The aim of this article is to contribute to the discussion on how examinations can be designed to enhance students' learning and increase throughput in terms of the number of students who sit, and pass, the course examination. The context of the study is a basic level political science course on power analysis, which initially suffered from…

Academic developers (ADs) often participate in the implementation of programmes or reforms in higher education. Sometimes they agree with these and sometimes they disagree. This paper discusses possible agentic positions during a genuine policy implementation--the National Qualification Framework at a Norwegian university. Through reflexive…

A significant body of literature on citizenship education and youth participation has progressively replaced political participation with other categories such as citizenship participation, community involvement or civic engagement. The demotion of political participation is also characteristic of different programmes of citizenship education…

Student preparation for class is an integral part of the college learning experience. In order to incentivize student preparation outside class, professors have employed such techniques as reflection papers, quizzes, and group discussion, to name but a few. This article explores the benefits of using a technique known as "course preparation…

In 1991, the APSA Task Force on Political Science recommended elements of a curricular structure that would best promote student learning. The report stated that there should be a capstone experience at the end of the senior year and that the capstone should require students to integrate their whole learning experience in the major. This article…

"Interteach" is a method of guided discussion and feedback developed by Thomas Boyce and Philip Hineline in 2002. This method, primarily used in the psychology classroom, encourages greater student engagement and responsibility for learning by requiring extensive student preparation, peer-to-peer instruction, and peer evaluation. How can…

The federal budget and the rising national debt are crucial concerns in American politics. Yet, they are issues about which average citizens, and particularly young citizens, are presumed to have limited knowledge and very little to say. They are also topics that are not generally seen as engaging to students in introductory political science…

It is generally accepted in the literature that writing assignments, even short ones, increase both student writing ability and comprehension of the material covered in the assignments. As class enrollments increase, particularly at the introductory level, however, instructors often sacrifice writing assignments because of the difficulty in…

Undergraduate Political Science programs often require students to take a quantitative research methods course. Such courses are typically among the most poorly rated. This can be due, in part, to the way in which courses are evaluated. Students are generally asked to provide an overall rating, which, in turn, is widely used by students, faculty,…

It is more than 10 years since Kehl (2002) identified the increasing number of scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL) papers being produced by political scientists. As noted by Hamann et al. (2009) and Whitman and Richlin (2007), this trend has developed further with increasing levels of research and publishing activity in political science…

There is a debate in Political Science concerning how best to teach American Government courses. We investigate whether students learn more effectively with texts from the great tradition or from textbooks and other secondary sources. Which medium better guides students toward becoming better citizens? We examine how teaching "The Great…

Using an example, this article demonstrates how instructors can make use of popular off-the-shelf board games to model politics. I show how the rules of the popular board game "Battleship" can be manipulated to simulate centralization of power and, more specifically, the differences between the Articles of Confederation and the…

There is evidence that some obstacles to women running for political office emerge early in the political development of women and girls. Lawless and Fox (2005) identify several reasons for lower political ambition among women relative to men. Among their explanations are that girls are less likely to be engaged in political conversations in their…

Over the last 30 years, higher education has received the assessment movement with a substantial amount of skepticism. The purpose of this study is to advance our understanding of political science's responsiveness to assessment reform pressures using neoinstitutional theory. The influence of public status, institutional type, and…

Given the growing emphasis on career preparation in higher education, career centers play important roles on today's college campuses. The literature has focused on the reasons students use career services, but it has not addressed the vital linkage between career centers and academic departments. Using a survey of 279 political science…