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Students' readiness to learn politics is an important thing to consider nowadays. By encouraging positive emotions and good intrinsic learning motivation, students can prepare themselves well to learn this discipline. This study examines how self-regulated learning, competence, autonomy, relatedness, positive emotion, and intrinsic learning motivation affect political learning preparation in students. Additionally, information literacy is explored as a moderating variable on the association between positive emotion and political learning readiness, as well as intrinsic learning motivation and political learning readiness. Data were collected from 422 university politics students. Researchers first utilized SPSS to see the distribution of good data, then the SEM model and SmartPLS version 4. The study found no correlation between autonomy and intrinsic learning readiness. Other hypotheses in this study were tested and shown to be beneficial. Testing the interaction model shows that information literacy boosts positive emotions and learning motivation on political learning readiness.

This qualitative case study examined 11 teaching assistants' (TAs) awareness of the need to infuse culturally responsive pedagogy into undergraduate level courses. The TAs represented the fields of political science, history, English, psychology, world languages, and kinesiology at one public university. One-on-one interviews were conducted, audio-recorded, transcribed, and analyzed utilizing six phase thematic analysis. Interactive analysis and coding provided a system to examine the data, generate initial codes, and subsequently review, define, and report on the themes that emerged. Results suggest the TAs interviewed had not been adequately prepared to infuse culturally responsive pedagogy (CRP) with instruction.

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 pedagogy. This essay offers an argument for including race in the political communication course, in the form of more focus on race in course content and more work by scholars of color. We offer reasons for these inclusions, ways for instructors to begin this incorporation, and what considerations instructors must be mindful of throughout the process.

This paper explores the impact of the Russia-Ukraine war on Russia's academic sector, relying on the limited evidence available. The invasion has triggered an academic exodus from Russia, with both immediate and far-reaching consequences. These consequences range from the interruption of ongoing research projects and the termination of international collaborations to the emergence of an intellectual void, raising concerns about the future of academic pursuits in Russia. Conventional models for understanding academic mobility, which primarily focus on professional and economic incentives, prove inadequate in accounting for the complexities introduced by geopolitical strife, international sanctions, and curtailed academic freedoms. This paper calls for an interdisciplinary approach incorporating perspectives from political science, sociology, and international relations for a richer understanding of academic migration in conflict-affected settings. The Russia-Ukraine war serves as an important case study, shedding light on the vulnerabilities of academic sectors, even in the aggressor country where the physical conflict is not occurring, and offering broader insights for the field of academic mobility.

Mandated under Article 1, Section 2 of the United States Constitution, the decennial census determines the distribution of power and resources based upon population counts. College students are a hard-to-count population with limited knowledge about why the census matters and how to complete it. Politics and the global health pandemic made the 2020 Census exceptionally challenging. A university's center for civic engagement and students in a political science class collaborated with local, state, and national partners to develop and implement a campuswide 2020 Census Education and Engagement Program. Assessments of 2020 Census knowledge were administered to almost 2,000 students on a required university-wide Assessment Day. Subsequent data collection indicated knowledge about the 2020 Census is malleable, as evidenced by sizable gains over time as well as a positive relationship between census completion and participation in the 2020 Census Education and Engagement Program.

Engaged learning seeks to cultivate integrative approaches that require students to use multiple points of view or approaches in their coursework. Similarly, civically engaged courses ask students to consider public problems that involve multiple stakeholders, institutions, and policies. We are interested in whether courses designed to meet civic engagement goals might also improve student self-assessment of integrative learning at our institution and could serve as a developmental step toward more holistic strategies. To test our hypothesis that student participation in civic engagement would improve student self-assessment of integrative learning, we compared summative student survey scores from students enrolled in similar courses with and without a civic engagement component (n = 275). Boxplot and statistical analysis (unpaired two-sample Wilcoxon test) were used to determine if civic engagement pedagogy made any meaningful impact on integrative learning. Our results show strong overall improvement in survey scores after civic engagement courses.

Hands-off data-driven learning is a data-based, student-oriented learning model characterized by inquiry and discovery. English context vocabulary teaching is the key to English teaching in colleges and an important indicator to evaluate the quality and level of college English teaching, which is a language teaching paradigm focusing on the language environment. Combining the two approaches can give students a more realistic, practical, and meaningful language learning experience. This paper analyzes the vocabulary learning level of two non-English major undergraduate classes at Southwest University of Political Science and Law before and after the application of the context experiment. The positive effect of context vocabulary teaching in the control groups is verified by comparing and analyzing the influence of context teaching based on hands-off data-driven learning on their scores and learning results between the experimental and control groups. It shows that the combination of context in English vocabulary teaching with hands-off data-driven learning can help to improve students' ability to understand, absorb, and apply English vocabulary.

