Power and Politics in the Classroom: The Effect of Student Roles in Simulations

We argue that power roles can make a significant difference in how students experience in-class simulations. To test this, students who participated in Congressional simulations in one of the author's introduction to American politics classes were surveyed concerning their views of Congress, th...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of political science education 2010-07, Vol.6 (3), p.217-226
Main Authors: Baranowski, Michael, Weir, Kimberly
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Active Learning
Case Method (Teaching Technique)
Classroom Techniques
Congress
Instructional Effectiveness
Leadership
Legislation
Legislative Bodies
Legislative Process
Participant Satisfaction
pedagogy
Political Attitudes
Political Parties
Political Power
Power
Role Playing
Simulation
Student Attitudes
Student Role
Students
United States Government (Course)
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:We argue that power roles can make a significant difference in how students experience in-class simulations. To test this, students who participated in Congressional simulations in one of the author's introduction to American politics classes were surveyed concerning their views of Congress, the legislative process, and the simulation experience. We then compared responses between students assigned to the majority and minority parties, as well as between students in "high-power" roles (leadership positions in the majority party) and "low-power" roles (non-leadership positions in the minority party). Power role had little effect on general views of Congress or the legislative process, but there were clear differences between power-role and non-power-role students in their views of the simulation. Students in power roles reported a greater understanding of and appreciation for the legislative process and found the simulation to be a more worthwhile experience than did students in non-power roles. Given this, simulations that enable students to experience both power and non-power roles may be preferable to those in which students only experience a single role.
ISSN:1551-2169
1551-2177
DOI:10.1080/15512169.2010.494465