{"title":"Evaluating Simultaneous Group Activities Through Self- and Peer-Assessment: Addressing the \"Evaluation Challenge\" in Active Learning","authors":"Michael P. A. Murphy","doi":"10.1080/15512169.2022.2099410","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/15512169.2022.2099410","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Instructors seeking to add active learning elements to their courses encounter an “evaluation challenge” when trying to assign grades to discussion-based activities that do not produce a final product. By creating a way to incorporate evaluation into hard-to-observe activities, the protocol presented here can help instructors make active learning elements a key part of the evaluation of courses and, by providing a simple framework, reduce time spent marking. Drawing on debates in the scholarship of teaching and learning focused on reducing bias and grading irregularities in peer-evaluation, and building directly on Lawrence Li’s normalization protocol, this procedure combines marks from both self- and peer-evaluations, controlling for irregular grading practices and differences in subjective marking “toughness.” As the community of the scholarship of teaching and learning in politics and international relations continues to grow, continued attention on evaluation can help ensure that this important element of pedagogical practice can be improved to better fit the realities of today’s classroom (real or virtual).","PeriodicalId":46033,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Political Science Education","volume":"18 1","pages":"511 - 522"},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2022-07-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48072470","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Teaching Political Science during Crisis: The “Three-C Approach” and Reflections from Lebanon during a Social Uprising, an Economic Meltdown, and the COVID-19 Pandemic","authors":"Jeffrey G. Karam","doi":"10.1080/15512169.2022.2098138","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/15512169.2022.2098138","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This article argues for using what I call the “three-C approach” to reestablish pedagogical normalcy while being fully cognizant of the impact of disruptions and the challenges of adapting to new learning environments. The “ three-C approach” encourages faculty members to maintain compassion, communication, and consistency by devising plans and taking action to mitigate disruptions to traditional pedagogical methods and enhance faculty-student interactions in new learning environments. Specifically, this article uses the same course I taught during fall 2019 and spring 2020, “Introduction to Political Science,” at a private university in Lebanon during a massive social uprising, an economic crisis, and the COVID-19 pandemic to demonstrate the use of the “three-C approach.” It also incorporates student feedback on modified assessment models and faculty-student interactions to highlight the benefits of the “three-C approach,” especially during times of crisis.","PeriodicalId":46033,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Political Science Education","volume":"18 1","pages":"492 - 510"},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2022-07-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45795226","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Review of Kahoot! Online learning platform, available at https://kahoot.com","authors":"Peter W. Brusoe","doi":"10.1080/15512169.2022.2096458","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/15512169.2022.2096458","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":46033,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Political Science Education","volume":"18 1","pages":"664 - 665"},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2022-07-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45125333","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Fostering and Measuring Civic Agency in an American Government Course","authors":"D. Mallinson, Laura Cruz","doi":"10.1080/15512169.2022.2098137","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/15512169.2022.2098137","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Scholars and commentators are increasingly concerned about the erosion of democratic norms in the United States. Political science education stands at the forefront of higher education’s mission to create an educated citizenry, and civic education is linked to outcomes like civic engagement and trust in government. Much of the research on civic education, however, examines how different classroom interventions affect students’ intentions of engaging civically in the future. This study argues that between intention and action lies agency. Specifically, it examines how an introductory course in American government influences the development of civic agency. A new scenario-based method of measuring civic agency is also introduced. The study finds that civic agency does in fact develop, with students sharpening their calculus of engagement by the end of the course. In other words, students better understand where they can best engage and how as a result of taking this course. Increasing agency at this early juncture of the university curriculum, we argue, lays the foundation for future engagement when students care about an issue enough to weigh in.","PeriodicalId":46033,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Political Science Education","volume":"18 1","pages":"476 - 491"},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2022-07-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45837027","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Introduction","authors":"Roberts Joseph W., J. Mark","doi":"10.1163/2590034x-20220062","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/2590034x-20220062","url":null,"abstract":"Much has been written on the present and future interactions between science and law, less so of their past. This issue brings together scholarship from