To what degree is explicit care/work policy taught in family courses in Canada's leading research-intensive universities? We analyze family courses in sociology departments and in political studies and women's/gender studies programs in Canada's 15 R1 universities to make a contribution to the scholarship of teaching and learning. This national scan marks a methodological innovation from curriculum studies that generally adopt a single-program or single-site focus. From a Canadian universe of 74 family courses, we identify 15 whose formal course calendar description explicitly addresses care/work family policy (measures to reconcile caring for young children with employment, through early learning and childcare, parental leaves, and child benefits). Sociology predominates among courses where family policy is taught, yet care/work policy content is not common. Given growing concerns about the care crisis and the care deficit in Canada, the low profile of care/work family policy content in family courses is significant. This study sheds light on the value of national postsecondary education curricular reviews and suggests that family curriculum renewal is warranted.

Public administration has a long tradition of close connections to the field of political science. As the field of public administration evolved from a basic politics administration dichotomy, it became evident that the distinction between politics and administration was nebulous at best. As such, public affairs students need exposure to, and knowledge of, the founding documents and basic principles that underpin American government. This article explores the reasons for including American government instruction in introductory public affairs courses, student knowledge and preparation in American government, and strategies for enhancing the coverage of the principles of American government in public affairs programs.

This article examines attitudes of the Croatian final grade high school students towards the burdensome legacy of the Second World War and Croatian war for independence (1991-1995). Following the theoretical framework of memory studies, and implementing the concept of postmemory, we have developed a structural model connecting ideology and legacy of the wars. In addition, we have further modelled postmemory and its reliance on democratic values, namely political attitudes, trust in state institutions and political knowledge. Individualised predictors offered more nuanced analysis away from the binary understanding of pro-collaborationist and anti-fascist divide, in line with wider European trends and political culture(s).

This article examines the contribution of Slovak political science to international academic discussions by analysing publications by faculty members of Slovak political science departments. Based on an analysis of 2660 publications, our results indicate that while Slovak political scientists publish only small numbers of articles in journals indexed in international databases and few monographs with prestigious publishing houses, they are very productive when it comes to other types of publications, especially articles in non-indexed journals and conference proceedings. However, in both cases, most of their publications outside the national context are limited to regional journals and publishing houses. Although there are significant differences between individual Slovak political science departments in this regard, the predominant focus on regional (and domestic) publication outlets limits the contribution of Slovak political science to main discussions within the discipline. We call this publication strategy, seen as the flip side of internationalisation, which contributes to discussions at the global level, 'pseudo-internationalisation'. We argue that this is a pragmatic approach adopted by employees of public universities who are expected to publish internationally, but, due to a lack of academic contacts outside their (immediate) neighbourhood, focus on this geographic area.

The article aims to determine the correspondence of the value orientations of students and teachers to the pragmatic and civilizational goals of political education in the process of introducing digital information and communication technologies for sustainable development. The study involved 92 students of the School of Marxism, TongJi University, who are receiving political education at the master's level in the speciality "Political Science" using digital mobile and cloud information and communication educational technologies, and 83 teachers of political disciplines of this university. The authors used the Portrait Values Questionnaire (PVQ) and the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire (EPQ). The accumulation, sorting and visualization of information in the course of the study were carried out in the Microsoft Excel program. The statistical significance and significance of the results of the study were assessed based on the Student's t-test, which was calculated using the online calculator Social Science Statistics. Statistically significant (p < 0.05) differences between the motivational educational values of students and teachers have revealed: the teachers expressed conformity largely than the students (4.6 ± 0.2 and 3.4 ± 0.1 points, respectively) and the importance of traditions (4.9 ± 0.1 and 3.5 ± 0.3 points), and the students - independence (4.5 ± 0.2 vs. 3.3 ± 0.1 points). According to the neuroticism scale, the indicators of the teachers (15.6 ± 2.4) are at the upper limit of the norm and statistically significantly (p < 0.05) exceed the hands of the students (10.2 ± 1.0). The difference in the hierarchy of values of students receiving political education using digital information and communication technologies and teachers of political disciplines was revealed, reflecting the presence of a conflict between the pragmatic and civilizational goals of political education in the process of introducing digital information and communication technologies, primarily about the opposition of traditions and universalism, conformism and the desire for power and achievement.

