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Vicarious Learning in the University Classroom: Can Formal Civic Education Efforts Simulate the Effects of Real Life Experiences?
Unformatted Document Text:  1Vicarious Learning in the University Classroom: Can Formal Civic Education Efforts Stimulate the Effects of Real Life Experience? This paper contributes to research efforts exploring the impact of varied civic education approaches on students. A one-credit oral discourse course, designed as the intervention in a pre-experimental design, underscored the importance of collective political participation and attempted to strengthen the skills needed to engage in populist democratic politics. These included the communication skills of negotiation, compromise and persuasion. Findings from pre and post semester questionnaires indicate the course had limited effects on traditional measures of students’ internal and external political efficacy. Yet they also reveal improvements in assessments of social trust, the perceived effectiveness of collective political acts and the projected likelihood of participating in political activities. The roots of the Communication discipline have been inextricably intertwined with developing the skills required for democratic citizenship, and this orientation to democratic practice shaped many scholars’ approach to their work as Communication emerged as a distinct field of study in higher education (Hart, 1993; Murphy 2004). Teaching efforts in this admirable tradition have become increasingly relevant as political participation in the United States, especially among young people, continues to decline. Panel studies of college freshmen, for example, indicate that young people’s participation in an array of political indicators including thinking that keeping up with politics is important, discussing politics with friends, and acquiring political knowledge, have all declined by about half since the 1960s (Sax, et al., 2003). Far more young people voted in 2004 than in the past, as turnout by 18-24 year-olds increased from 36% in 2000 to 42%, but younger citizens’ appearance at the polls still lagged behind prior cohorts of young Americans, as well as their current elders (CIRCLE, 2005). Moreover, a single

Authors: Strachan, J. Cherie.
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1Vicarious Learning in the University Classroom:
Can Formal Civic Education Efforts Stimulate the Effects of Real Life Experience?
This paper contributes to research efforts exploring the impact of varied civic education
approaches on students. A one-credit oral discourse course, designed as the intervention
in a pre-experimental design, underscored the importance of collective political
participation and attempted to strengthen the skills needed to engage in populist
democratic politics. These included the communication skills of negotiation,
compromise and persuasion. Findings from pre and post semester questionnaires indicate
the course had limited effects on traditional measures of students’ internal and external
political efficacy. Yet they also reveal improvements in assessments of social trust, the
perceived effectiveness of collective political acts and the projected likelihood of
participating in political activities.
The roots of the Communication discipline have been inextricably intertwined
with developing the skills required for democratic citizenship, and this orientation to
democratic practice shaped many scholars’ approach to their work as Communication
emerged as a distinct field of study in higher education (Hart, 1993; Murphy 2004).
Teaching efforts in this admirable tradition have become increasingly relevant as political
participation in the United States, especially among young people, continues to decline.
Panel studies of college freshmen, for example, indicate that young people’s participation
in an array of political indicators including thinking that keeping up with politics is
important, discussing politics with friends, and acquiring political knowledge, have all
declined by about half since the 1960s (Sax, et al., 2003). Far more young people voted
in 2004 than in the past, as turnout by 18-24 year-olds increased from 36% in 2000 to
42%, but younger citizens’ appearance at the polls still lagged behind prior cohorts of
young Americans, as well as their current elders (CIRCLE, 2005). Moreover, a single


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