history, anthropology, philosophy, and social studies of science in the attempt to add a much-needed historical perspective to the important discourse concerning the relations between science and law. The issue consists of nine papers arranged in chronological order, except for the two synthetic papers that open and close it. The papers vary widely in subject and approach. However, out of this diversity several themes emerge. Scientific expert testimony has been a cause of much concern lately in AngloAmerican courts. It is a commonplace today that \"junk science\" introduced into the courts by partisan scientific experts presents a dramatic new problem that demands immediate redress. However, in the opening article, I show that discontent with scientific expertise has existed ever since there were scientific expert witnesses in the courts. Tracing the development of scientific expert testimony in eighteenthand nineteenth-century England, I demonstrate that the debate over the meaning of conflicting scientific expert testimonies and the ways to resolve the conflicts had acquired by the mid-nineteenth century all the features that today are blithely assumed to be new. The courts' ability to handle complex science-rich cases has been constantly called into question. Critics have argued that judges cannot make appropriate decisions because they lack technical training, and that jurors do not comprehend the complexity of the evidence they are supposed to analyze. Paternity cases in which men were determined to be fathers, even though blood tests could prove that biological paternity was impossible, have served as a much-cited example of the judicial misuse of science. However, analyzing the role paternity blood tests played in divorce cases throughout the twentieth century, Shari Rudavsky shows that judicial distaste for science in paternity cases does not come from a failure to understand science. The goals of the law, Rudavsky reminds us, are not always consistent with those of science. And when the interest of a child is at stake, the courts often prefer a social definition of paternity to a biological one. The courts, then, are not neutral gatekeepers that simply exclude from the courtroom unreliable scientific testimony, but rather active partners in the production and maintenance of credible scientific evidence. As such, the courts prefer","PeriodicalId":46033,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Political Science Education","volume":"18 1","pages":"265 - 266"},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2022-07-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47920226","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Making the Most of Guest Experts: Breakout Rooms, Interviews, and Student Discussants","authors":"J. Robertson","doi":"10.1080/15512169.2022.2081170","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/15512169.2022.2081170","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Hosting guest speakers is a common practice among instructors because it can yield new insights for students. However, the experience is often disappointing. This article refers to guest experts to signal a break from the conventional approach, in which guest speakers deliver information primarily in a one-directional manner without any engagement outside the classroom. Three methods are presented as examples of how guest experts can be used differently. First, experts are invited to question-and-answer sessions without a lecture component, and students are assigned discussant roles. Second, students conduct interviews with experts and then use the information that they gather in a debate assignment. Third, online breakout rooms are organized so that practitioners can work through a key issue directly with students. The article draws on conceptual writing on active learning, multiple learning genres, reflective learning, and scaffolding to argue that the use of guest experts can be redesigned for better impact. By encountering experts in different formats, students improve their research and communication skills and gain confidence and motivation for further study and civic engagement. The advantage of these three teaching practices is that they can be selectively added to classrooms that bridge in-person and online learning.","PeriodicalId":46033,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Political Science Education","volume":"18 1","pages":"362 - 378"},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2022-07-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42825087","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Review of The PhD Parenthood Trap: Caught Between Work and Family in Academia","authors":"Julia Marin Hellwege","doi":"10.1080/15512169.2022.2042004","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/15512169.2022.2042004","url":null,"abstract":"As I write these words, it’s a Friday evening at 8 pm and my four-year-old daughter and twenty-month-old son are playing and watching television in the background of the living room where I have my desk set up so that I can multi-task between reading, writing, adjusting the volume, and fetching cereal or some other snack. Yet, I know if parents like myself do not find ways to become tenured, productive academics, our discipline and especially our students will suffer from the loss of diversity. Many of us have heard some variation of the joke that academics have all the flexibility in their work... the flexibility to work all the time. It is true, the highly individual and potentially limitless structure of academia, and of research in particular, incentivizes working beyond what could traditionally be called “normal working hours.” As academics, we build our own research agenda or “pipeline.” That said, research success relies on various gatekeepers and the stakes for success are very high (e.g. tenure). This system demands and further incentivizes continuous productivity—to an extent, those who are able to put in more hours, whether in research, teaching, or service, are more “successful.” Preserving time and space for