The purpose of this article is to study the impact of the use of digital interactive information technologies in Chinese political education on the civic participation of Chinese and foreign students. The study involved 347 Chinese and 298 foreign students China University of Political Science and Law University, School of Marxism (Shanghai); East China University of Political Science and Law (Shanghai); China Youth University of Political Studies (Beijing), who studied using digital interactive information technologies (experimental group 2); the control group consisted of 285 Chinese and foreign students who, during the experiment, studied political disciplines without the use of digital interactive information technologies. To investigate the students' civic participation, the authors used a special semi-structured questionnaire, as well as the method "Diagnostics of the socio-psychological attitudes of a person in the motivational-need sphere" by O. Potemkina and the method "Motivation of professional activity" by K. Zamfir modified by A. A. Rean. Both Chinese and foreign students who received political education using digital interactive information technologies during the experiment turned out to be significantly more active in civilian life than those who studied without using these technologies.

The scholarship of teaching and learning is primarily concerned with improving student learning. Of course, we want our students to learn our disciplines, we want them to become critical thinkers, and we want them learn to write. But this study looks at how learning impacts a student's optimism or pessimism. We believe that it is an important topic in today's world and provides an important new topic in the scholarship of teaching and learning. This study is co-authored by two team-teachers and three honors students. Using an Introduction to Politics course as case material, the study provides a pre and post-test measuring student optimism versus pessimism on a wide variety of political issues facing Generation Z students. Then we provide a content analysis of honors essays which were collected during the semester and interviews with our three honor student co-authors. We draw initial conclusions about optimism versus pessimism in teaching and argue that a larger research agenda around this topic would benefit the scholarship of teaching and learning literature.

The creation of educational audio-visual materials has recently become popular. It is an innovative and entertaining practice, which can reach millions of people through social networks and YouTube. For this reason, this specific was designed for students enrolled in the following three modules: The Spanish political system, public administration in Spain, and institutions and decision-making structures in both the of joint degrees in law and political science and in public management and economic sciences, as well as degrees in public management and degrees in political science. Educational audio-visual materials were co-designed and co-created to define a Municipal Council, its workings and its organization. This was a three phased experiment. In the first, under the supervision of teachers, students developed five videos showing how Municipal Councils work. This allowed university students to become involved in a collaborative learning activity through which they acquired a series of important skills for future use, in addition to reinforcing their learning by participating in creation of digital teaching material, and also establishing a new teaching methodology consisting of learning-by-doing. In the second, professors and students attended CEIP Severo Ochoa Primary School in Madrid showing videos and playing two practical games, thus promoting knowledge transfer. In the third, the teachers evaluated the impact of this activity and the degree of satisfaction of university and primary school students. The result was positive, because not only was an educational innovation successfully implemented, but also a large part of objectives were achieved.

This work aims to advance on the systematization of teaching experiences in the formulation of evaluation activities, mediated by ICT, for academic and professional training in the field of Political Science. It explores the usefulness of student podcasting as a didactic strategy for theoretical-active learning in digital university environments during COVID-19 pandemic. Based on the design of an assessment questionnaire and a nonprobabilistic convenience sampling strategy, a survey has been administered to N=40 students from two theoretical undergraduate courses of the School of Political Science at the University of Costa Rica, taught during two semesters in 2020. The article reviews the related results according to the degree of satisfaction with podcasting as a way of evaluating the appropriation of theoretical content. It is concluded by arguing that this teaching-learning methodology helps to facilitate among students' new ways of "putting theory into practice", this through the exercise of creative, reflective skills and theoreticalconceptual argumentation according to the creation of student-made podcasts, based on work on theoretical lines and conceptual proposals of relevance to Political Science.

While 'interactive' and 'student-centered teaching' are becoming buzzwords when promoting international English Medium Instruction (EMI) tertiary programmes in non-Anglophone countries, studies found that fewer lecturers possessed the competencies needed to teach content subjects interactively. This longitudinal case study looked beyond content lecturers' language proficiency, instead, addressing their interactional competencies based on the framework of 'Quality Interaction in Pedagogy'. The objectives were (1) to explore the interaction-related problems and behavioural triggers experienced by an untrained EMI lecturer of political science, and (2) to empirically assess the framework by observing classroom interactions before and after teacher training. The main participant was a non-native English-speaking lecturer (n = 1) teaching undergraduate students (n = 62) enrolled in three separate courses at Japanese universities. The study found that the framework was useful for measuring the effectiveness of classroom interactions after teacher training. The results also suggested that its systematic application done by extending Initiation-Response-Feedback sequences or broadening teacher language functions could enhance the quality of teacher-student interactions in tertiary contexts. These measures make a conceptually robust framework to help bridge applied linguists and content specialists on the issue of interactivity in EMI.

