Pedagogical Value of Polling-Place Observation by Students

Abstract

Good education requires student experiences that deliver lessons about practice as well as theory and that encourage students to work for the public good—especially in the operation of democratic institutions (Dewey 1923; Dewy 1938). We report on an evaluation of the pedagogical value of a research project involving 23 colleges and universities across the country. Faculty trained and supervised students who observed polling places in the 2016 General Election. Our findings indicate that this was a valuable learning experience in both the short and long terms. Students found their experiences to be valuable and reported learning generally and specifically related to course material. Postelection, they also felt more knowledgeable about election science topics, voting behavior, and research methods. Students reported interest in participating in similar research in the future, would recommend other students to do so, and expressed interest in more learning and research about the topics central to their experience. Our results suggest that participants appreciated the importance of elections and their study. Collectively, the participating students are engaged and efficacious—essential qualities of citizens in a democracy.

Experiential Learning Revisited: Lessons from a Student-Led Public Opinion Polling Class

“…The BSP results are intended to provide a reliable measure of public opinion in the state of Montana, not merely to submit an assignment at the end of the semester. This process is in contrast to current polling experiential-learning practices, which primarily focus on class assignments at the undergraduate level (Bennion 2006;Mann 2018;Williamson 2011).…”

“…Polling as an experiential-learning exercise in college classrooms is not uncommon (Cantor 1995). Mann (2018) described an experiential-learning course in which undergraduate students observed polling places during the 2016 election. Participation in this exercise increased students' interest in future research and allowed them to directly experience political processes rather than simply reading, watching, or hearing about them (Mann 2018).…”

“…Most university-based polling operations that involve students restrict their participation to the periphery. Most commonly, student roles within these operations are limited to staffing the telephone bank, observation, and occasionally cleaning the raw data and conducting basic template analyses (Mann 2018;Williamson 2011). Although professors direct the BSP, students are integral to each step of the process.…”

“…M any professors across the United States endeavor to create course structures that maximize material retention while simultaneously developing concrete "real-world" skills. Increased utilization of experiential pedagogical methods can bring these abstract concepts to life (Mann 2018). This article uses experiential-learning literature as a descriptive framework to investigate the yearlong public opinion polling course at the University of Montana (UM): the Big Sky Poll (BSP).…”

“…This article discusses the lessons that we can learn from a student-led yearlong polling course in a rural, Western state. We describe the elements of this co-taught interdisciplinary polling course, which goes beyond other experiential-learning courses that incorporate polling (Mann 2018).…”