personal life and activities, is the responsibility of the individual. However, for parents (and other caretakers), the demands for personal time are not solely internal, and productive and engaged academic parents often find themselves struggling and juggling to achieve a balance between their academic work and tending for their families. One of the key challenges of academic parenthood is that typical childbearing ages coincide with the early academic years when the stakes are at their highest (dissertation, job market, tenure). For most, writing a dissertation, landing an academic job, and achieving tenure are nearly impossible without working beyond the 40-hour work week. Professional tasks not only push their way both into time parents want to spend time with their children, but also more problematically into hours when there is no or limited childcare. While academia can be an exceptionally rewarding career and can indeed offer some degree of flexibility, parents, caretakers, and women especially, struggle to balance this demanding (even if self-imposed demanding) career with their home lives, creating what Crawford and Windsor refer to as “the PhD Parenthood Trap.” The implications of parenthood in academia are numerous. The focus of this review is how “chutes and ladders,” a range of policy-level and individual factors that may","PeriodicalId":46033,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Political Science Education","volume":"18 1","pages":"401 - 403"},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2022-07-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45826438","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Anna Kensicki, J. Harlow, Janani Akhilandeswari, Sean Peacock, Jedd Cohen, Ross Weissman, Eric Gordon
{"title":"Exploring the Impacts of Educational Simulations on The Development of 21st Century Skills and Sense of Self-Efficacy","authors":"Anna Kensicki, J. Harlow, Janani Akhilandeswari, Sean Peacock, Jedd Cohen, Ross Weissman, Eric Gordon","doi":"10.1080/15512169.2022.2080071","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/15512169.2022.2080071","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The study of educational simulations at the secondary level has typically centered on programs that are competitive, shorter in duration, and characterized by their low fidelity, or a lack of realism. The resources required to hold longer, more immersive, and nuanced programs are often prohibitive for teachers of political science programs. As such, their effects on student learning outcomes have remained relatively unknown. In this paper, we explore the impact of a Model G20 (MG20) curriculum for high school and early college-aged students on students’ sense of self-efficacy and 21st century skills. MG20 is a weeklong, immersive international conference modeled after the real G20 summit. In it, students learn about global governance and roleplay as heads of state and government ministers to negotiate for their collective interests. Using a mixed methods approach, we examine student learning outcomes from two MG20 summits, held in the United States and in the UK. Results show that internationally diverse, immersive, collaborative role-playing simulations significantly improve students’ self-ascribed cross-cultural communication and public speaking skills, as well as students’ sense self-efficacy. This research suggests future study into new and emerging formats of educational simulations may reveal greater potential for such programs to enhance student learning.","PeriodicalId":46033,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Political Science Education","volume":"18 1","pages":"635 - 651"},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2022-06-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43882201","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Robert’s Rules of Order and Why it Matters for Colleges and Universities Today","authors":"Lauren C. Bell","doi":"10.1080/15512169.2022.2082973","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/15512169.2022.2082973","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":46033,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Political Science Education","volume":"18 1","pages":"417 - 418"},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2022-06-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46230650","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Effects of Controversial Classroom Debates on Political Interest: An Experimental Approach","authors":"Renee Sanjuan, Eleni M. Mantas","doi":"10.1080/15512169.2022.2078215","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/15512169.2022.2078215","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract For decades, scholars have argued that civic education practices, such as debates on controversial issues, have the capacity to enhance civic outcomes, including political knowledge, attentiveness, and interest. This study bridges the literature on political science education and political behavior by employing an experimental approach to assess the link between a specific civic education practice (controversial debates) and a cited indicator of political behavior (political interest). Three hundred and forty-one students in 13 American Politics classrooms at a four-year higher education institution were randomly assigned to a controversial debate curriculum. Our findings show that the treatment had no effect on political interest for the treatment groups as a whole, a finding that challenges our hypothesis that debates on controversial issues could increase political interest. Our findings also point to a relationship between taking an American Politics course and increased political attentiveness for nonwhite students.","PeriodicalId":46033,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Political Science Education","volume":"18 1","pages":"343 - 361"},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2022-06-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43420493","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}