Urban universities with a predominantly commuting student population face distinct challenges in fostering social connections. Commuting students spend less time on campus and have fewer opportunities for organized and spontaneous social interactions with other students. The campus experience for commuter students tends to center around the classroom. Social connection is vital to various outcomes, such as persistence and well-being, and thus instructors need to find ways to promote different forms of interaction. This study uses focus groups and a survey instrument to examine student perceptions of the social benefits of collaborative active learning activities in a first-year introductory political science course. The data indicate that students positively assess their experiences with collaborative learning, highlighting its benefits on social connection and well-being.

This article explores the issue of internationalisation in the teaching of political science at universities. We first provide an overview of the mix of courses in terms of geographical focus offered by high-ranking political science departments. Second, with survey data from students, we assess the factors affecting their attitudes towards area-specific and general politics courses. The results indicate that, compared to local students who prefer local politics courses, international students are most interested in those with a mid-range scope such as those containing cross-case comparisons. This paper encourages integrating comparative elements even in area-specific politics courses to enhance student engagement.

The intervention of modern teaching media in classroom teaching activities has greatly extended the time and space of teaching practice, and new teaching methods, teaching models, and teaching designs have emerged one after another. Improving pertinence and effectiveness and cultivating high-quality talents with solid theoretical foundations provide something that many schools and related teachers have been exploring and researching. Multimedia teaching courseware has its excellent advantages and effects. However, when we enjoy the convenience brought by multimedia to basis of the existing teaching behavior analysis technology, it combines research methods such as residual calculation (residual calculation) and support vector machine (SVM), aiming at both teachers and students. It becomes intuitive, visualized, concrete, and contagious, which keeps students' attention, emotion, interest, and other psychological factors in the learning process in a good state.

This article explores initiatives to decolonise the curriculum via two specific disciplines, namely Economics and Politics, both of which have tended to marginalise the study of race, empire, and colonialism and whose canonical thinkers are overwhelming white. By providing the first comparative analysis of decolonising initiatives in these disciplines, this article: investigates the extent to which Economics and Politics curricula in UK universities have been 'decolonised'; explores the factors which affect support for or resistance to decolonisation; and analyses the extent to which these factors share common roots in both disciplines. Our comparative method allows us to shed light on drivers of resistance that affect all disciplines alike and those that are rooted within specific disciplines. Using an audit of UK undergraduate courses and a survey of academics, we show that neither Politics nor Economics can plausibly claim to have made much progress in decolonising curricula. However, more progress has been made in Politics, and Politics staff are more informed about and less hostile to decolonising initiatives than Economics staff. We locate one of the reasons for this difference in the epistemological and ideological idiosyncrasies of the dominant neoclassical paradigm in Economics. We therefore argue that initiatives to decolonise the curriculum must take into account potential discipline-specific obstacles.

In this article I discuss an approach to teaching about the Russian war in Ukraine that uses the war as a focal point for teaching about topics in comparative politics and international relations. I discuss the pedagogical advantages for political science teaching, including meeting the interests of students, introducing students to theories in political science, and re-centering courses on the region away from Russia. I then discuss how the various political science topics and research questions are related to the war, and I conclude with a section on assignments and methods for student engagement that work well with this type of course.

In this article, I argue that critical junctures -- defined as sudden turning points in the historic trajectory of countries, institutions, and other units of analysis -- provide a propitious lens to teach the war in Ukraine. By analyzing the influence of this war on energy security in Europe and the world, its impact on public opinion on NATO membership in nonaligned countries, or the war's potential to change great power politics, to name a few examples, students of political science can determine themselves, if the war amounts to a critical juncture. In doing so, they not only learn how to apply a rather complex theory to a real-world scenario, they also learn how the discipline of political science operates.

The rise in populism and movements that threaten trust in science and expertise has been labeled a post-truth world. What challenges does this environment present for higher education, and how should it respond? This article examines the characteristics of a post-truth world and how that challenges the fundamental purposes of higher education. It then examines how higher education might respond, what risks come with that response, and how effectively it might resist attempts to attack and undermine its different purposes. These movements undermine possibilities for truth or objective knowledge, presenting a clear threat to higher education. Its response focuses around improving research and communication with the public, but the nature of cognitive processes in a polarized world leads people to discount information that does not fit with their existing worldviews and values. Simply providing better research will not solve the problem, and actively engaging with these movements can make higher education seem more partisan, further reducing trust. In the face of such intractable problems, it is important for higher education to also nurture communities with its students that foster trust and "critical loyalty" to knowledge and truth over falsehoods and conspiracy.

