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d15/tables/dt15_325.92.asp, Bachelor’s degrees in “political science and government.”

4 “Data on the Profession,”, American Political Science Association, www.apsanet.org/RESOURCES/Data-on-the-Profession.

5 Data is not readily available to show the number of non-political science undergraduate majors who pursue an advanced degree in the discipline, or vice versa.

6 A drawback of the within-subjects design is that the subject may feel the need to demonstrate an increase in knowledge in the post-test survey, even though that may not be the case. One way I will address this concern is to examine students’ responses to final exam questions. Questions can be categorized as either “researcher” or “analyst” questions. For example, a student who rated themselves 2 in the pretest and 4 in the post-test on “researcher” questions should be more likely to score higher on “researcher” final exam questions that a student who rated themselves 2 in the pretest and 3 in the post-test.

7 The full texts of the five PLOs are: (1) Understand the processes, theories, and empirical regularities of political institutions and political behavior in the student’s chosen emphasis area: American politics, comparative politics, or international relations. (2) Employ critical thinking and demonstrate social scientific literacy, including basic quantitative literacy. (3) Utilize contemporary social science research methods to conduct rigorous research on political phenomena. (4) Write effectively, particularly to convey complex concepts and information in a concise manner. (5) Apply abstract theory and research methods to understand contemporary political events and public policies.

8 “Revised Bloom’s Taxonomy,” www.celt.iastate.edu/teaching/effective-teaching-practices/revised-blooms-taxonomy.

9 The learning management system used for my course was Instructure’s Canvas platform.

10 Institutional Review Board, Protocol ID: 2017-80

11 The paired t-test assumes that the distributions are normal, while the Wilcoxon signed-rank test assumes the distributions are symmetrical.

12 The five post-presentation reflection questions are: (1) How is the public policy project similar to other group assignments in other courses? (2) How is the public policy project different from other group assignments in other courses? (3) What did you find most interesting about the presentations? 4) What was your greatest challenge with the public policy project? (5) Why is public policy important?

13 The nine parts are: (1) Main Point and Question; (2) Puzzle; (3) Debate; (4) Theory; (5) Hypotheses; (6) Research Design; (7) Empirical Analysis; (8) Policy Implications; and (9) Contribution to the Discipline and Directions for Future Research.

14 I detail the 100-question final exam in the following section.

15 An example of a researcher question is: “Journals: Per your reading of Cayton, A. (2016). Why Are Some Institutions Replaced while Others Persist? Evidence from State Constitutions. State Politics Policy Quarterly, 16(3), 267–289. What is theoretically unavoidable?” While an example of an analyst question is: “Elections: How many Congressional Districts does California have?”

16 “What Political Scientists Do,” Bureau of Labor Statistics, www.bls.gov/ooh/life-physical-and-social-science/political-scientists.htm#tab-2.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Josh Franco

Josh Franco is a full-time, tenure-track assistant professor of political science at Cuyamaca College, San Diego county, California. As a first-generation college graduate, introducing political science to the next generation of leaders and scholars is his mission. He earned his PhD and MA in political science and BA in public policy from the University of California, Merced. He also holds AA degrees in economics and political science from Cerritos College. His research interests include American Politics, Congressional Politics, and Pedagogy.

Additionally, he has five years of professional experience working in the California State Capitol and U.S. Congress.