Existing Theories of congressional retirement have developed in the cotext of the House of Representatives and thus do not consider important differences between the Senate and the House. Our empirical analysis of Senate retirement from 1962 to 2000 demonstrates that retirement decsions of Senators are not affected by the same things that affect their House colleagues' decisions; electoral safety and the value of formal insttutional positions influence Senators less than House members. Senate retirement decisions are affected by the age of the member and majoritparty status. We discuss implications of our results for the Senate's opeation and place in the constitutional system.

Political Science research methods courses face two problems. First is what to cover, as there are too many techniques to explore in any one course. Second is dealing with student anxiety around quantitative material. We explore a novel way to approach these issues. Our students began by writing a qualitative paper. They followed with a term paper, on the same topic, that incorporated material learned in the qualitative paper with quantitative data analysis. This helps students appreciate how different methods complement one another. By starting with more familiar qualitative techniques, then moving to the quantitative, and by writing the paper in stages, we help alleviate student anxiety. Students start within their comfort zone, then move outside it once their attention has been piqued by their research question. We offer a multimethod analysis of the advantages and limitations of this approach. While not perfect, it offers another option for teaching this challenging course. We conclude by discussing how to build upon this approach in the future.Keywords qualitative methods, quantitative methods, research methods, student anxiety Recent years have seen growth in the importance of, and offerings in, research methods courses in political science (Thies and Hogan 2005; Turner and Thies 2009); the much-discussed Wahlke report (1991) included a recommendation that all students gain familiarity with research methods. Graduate programs have long had intensive (and expanding) methods requirements, but the last two decades have seen a dramatic rise in methods courses for undergraduates. Presumably, these courses help students understand better the content of what they are learning in their courses (since the professional literature is inaccessible to students not versed in the language of methodology). Such courses should also explore how knowledge is created in the discipline, how to differentiate good work from bad work, and how to ''think like a political scientist.'' 1 Methods courses, especially at the undergraduate level, immediately face two challenges. First are questions of what to teach (Turner and Thies 2009) and when to teach it (Dell and Nakazato 2007). The varied methods used in political science-surveys, interviews, focus groups, observation, field study, textual analysis, etc.-all warrant treatment in a methodology course. No single course could address all these methods at anything more than a superficial level. What to cover links to the competencies we wish students to gain: Should we aim to make students better consumers of political science research, or should they produce their own original work on a disciplinary question? Finally, we must ask when this material should be taught; should it be done early on (to orient students to the discipline) or should we wait to teach methods until students feel more comfortable with the substance of political science?A second challenge is the anxiety students feel about methods, particularly (but not exclusively) quantitative methods (Bos and Schneider 2009; B...

Does the content of political science courses affect civic learning? The authors examine whether differences in students' self-reported knowledge, cynicism, and participation depend on whether their American government course included a character-playing simulation. The authors use an innovative longitudinal, quasi-experimental research design to test not only for immediate effects but also for those that differentiated the two groups 3 years after they took the course. Differential effects of the simulation at the end of the particular course are virtually nonexistent. Three years later, however, students who had the simulation reported more understanding of the concepts taught in the simulation than did the control group. They also emerged less politically cynical. No differences were observed, however, on items reflecting political participation.For years, it has been almost axiomatic that government classes are an important part of civic education. These courses are thought to teach knowledge and critical thinking and to perform other critical aspects of political socialization (Niemi & Junn, 1998). To date, however, little work has been done on evaluating the variable nature of government courses and its effect on civic learning. Here, we examine the effect of introductory American government courses taught with and without a characterplaying simulation. Our goal is to determine whether the way we teach American government classes has an effect on students'self-reported knowledge, political cynicism, and future political participation. Downloaded fromThe congressional simulation analyzed in this article was developed and implemented in full by the first author during the fall 1998 and winter 1999 semesters (a more limited trial run was attempted during the preceding summer). It was developed for a 100-student introductory American government course at Eastern Michigan University, a regional comprehensive university. 1 Because the simulation is a major departure from the typical introductory course in American politics, an evaluation was put in place to assess the effects of this curricular change as compared to a standard American politics course taught by the same instructor.This article compares student learning, cynicism, and participation based on whether their American government course included the simulation. We first provide an overview of the simulation's operation. Next, we discuss the rationale for using the simulation and describe the evaluation plan put into place to assess its effects. We then analyze results from this evaluation, demonstrating that simulations do have an effect on student learning and political cynicism (but not participation); these results are most likely to occur a few years after students have completed the course. We conclude by discussing how these results can shape future research on simulations. Becoming Congress: How the simulation worksThe simulation took place for 3 weeks during the third quarter of the semester. For this simulation, students were divided into one o...

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A broad consensus exists that the use of appropriate methods are important in the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning. However, methodological controversies arise around what constitutes acceptable evidence, if one needs a control group, how generalizable results must be, and other similar issues. Much SoTL work, I argue, asks questions about how much a particular treatment (innovation) caused an effect (student learning), and how the results found in one particular context can be extended outside that context (generalizability). These concepts, known as internal validity and external validity, respectively, provide a common point of departure for much scholarship on teaching and learning. This paper addresses these concepts and demonstrates how they can unite much of what divides us within the methodological realm of SoTL.