What makes a useful textbook, and can the use of textbooks boost active learning and student satisfaction in political science higher education? Drawing on the author's own experience of writing a textbook and a student survey, this article articulates some propositions on effective textbook-assisted teaching practice. In seeking to develop a theory of effective textbook use, the article explores the features of textbooks and textbook-supported teaching that work to promote student engagement and the achievement of course-specific learning outcomes. A three-dimensional theory of effective textbook-supported teaching in political science is outlined, contributing to the wider literature on higher education pedagogy. The article shows why textbooks are valuable for teaching and learning, elucidating how they can be used effectively to support student learning. The article concludes that common perceptions of textbooks as "dumbing down" or "lowest common denominator" teaching are misplaced. Rather, textbooks can work as useful primers that leverage student learning and facilitate learners' access into advanced, specialist scholarship in the field of political science.

Events of recent years both in the United States and around the globe have highlighted the fragility of democracy. The invasion of Ukraine by Russia has prompted educators to seek evidence-based civic engagement methods for helping students understand the invasion and its implications. This paper offers a set of recommendations on how to teach the war in Ukraine through the lens of civic engagement education. Over the years, a sizeable body of scholarship has developed addressing the critical role civic education plays in safeguarding democracy and producing effective pedagogical approaches for instilling democratic knowledge, skills, and dispositions. Using this scholarship as a starting point, this paper offers recommendations on how educators in a variety of settings and across disciplines might modify these civic learning models to address the war in Ukraine. Based on my experience as a scholar-practitioner-educator at an institute of politics focused primarily on American democracy, I also offer suggestions on how to integrate teaching the war in Ukraine using these practices to enhance appreciation of civic engagement and the role of the citizen.

Students entering contemporary higher education have the question of employability at the forefront of their minds, both when deciding which institution to study at and which subject to study. However, the notion of the "employability agenda" is not often welcomed by academics. Focusing on teaching and learning in the UK, this article draws on Daubney's (2022) concept of "extracted employability" to ask what students of Politics and International Relations can expect in terms of employability outcomes from their degree and how that employability value can best be communicated. Highlighting resistance from academics and students to integrating employability into a demanding curriculum, this article, referencing the 2023 QAA Subject Benchmark Statement for Politics and International Relations, offers a subject-specific employability proposal. This suggestion could enhance Politics and International Relations degrees and be incorporated into institution-wide curricula and student recruitment activities. The Subject Benchmark Statement is utilized as a common understanding of the nature and standards of study in a subject area; one that can be applied in the delivery and promotion of degrees to help answer the call for those delivering Politics and International Relations teaching and learning to be more confident in their articulation of the employability value of a degree in the field.

This article presents a teaching case study of a semester-long progression of engaged learning activities in an introductory American politics course. The method enhances a traditional democratic participation assignment with authentic social network engagement. Students in the course selected democratic actions from a menu. Actions involved collaboration or conversation with family members, friends, or other contacts beyond the class roster. Students reported deep engagement with course material and enhanced efficacy and motivation to participate in democratic life in the future. Furthermore, there were sizable spillover effects within student social networks. This method is a simple and effective way to give students authentic democratic learning opportunities, empower them to mobilize others, and affect a broader group of community members.

Since first airing on HBO in 2011, "Game of Thrones" (GOT) has proven to be a fruitful text for teaching and studying politics. In 2022 the prequal to GOT-House of The Dragon (HOTD) debuted on HBO. This paper conducts discourse analysis on the entire first season with two goals in mind. First, we demonstrate how pop culture is impacted by real world politics by examining the change in gender and racial representation in HOTD compared to GOT and argue that this change was a product of cultural backlash that GOT received and a result of changing political attitudes over the time of both shows airing. Second, we use the show's content as text to teach American and Comparative politics concepts. In the appendix we provide three examples of low, mid, and high-stake assignments that use show content in teaching political science courses.

To what extent does educational gaming add value to more traditional instructional models in learning core concepts of national security and warfighting? This paper presents the results from a quasi-experimental, cross-sectional, and longitudinal study of students taking two standardized courses in the Joint Military Operations department at the US Naval War College. Split into wargaming and non-wargaming sections by instructor preference, subject learning is measured through self-reported and objective measures at three points: prior to the start of the content block on "Operational Art"; after the case study of the WW2 battle of Leyte Gulf but prior to any wargaming; and for subjects in wargaming course sections, after participating in the Leyte Gulf scenario of the "War at Sea" wargame. The results support the hypotheses that wargaming increases learning and alter student preferences in favor of learning through gaming but fail to find evidence that students recognize the value of the debriefing phase of educational gaming. This article adds to existing studies by focusing on an understudied practitioner population--graduate-level career military officers at a professional military education (PME) institution--and mitigating several of the methodological challenges facing many scholarly projects in the study of educational gaming in political science.

