Document Type
Article
Department
School of Government & International Affairs
DOI
10.32727/27.2022.1
Publication Date
Summer 7-20-2022
Description
Introductory political science courses are usually considered Gateway courses to student success in college, yet those courses often use minimal high impact practices. This study investigates a Course-based Undergraduate Research Experience (CURE) as a means to increase students’ self-assessed learning gains and motivation to acquire critical thinking skills. This study used a quasi-experiment across two online sections of POLS 1101, American Government, taught at a large public Southeastern university. The experimental section made use of a CURE, and the control section did not. Pre- and post- surveys indicated significant differences in self-assessed learning gains. The section with the CURE showed more confidence and a better understanding of political science. No difference was found in motivation for acquiring critical thinking skills.
CURE_Study_Pre_Survey.docx (31 kB)
Merged data qualitative for content analysis.xlsx (49 kB)
Merged data quantitative for SPSS.xlsx (57 kB)
Merged data with formulas and codebook.xlsx (102 kB)
Results - Content analysis.xlsx (52 kB)
Results - Descriptive charts.xlsx (28 kB)
Results - Inferential.xlsx (15 kB)