Bridging Research and Teaching Responsibilities of Political Scientists

This section’s purpose is to allow participants to discuss and share their pedagogic research and responsibilities as scholars of political science. It will encourage the participants to reflect on how their experience and results of research can be used to enrich and improve teaching practices and the student learning experience and vice versa. It will allow participants to identify the challenges which may hinder desired practice, together with proposing ways of overcoming these barriers. We expect to showcase examples of good practice with the benefit of providing inspiration and encouragement for improving existing ways of teaching and learning. It is the relevance of this section across all of the sub-fields of political science, and therefore to all scholars, that makes it a vital one to support. Most of our panels will be devoted to discussing results of research into scholars’ teaching and student learning. This will enable the participants to discuss various pedagogic methods, different approaches to innovating Political Science courses and to evaluate their outcomes. Equally, the panels will allow us to address a range of important issues facing HE in the 21st century, including quality assessment and internationalisation. A section covering these issues has not always been present at ECPR conferences. During past years we have established a track record of stimulating, engaging and well attended panels involving a range of scholars from across Europe. Further, we know many colleagues who wish to become better teachers and wish their students to achieve better. Following the keen interest of members, and the experience of the APSA annual conferences where a Teaching and Learning section is well established; and the ISA support for pedagogic developments, as well as national associations’ increasing concern for these issues, we believe ECPR members should have the opportunity to engage in a similar fashion.