Decades of scholarship on teaching and learning affirm the benefits of public service internships on student learning outcomes. Studies emphasize how hands-on fieldwork can increase students' substantive knowledge, political efficacy, trust in government, and civic participation, among other factors. However, most articles treat internships equally without accounting for the variation in the institutionalization of experiential-learning programs within and across universities. We theorize that more structured internship programs (e.g., more student credits, intentionally designed curricula, additional faculty guidance) yield larger impacts on learning objectives centered on civic culture and education. We test this theory by analyzing three years of student data from two public universities' fieldwork programs. We compare pretest and posttest survey results from undergraduates (1) participating in structured public service internship programs run in a state capital, (2) participating in internships pursued independently, and (3) majoring in a social science degree but having yet to complete an internship. We find that students pursuing a solo internship or via a structured program begin and end with higher political knowledge, efficacy, civic engagement, and related attitudes than the control group. We also find the more systematized an internship experience, the bigger the effect on key student learning outcomes. These results underscore how political science departments can fortify civic culture through more structured public service internship programs.

This paper introduces a new pedagogic approach to the teaching of political science. In engineering education, the Conceive-Design-Implement-Operate (CDIO) pedagogy provides an active, experiential learning experience, structuring learning around four key phases in product development. Applied to the undergraduate Politics and International Relations (IR) classroom, this pedagogical innovation in learning, teaching and assessment is adapted to policy development. This design-build-test pedagogical approach has been highly successful in engineering education, supporting students to be "industry-ready engineers" on graduation. Results across 3 cohorts suggest that this pedagogical innovation is also highly successful when transferred to Politics and IR, supporting political science students develop "society-ready" attitudes, attributes and skills, greatly enhancing the student experience and increasing their attainment, engagement, inclusion and wider graduate outcomes. Civic engagement and the ability to understand and respond to a range of stakeholders are also improved. This paper presents the pedagogy and the module to which it was applied as a case study, before highlighting opportunities for political science educators to transfer the pedagogy to their own teaching context.

How can information literacy (IL) skills be improved during one semester? The proliferation of information disorders - fabricated stories, misleading content, clickbait - requires skills beyond using a fake-news checklist. Students in an introductory political science course were asked to analyze a news story every week as a course objective to increase IL. Thirty sections of American Government & Politics were given versions of an assignment eventually named "News Analysis." Class averages did not improve over time; instead, most semesters saw a negative correlation between the number of iterations of the assignment and the average class score. The instructor changed tactics multiple times to address these shortcomings, but deficiencies in IL reflected both instructor failure and systemic problems in higher education.

In 2018, we sought to understand the difference in pedagogical training opportunities and demand within political science departments across the U.S. through surveys of political scientists. Since then, the COVID-19 pandemic forced faculty to rethink the way they do assessment and lectures resulting in stress and burnout. To measure attitudes, resources, and opportunities for teaching and teacher-training in this new environment, we once again surveyed American Political Science Association (APSA) members. Using APSA membership provides a large pool of political scientists, however as a sample it may skew toward more tenure and tenure-track faculty at larger universities. With that caveat, almost all APSA members in our 2021 survey reported that their in-person courses were converted to a remote, hybrid, or web assisted format in the 2020 to 2021 period. While morale and confidence in teaching declined during the pandemic, interest in offering alternative forms of teaching like synchronous remote courses increased. Respondents found pedagogy training more important following the pandemic, despite a decline in participation. Furthermore, interest in this training remained stable between prepandemic and postpandemic periods. These findings suggest that declining participation in these activities is more reflective of a lack of time and institutional rewards rather than less interest in training opportunities. These shifting attitudes call for increased opportunities for pedagogy training. As with prior findings, incentives would encourage political scientists to increase their participation in pedagogy training as many do not feel rewarded for their teaching efforts.

In a highly polarized political environment, political discourse on divisive topics is all the more important. Heeding the many calls for higher education to teach political discourse skills, this study investigates the impact of political discourse lessons in a college-level, political science classroom. Further, it explores the effectiveness of student-peers as teachers. The study finds peers, compared to faculty, are better able to relate to students, and this strength is ideal for teaching subjects that require social connections such as the active listening and perspective taking techniques. Discussion of sensitive political topics can easily lead to discomfort and uneasiness. Our findings suggest that student learners may be more receptive to peer-leaders than to instructors when it comes to such situations. Further peer-teachers experienced increased comfort levels when involved in controversial political discussions and increased ability to engage in political dialogue.

