Johan Adriaensen

Editors’ Introduction to the Thematic Issue: Mad about Methods? Teaching Research Methods in Political Science

Research methods are to a political scientist what a hammer is to a carpenter (Hewitt 2001). It is the main instrument by which we perform our profession. In conventional curricula, the majority of courses seek to promote the transfer of knowledge from professor to student. The challenges in teaching research methods are therefore somewhat different than many other courses in the curriculum. To quote Hewitt: “While there are some carpenters who do excellent work without ever touching a hammer, most carpenters need adequate hammering skills in order to complete their work” (2001, 371). In other words, students need to develop the necessary skills to correctly apply research methods. This implies a different educational practice. The contributors to this special issue all seek to address the challenge of teaching research methods to political science students. This introduction aims to provide a concise framework for the various innovations presented throughout this issue, situating them in the wider literature. Particular emphasis is placed on the factors that distinguish the teaching of research methods from other subjects in the political science curriculum, that is, it revolves around the acquisition of a skill rather than knowledge. Over the last decade, a large body of literature emerged identifying the challenges associated with methods instruction that provides various tools to help overcoming such challenges (see, e.g., Kilburn, Nind, and Wiles 2014; Wagner, Garner, and Kawulich 2011). Our review is structured along three different dimensions of the teaching/ learning process: the role of the student, the role of the professor, and the context in which learning takes place. For each of these, we highlight a number of factors that can enable (or constrain) the effective learning of research methods.