psephology and pedagogy: data analysis in british politics learning and teaching - andrew gunn...

Psephology and Pedagogy: Data analysis in British Politics learning and teaching.

Andrew GunnHEA Annual Social Science Conference

Birmingham May 2014

Faculty of Education, Social Science and Law

HEA Social Sciences strategic prioritiesTeaching research methods in the Social

Sciences

Loyalty PointsThe presentation is grounded in a ‘Loyalty points’ future scenario and uses this potential polity as a context. In this world learners wish to develop a ‘toolbox of skills’ to enable them to find, analyse and selectively share information. To be able to source and understand numerical information, wherever it is found, is essential for ambitious individuals to survive and succeed.

In this environment, individuals ‘seek out’ and ‘buy-in’ the skills they perceive they need to give them the mobility to navigate the lattice of associations and affiliations around them. Higher education is expected to empower learners to ‘find their niche’ as individuals and high expectations are placed on universities to provide a distinctive and high quality learning experience. The state takes the role of regulator, as opposed to funder, and the returns to education and value for money are high priorities.

As a result of this, the need for basic quantitative research skills is paramount and narratives around ‘pedagogies of discovery and exploration’ that underpin a rich learning experience have become fashionable. The ideas in this presentation can be regarded as preparation for learners within this possible future scenario.


ContextAgendas such as ‘Q-Step’ identify the need to address dearth of numeric skills and the unpopularity of methods teaching. In the Political Science context:

Ryan et al. (2014) argue that student dissatisfaction with undergraduate research methods courses in politics is common and suggest that methods teaching suffers from an unhealthy disassociation between research in theory and research in practice. Students often feel alienated by the lack of clear connections between methods and the subject knowledge they encounter in the rest of their degree.

Adaney and Carey (2009) identify “the most effective way to teach research methods is to ensure that the course is not a stand-alone one, but is integrated into the ethos of the department”.

Leston-Bandeira (2013) advocates a discipline-embedded research-oriented approach where students have a sense of ownership in their learning process to ensure student engagement with methods teaching and promote research skills in politics graduates.

:


RationaleAs attention has shifted from the postgraduate to undergraduate provision of methods teaching, I argue there is the need to reconsider the curriculum at the preparatory level and the first impression learner’s form of quantitative methods. There is a need to explain to learners the fundamental rationale for data analysis and to ‘break-the-ice’ where numbers are involved.

This project unites subject knowledge with methods through building a bridge between issues in British Politics and psephology. British Politics is an ideal application as there is a large quantity of up-to-date ‘real world data’ that can be directly embedded into the curriculum.

The project seeks to communicate the value of quantitative analysis to first year undergraduates through showing the potential of these methods using active learning pedagogies. It seeks to stimulate some initial interest and highlight why students should use quantitative methods in the future. It is based on the assumption that students have little prior understanding of data analysis and need to be introduced to these themes gradually.


Project Aims1. Focus exclusively on the first year undergraduate curriculum to

develop introductory level skills and create a positive ‘first impression’ of quantitative methods.

2. To demonstrate how psephology can be used in learning resources to embed quantitative methods into the curriculum and explain the relevance of data.

3. Develop teaching materials using active learning pedagogies to deliver the above.

The intended benefits of the project include making learners:

a. appreciate the full range of British Politics literature, and understand the role of data analysis as it is found in existing publications involving numbers

b. be more confident and competent in reading tables, maps, graphs and charts

c. be aware of the data sources that exist, the organisations that collect it, how quantitative evidence is used in decision making both within political parties and government (and indirectly the graduate careers requiring quantitative skills)

d. perceive quantitative methods as being a useful, relevant and central part of their studies.


Psephology

Psephology is the analysis of voting and

opinion poll data.

The results of UK elections provides a

wealth of information, both as raw data and in

secondary sources. Students can be

introduced to data on voter turnout, and party

performance by national share and

constituency.


The British Election Study

The British Election Study is funded by the ESRC and has been conducted at every General Election since 1964.

Its main goal is to describe and to explain why people vote, why they vote as they do, what affects the

outcome, and the consequences for democracy in Britain.

