The contributors to this special issue all seek to address the challenge of teaching research methods to political science students. This introduction aims to provide a concise framework for the various innovations presented throughout this issue, situating them in the wider literature. Particular emphasis is placed on the factors that distinguish…

This article presents the results of a 4-year quasi-experimental study of the effectiveness of lecture capture in an undergraduate political research class. Students self-enrolled in either a traditional in-class lecture-discussion section or a fully online section of a required political research course. The class sessions from the in-class…

I administer a quasi-experiment using undergraduate political science majors in statistics classes to evaluate whether "flipping the classroom" (the treatment) alters students' applied problem-solving performance and satisfaction relative to students in a traditional classroom environment (the control). I also assess whether general…

In this article, we develop an argument for better integrating the political science curricula on methodology with gender politics. We demonstrate how these two areas are presently distinct and nonoverlapping with an analysis of commonly used methodology and women and politics textbooks. We examine the implications of these results for female…

One of the biggest challenges students face in any undergraduate methods course is a lack of confidence in their mathematical abilities, leading to a struggle for both retention of information and for continued involvement in research-based courses. In my article, I present a new approach to improving self-efficacy in undergraduate methods…

Data visualization is the term used to describe the methods and technologies used to allow the exploration and communication of quantitative information graphically. Data visualization is a rapidly growing and evolving discipline, and visualizations are widely used to cover politics. Yet, while popular and scholarly publications widely use…

Graduate students in political science come to the discipline interested in exploring important political questions, such as "What causes war?" or "What policies promote economic growth?" However, they typically do not arrive prepared to address those questions using quantitative methods. Graduate methods instructors must…

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…

Political bias in the academy is a topic of great controversy. Many conservatives have argued that liberals dominate American campuses and use their classrooms to indoctrinate students or to discriminate against those with differing political beliefs. Liberals have responded by calling studies that purport to demonstrate these claims as flawed or…

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…