Decades of research suggest that interactive classrooms enhance student engagement and improve comprehension. Team-Based Learning (TBL) is an educational strategy used first in medical settings and business schools and then expanded to social sciences and humanities that emphasizes small-group, active-learning, where most classroom time is devoted…

The impact of the feminist movement has resonated in the field of Higher Education, giving rise to an increasingly large body of research that is sensitive to the gender perspective. Since Political Science educates future professionals, it is desirable to carry out research into the effect of gender biases on the learning process of Political…

The field of communication has been working to reconcile its historic omission of race from research (Chakravartty et al., 2018) and pedagogy (Chakravartty & Jackson, 2020). The subfield of political communication has begun this process in its research (Freelon et al., 2023) but has yet to consider the implications of race missing from…

The issue of declining undergraduate enrollments has received considerable national attention over the past decade. The pandemic has exacerbated these concerns as year-on-year enrollments in several states have been severely affected by the pandemic. While this period has been unique, these trends have been a feature of political science…

Reading is critical to success in college. Faculty members often decry students who come to class without reading, and unprepared for the lessons of the day. Yet, relatively little empirical research assesses how to best stimulate collegiate reading and what types of reading assessments provide the best student learning outcomes. This paper…

Teaching excellence in higher education can be defined and studied in different ways, but research efforts to date have often focused on institutional or instructor perspectives. This article uses a data set of over 500 open-ended comments submitted by Political Science undergraduates as part of a teaching award process to identify themes that…

Data visualization is an important tool for communicating research results. This manuscript discusses a method that instructors can use to introduce political science students to visualizations and discusses strategies that instructors can share with students about how to create high-quality visualizations. These strategies can help students make…

Election forecasting has become the centerpiece of media coverage of elections. Yet for all the attention paid to forecasting, public understanding remains low and increasingly distrustful. We can improve citizen knowledge and comprehension and increase student engagement by giving students the opportunity to develop their own election forecast.…

The case for the use of simulations in political science seminars to provide illustrative learning of complex political process has been well demonstrated across a variety of sub-disciplines within political science. Their value to the teaching of European Union politics has also been explored and is particularly valuable for the EU's numerous…

This paper explores how PurpleState, a political simulation designed to foster skills and knowledge for informed civic participation, develops students' abilities to counter or resist the effects of political polarization and partisanship. Throughout the simulation, which has been implemented in Virginia and Wisconsin, students are asked to…

Introductory political science courses are considered Gateway courses to student success in college, yet those courses rarely use high impact practices. This study investigated student-led research projects based on the idea of a Course-based Undergraduate Research Experience (CURE) as a means to increase students' self-assessed learning gains and…

Civic education in undergraduate institutions is of vital importance to the civic health of society, but faculty often find it difficult to incorporate civic components into existing courses and lack the resources to incorporate civic outreach into their curriculum. As a result, research has shown that time spend on civic engagement is limited.…

Scholars of teaching and learning frequently examine whether simulations promote content knowledge and engagement with course material. But many educators use simulations to promote additional goals. This article suggests that designers of political simulations often pursue four ends: "knowledge, engagement, skills, and empathy (KESE)."…

Public service internships are an established pedagogical tool in political science. Decades of scholarship on teaching and learning highlight how hands-on practicums can enhance students' substantive learning, professional development, civic values, and multicultural tolerance. Despite the proliferation of research on the student benefits of…

Scholars and practitioners know that students flourish when they choose majors that are congruent with their self-conceptions. What is less investigated is the information they have for making that choice and how they gather that knowledge. This study demonstrates that a significant gap exists between student impressions of political science and…