(Page 4 of 80) - Changing Teaching Practice in a Research Methods Course Utilizing a Student-Centered Approach authored by Shingles, Richard., Becerra, Raquel. and Pencek, Bruce.

Shingles, Becerra & Pencek
Virginia Tech

February, 2006

APSA Teaching & Learning Conference

Teaching Research Methods the Conventional Way

This paper originates in reflections on problems encountered during years of experience
teaching undergraduate methods, which raise fundamental questions about the purpose
and pedagogy of teaching required undergraduate research methods courses in Political
Science. The conventional approach employed in contemporary methods courses is best
described as post-positivist (Schwandt, 1990; Brewer and Hunter, 2006: xxi, 151-153),
defined as the adaptation of scientific method, as developed in the natural sciences, to
the study of human behavior, while recognizing science as one method of knowing, and
an imperfect one at that. Schwartz-Shea & Yanow (2002) examined the degree to which
fourteen political science research methods textbooks engage epistemological issues and
found that all the texts explicitly endorsed or implicitly assumed a narrow positivist
(“post-positivist” might be more accurate) definitions of science that, while they may
briefly address other forms of knowing, are primarily devoted to quantitative analysis.

The typical methods course provides an introduction to the scientific method as the
most valid and reliable way of knowing, followed by semester long instruction in the
principal steps of the empirical research process: identification of research problems,
formulation of research questions, the generation of testable hypotheses, research
design, data collection (conceptualization and measurement, sampling, principal
methods of obtaining empirical data), hypothesis testing using descriptive and
inferential statistics, aided by statistical software, and the reading and writing of
research reports. “Best practices” provide hands on experience, walking students
through the research process, either with data collected by the students or secondary
analysis of available data sets, culminating in student research reports.

Teaching undergraduate research methods this conventional way, especially when it is a
required course, can be a daunting task. A major challenge in teaching a required
undergraduate research methods course is that students can become easily
disenchanted and “tune out.” For instance, “I don't get it," "they use too big of words,"
or "why can't they speak English" are phrases heard all too often from undergraduate
students who are asked to read scholarly, research-based literature (Williams, 2005).
Thus, a pedagogical challenge deals with the delicate balance between our desire to

educate undergraduate students on the language of research and the tools employed,
and designing method courses to be user-friendly enough as to guard against students’
resistance to learn the material. Some scholars have framed this dilemma in terms of
the risk of “dummying down” the course in order to address students’ dissatisfaction.
For instance, Williams (2005) asks the question “Do we send our students forth into the
jungle of research literature and risk their becoming lost? Or do we water down and
decipher concepts identified by sound research-based literature for sake of delivery?”

Perhaps we are approaching this dilemma the wrong way. Are research methods

instructors overly concerned with instructing students in quantitative research? In