Although attention has been paid to maximise the value of the BES for researchers, little work has been

undertaken to maximise the resource for teaching purposes.

Each year NatCen's British Social Attitudes survey asks over 3000 people what it's like to live in Britain and what they think about how Britain is run. Since 1983 it has measured and tracked changes in people's social, political and moral attitudes.

Psephology


Psephology


Polling is a big business and the companies provide a continuous supply of data which can be harnessed as a teaching resource

A strength of polling data is the topical nature of the information which relates to contemporary events. Whereas there is a time-lag in academic publishing, polling data is increasingly ‘instant data’ enabling some taught content to follow changing political phenomena.

Polling data is also wide ranging, including voting intentions, perceptions of party leadership, and the views of voters on a range of issues. Much of this data can be broken down by variables such as class, age, gender and geography.

Psephology


Active Learning Pedagogies This project is situated at the intersection of the British politics curriculum, psephology, communicating quantitative methods and active learning pedagogies.

To successfully embed psephology into the curriculum we need to consider the whole learning process and the role of more interactive, collaborative and student-centred approaches. Psephology provides a good opportunity for hands-on data handling on the part of the learners and an opportunity to develop active learning activities on the part of teachers.

Active learning pedagogies place the student at the centre of the learning process where they are ‘active’ - as opposed to ‘passive’ - learners. Student engagement and reflection characterise active learning, which may develop academic skills such as analysis, synthesis and evaluation (Leston-Bandeira, 2012 p.54).


Lecture

Private time

readingSeminar

Psephology and Pedagogy


AcademicLiterature

Psephology

Theory and Concepts

Large group teaching to introduce topic and equip

students with relevant theories and concepts.

Tutor-led didactic approaches work well for

this purpose

Active learning pedagogies

where students explore real

data and trends in practice –

informed by knowledge of

theories. Provides a

different small group learning experience and

develops different skills

Where to situate the active learning pedagogies:

Reading select

academic books and

journal articles to deepen student

knowledge



Learning materials were developed to realise the project objectives based on the UK 2010 General Election.

These were designed to show a strong and succinct connection to subject knowledge.

These were sourced from both polling and electoral datasets and some analysis undertaken in published academic British Politics scholarship.

The initial idea for the project came from feedback that some learners were finding reading tables and graphs very challenging. Lema at al. (2013) explain how the interpretation of graphs such as histograms and box plots is not always easy for students. The materials sought to develop these skills.

Ipsos MORI: How Britain Voted in 2010

Voting and

social class

PartySeat

s+/- Votes % +/-%

PRSeats

Conservative

307 +9710,726,61

436.1 +3.8 234

Labour 258 -91 8,609,527 29.0 -6.2 189

Liberal Democrat

57 -5 6,836,824 23.0 +1.0 150

2010 Election: Effects of First Past of the PostThe difference between seats

and votes

The estimated number of seats there would be under proportional representation


Psephology and Pedagogy The activities assume learners have

background knowledge. For example, theories of voting behaviour: Expressive: Social Class vs. Instrumental: rational actors.

Polling and electoral data were selected that can be ‘plugged into’ key debates and a series of questions and activities devised to structure learning.

The activities include mainly interpreting data but also data handling, analysis and presentation. Including: Reading data in tables with rows and columns or presented in a wide range of ways including graphs and maps Reading and understanding data analysis as it appears in published articles Investigating if theory can be found in practice: how trends in actual electoral data match up to theories in voting and elections literature Looking to see how powerful certain variables are in explaining voting behaviour at a particular election Assessing historical trends, such as voter turnout overtime Making a judgement and writing a statement based on data





In the class, the tutor is guiding the process not delivering knowledge

The activities were successful at being 'self sustaining’; where the data raised further questions, which the students sought to answer

Further fine-tuning and evaluation are required

Polling data into the perceptions of leadership across a series of a televised

debates

Students explored the data to search for their own trends and find interesting facts Data revealed trends the students were not aware of Student undertook basic data handling and presentation


Thank you very much

Andrew Gunn

[email protected]

ReferencesAdeney, K. and Carey, S. (2009) 'Contextualising the Teaching of Statistics in Political Science', Politics, 29:3.

