Teaching Methods in the Digital Era: New Data, Project Seminars, and Self-learning Modules

Abstract

In recent years, data structures in political science have changed and are now more diverse. Social media and digital trace data broaden the set of sources and the methodological portfolio in the social sciences. Here, we review and summarize these recent developments in the context of teaching political science methods. We argue that (i) teaching methods should be more connected to theoretical and substantive questions. Further, (ii) this should take place in the format of project seminars, which allows students to conduct independent research. Through new data sources, (iii) students are able to follow the entire research process – from generating data to analyzing the information. Only parts of the learning will take place in typical classroom teaching; (iv) programming skills will be supplemented through e‑learning elements. The high focus on active learning elements and individual learning speed should raise the interest for quantitative methods among students of political science.