Teaching Research Methods in Political Science

Edited by Jeffrey L. Bernstein, Eastern Michigan University, US

‘This book provides thoughtful and practical explorations of accessible pedagogical tools and approaches which can vastly improve any political science program. Bernstein and his contributors effectively make an argument for how the methods course is fundamental to achieving our discipline’s goals of developing active citizens who can evaluate information and evidence regarding problems which our democracies face in the 21st century. It should be required reading for every PhD candidate, methods course instructor, and department chair.‘

• Contents:Introduction: the citizenship imperative and the Political ScienceResearch Methods course 1Jeffrey L. BernsteinPART I GUIDANCE FOR TEACHING THERESEARCH METHODS COURSE1 Getting the basics right: finding the right research question 13Zsolt Nyiri2 Incorporating information literacy in political scienceresearch design 28Amanda Shannon and Vaughn Shannon3 Beyond the annotated bibliography: improving studentliterature reviews through structured heuristics 43Shane Nordyke and Peter Yacobucci4 Promoting course coherence by teaching with an invisiblepet and other case studies 58Kristin Makszin5 Effectively teaching research methods as a series ofsimulation exercises 69Jason Enia6 Political methodology without the politics: reshaping themethods course to focus on real-world content and skill building 82Amanda M. Rosen7 Engaged statistics: building statistical skills by focusing onanswering interesting and important questions 96Michael A. Bailey8 Teaching transparency: principles and practicalconsiderations with illustrations in Stata and R 114Matthew C. Ingram9 Effectively teaching research methods in an online course 131Robert PosticPART II FITTING RESEARCH METHODS WITHINTHE BROADER CURRICULUM AND DISCIPLINE10 Designing and implementing methods curricula 146Johan Adriaensen, Patrick Bijsmans and Afke Groen11 Scaffolding research methods across the curriculum: anexploration of embedded curricular design 161Kelly A. Clancy and Kelly Bauer12 Incorporating and assessing methods across the politicalscience curriculum 177Christi Siver and Claire Haeg13 Are students failing research methods or are researchmethods failing students? 194William D. Blake and Carolyn Forestiere14 What the traditional critiques from marginalized groupsbring to comprehending political science research today 208Harwood K. McClerking15 Mainstreaming gender in research methods 222Alexis Leanna Henshaw16 A Deweyan pragmatist view on political science methods 238Jonathan B. IsacoffIndex