This paper analyses faculty experiences tackling global knowledge asymmetries by examining the decolonisation of higher education in Africa in the aftermath of the 2015 'Rhodes Must Fall' student uprising. An overview of the literature reveals a rich debate on defining 'decolonisation', starting from a critique of Eurocentrism to propositions of alternate epistemologies. These debates are dominated by the Global North and South Africa and their experiences of curriculum reform. Our focus is on the experiences of political scientists in Botswana, Ghana, Kenya, and Zimbabwe. These countries share the same Anglophone political science traditions but represent different political trajectories that constitute a significant condition for the discipline. The 26 political scientists we interviewed acted toward increasing local content and perspectives in their teaching, as promoted in the official strategies of the universities. They noted that what was happening in lecture halls was most important. The academic decolonisation debate appeared overambitious or even as patronising to them in their own political context. National politics affected the thematic focus of the discipline both as far as research topics and students' employment opportunities were concerned. Although university bureaucracies were slow to respond to proposed curricula changes, new programmes were approved if there was a market-based demand for them. International programs tended to be approved fastest. Political economy of higher education plays a role: dependency on foreign funding, limited national resources to conduct research and produce publications vis-à-vis international competition, and national quality assurance standards appeared to be most critical constraints for decolonising the curriculum.

Middle East studies, and in particular the study of the politics of the Middle East stands at a crossroads pedagogically a decade after the Arab Spring. This study observed an experimental pre- or partial Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL) engagement between Political Science students in New Zealand and the Sultanate of Oman to investigate whether COIL-based approaches, couched in decolonizing pedagogical theory and new digital communication technologies, could offer a useful tool for instructors and students in the field to begin to address enduring western (un)conscious paradigms of "The Middle East."

This paper pilots a method of testing the learning effects of a role-playing simulation of negotiations over the Nile basin. Players negotiate how to apply general principles from international law, such as sharing water equitably and avoiding significant harm, to specific circumstances of the river basin. Students are presented with a set of factual statements about the basin and surveyed before and after play as to which facts will be (were) most important in negotiations. Surveys of 75 participating graduate students show interesting patterns: (1) a shift from emphasis on managing risks to exploiting cooperative opportunities; (2) change in the value orientation of the statements students consider most important, with development-oriented values increasing and environment-oriented values decreasing; and (3) change in the dimensions of power students consider most salient, including an increased appreciation for the institutional and knowledge-related elements of power and a de-emphasis on the structural aspects of power. Before-and-after surveying offers an alternative to the more common methods of learning assessment, based on knowledge acquisition or student satisfaction, while discussion of the survey results with students allows for a richer, more reflective learning experience.

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 to group problem-solving. In a previous study, we showed in the political science classroom that TBL enhanced student appreciation for working in teams. Positive experiences with teamwork develop interpersonal skills that help our students get into the door in a competitive job market where entry positions demand skills for effective collaboration and communication. In this study, I determine the effect of the pandemic-induced requirement to use TBL in a virtual environment on student appreciation for working in teams. Due to the duration of the pandemic, this study includes data from multiple semesters. This study confirms that TBL is effective at improving student attitudes toward working in teams during in-person semesters, but data from online semesters does not demonstrate a significant impact on positive attitudes toward teams. I explore three possible explanations for this finding. I conclude that to capture the benefits of online team-based learning, we must consider new strategies to ensure all key elements of TBL are applied.

Responding to student concerns about the market value of an undergraduate degree in Political Science, many departments offer students the opportunity to earn credits toward their degree by completing relevant internships. This raises two important questions: what sort of internship experiences should qualify as a Political Science internship and how can faculty ensure that internships contribute to students' professional and academic development? I contend that the criteria for granting Political Science credits for an internship experience should emphasize the likelihood that the internship experience will help the student achieve some of the specific learning objectives that Political Science departments typically set forth for their students rather than focusing on the nature of the organization where they complete their internship. I also argue that designing complementary academic assignments that require students to utilize the research, analytic, and communication skills we expect our students to develop during their undergraduate career is the best way we can ensure that a Political Science internship not only enhances our students' marketability but also contributes to students' achievement of discipline-specific learning objectives.

