How the Research Design Can Be a Structure, a Process, and a Product for Learning Political Science

Abstract

When students learn research methods concepts without having to apply them to their own research the learning is quickly forgotten and not well understood. In this chapter the author shows that students can do their own original research and describes how the research design, as both a process and a product, can structure the learning process for students and break it into manageable stages. Three premises underlie this approach: A belief that students can do research, that students learn best when grappling with ideas that interest them, and starting at the student’s own level. As a result, students learn key research skills as well as developing a deeper understanding of the provisional and social nature of the way knowledge is produced.