Andersen, K. and Harsell, D. (2005) 'Assessing the Impact of a Quantitative Skills Course for Undergraduates’ Journal of Political Science Education, 1:1.

Armbruster, P.; Patel, M. and Johnson, E. (2009) ‘Active learning and student-centered pedagogy improve student attitudes and performance in introductory biology’ CBE-Life Sciences Education, 8:3 pp.203–213.

Arzheimer, K. and Evans, J.A.J. (2012) ’Geolocation and voting: candidate-voter distance effects on party choice in the 2010 UK general election in England’. Political Geography, 31:5, pp.301 – 310.

Berry, M. J. and Robinson, T. (2012) 'An Entrance to Exit Polling: Strategies for Using Exit Polls as Experiential Learning Projects', PS: Political Science & Politics, 45:03.

Craig, J. (2012) ‘What (if anything) is Different about Teaching and Learning in Politics?’ in Gormely-Heenan, C. and Lightfoot, S. ed. Teaching Politics and International Relations, Basingstoke: Palgrave.

Curtis, S. (2012) ’How Relevant are Other Ways to Learn?’ in Gormely-Heenan, C. and Lightfoot, S. ed. Teaching Politics and International Relations, Basingstoke: Palgrave.

Daddow, O. (2010) ‘ “I Didn’t Take a Politics Degree to Study Maths”: Teaching Quantitative Methods in a Qualitative Discipline', MSOR Connections, 10:1.

Denver, D. and Garnett, M. (2014) British General Elections Since 1964: Diversity, Dealignment, and Disillusion. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Denver, D. (2012) Elections and Voters in Britain, Basingstoke: Palgrave


Denver, D. (2010) ‘How Britain Voted’ Parliamentary Affairs, 63:4, pp.588-606.

Gelman, A. and Nolan, D. (2002) Teaching Statistics: A Bag of Tricks. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Graffam, B. (2007) ‘Active learning in medical education: strategies for beginning implementation’ Medical Teacher, 29:1, pp.38-42.

Lema, S. et al. (2013) ‘On the misinterpretation of histograms and box plots’, Educational Psychology: An International Journal of Experimental Educational Psychology, 33:2, pp.155-174.

Leston-Bandeira, C. (2013) ‘Methods Teaching through a Discipline Research-Oriented Approach’ POLITICS, 33:3, pp.207–219.

Leston-Bandeira, C. (2012) ’Enhancing Politics Teaching through Active Learning’ in Gormely-Heenan, C. and Lightfoot, S. ed. Teaching Politics and International Relations, Basingstoke: Palgrave.

Lightfoot, S. and Piotukh, V. (2014) ‘The Research–Teaching Nexus in Politics and International Relations in the UK: A Survey of Practices and Attitudes’ POLITICS.

MacInnes, J. (2012) ‘Quantitative Methods teaching in UK Higher Education: The state of the field and how it might be improved’. HEA Social Sciences teaching and learning summit: Teaching research methods. Warwick, June 2012 http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/assets/documents/events/SS_assets/Blog/MacInnes_fullpaper1.pdf

Ryan, M. et al. (2014) ‘Improving Research Methods Teaching and Learning in Politics and International Relations: A ‘Reality Show’ Approach’ POLITICS, 34:1, pp.85–97.

Theakston, K. and Gill, M. (2006) 'Rating 20th-Century British Prime Ministers'. The British Journal of Politics and International Relations, 8:2, pp.193-213.

Worcester, R. et al. (2011) Explaining Cameron's Coalition: An Analysis of the 2010 British General Election. Biteback Publishing.


http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/assets/documents/events/SS_assets/Blog/MacInnes_fullpaper1.pdf

http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/assets/documents/events/SS_assets/Blog/MacInnes_fullpaper1.pdf

psephology and pedagogy: data analysis in british politics learning and teaching - andrew gunn...

Education

unpopularity of methods

role of data analysis

data sources

raw data

relevance of data

value of quantitative

psephology psephology

higher education