The rise of populism has sparked a debate about the role of facts in public discourse. How should higher education teachers respond? This article reviews the literature on approaches to teaching and identifies and problematises a tension between emphases on facts and thinking. It then outlines the current 'post-truth' challenge, which suggests reasserting the importance of facts. The institutional, disciplinary and personal context of the article are considered before it proposes hooks' (1994) 'engaged pedagogy' as a prescient response to the current post-truth moment. That approach provides an anti-authoritarianism that has the potential to break down barriers between teachers (experts) and students (trainee experts), accommodate different ways of knowing, and promote collective science. This is illustrated with an example of teaching practice from a first-year undergraduate seminar on politics in ethnically divided societies, which highlights how, despite its limitations, engaged pedagogy can facilitate the incorporation of facts "within" thinking.

As the cradle of cultivating talents, universities are facing great opportunities and challenges in their education. Among them, IPE (ideological and political education), as an important foundation for the future growth of university students, is of great significance. This paper discusses the relationship between IPE and psychological fitness education in university teaching. This paper expounds the necessity and feasibility of playing the role of psychological fitness education in IPECU (ideological and political education in colleges and universities). Based on this, this paper gives the strategy of infiltrating psychological fitness education into IPE. This paper combines NN (neural network) method to construct an assessment model of IPE quality. In this paper, MATLAB is used for simulation and comparative analysis. The final experiment shows that the RMSE of this algorithm is 0.512, MAE is 1.089, and the accuracy of the algorithm is 0.958.

This article analyses the significance of ideological and political education for college students in Tibet and proposes a natural language model for an ideological education curriculum to improve the accuracy of students' document search. The segmentation results are optimized to enhance literature search accuracy, promoting the development of ideological education in Tibetan universities. By utilizing N-gram language models and enhanced technical modes, key information can be quickly obtained, developing students' interest in ideological education. The construction of a corpus is deemed crucial for expedited access to ideological education documents. The study suggests that combining information technology with ideological education can create new opportunities for innovation and reform in the field.

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)." The article discusses the popularity of simulations and the reasons that political science educators use them. It establishes the KESE framework and pays particular attention to the ways that simulations might promote soft skills (e.g., public speaking, negotiation) and/or empathy. Then, to investigate the extent to which simulations promote KESE goals, the article examines several years of pre- and post-surveys of students who did and did not participate in the Mid-Atlantic European Union Simulation. It finds that the KESE framework and intentional, systematic assessment of all four KESE components can help to capture the full array of simulations' potential benefits.

Much of the literature on research-oriented teaching relies on the impressions of instructors who have experimented with such practices. Often authors are enthusiastic. This article shifts the focus to assess student satisfaction with such methods. We hypothesize that a student preference for research-based learning in Political Science would grow out of having a positive research experience during their studies, and that on average this retrospective satisfaction will depend on the nature of the collaboration. Using multicountry survey data spanning eleven institutions, we offer a series of linear models that distinguish three different research experiences: research with their professors, research with their peers, and solo research. Our results indicate that research experience does predicts student preference for research-based learning, but the direction of that pattern depends on whether they performed the research with their professors or other students. Whereas research experiences with other students positively predict a preference for research-oriented teaching, past research collaboration with professors generated a negative assessment, especially among students with no methodological training, and who did not use their involvement in such research projects to improve their methods skills.

This paper reflects on teaching sport in political geography undergraduate courses in the United States, through which I simultaneously aim to de-essentialize geopolitics and de-essentialize sport. I integrate sport examples in diverse courses on political geography and teach a dedicated "Geopolitics of Sport" course. By framing my approach to the political geographies of sport around the specific term "geopolitics," I deliberately tap into a sense among Americans that it is a "more serious" topic than "geography." Since students in my courses rarely come from Geography, but are primarily majors in Political Science and International Relations, "geopolitics" invites them to approach sports geography as a serious subject and to be more open to the field of geography. Since geography remains a neglected subject in US schools and universities, teaching sports geography through geopolitics, and geopolitics through sports geography, can be a powerful way to encourage critical geographic reasoning, especially among non-geography majors.

This paper examines the current situation of learning ESP in a non-English Department at the University of Saida, Algeria. Data were collected from the targeted population which was an ESP teacher and a group of 46 first-year License-Master-Doctorate political sciences students. Three methods of data collection were used to investigate the suitability of the designed curriculum in meeting students' needs, to analyze the teacher's methods and to see whether they are effective in boosting active ESP learning. The study uncovers the students' learning deficiencies. Results suggested that curriculum designers need to clarify some components and point out the importance of reconsidering some teaching practices in relation to needs analysis. Eventually, some recommendations are suggested to conduct ESP teaching and make it a beneficial learning opportunity.