Engagement as an Educational Objective

Abstract

Few politics modules encourage research based learning to generate research and evidence for policy debate.This example draws from a final year undergraduate module that explores Britain’s relationship with the EU to asesses the pedagogic role of policy engagement on student learning, motivation and reflection. It argues that engagement with pratitioners creates a cognitive disequilibrium within students that enables them to learn.In practical terms this means that applying concepts to empirical problems in seminars, lectures, offline resources and assessments allows students to demonstrate originality and rigour in their work that is more easily rewarded with higher grades.Furthermore practitioner engagement offers motivational factors such as achievement, recognition and employability.The costs to this approach include the preparation of additional teaching resources and additional teaching to provide high levels of support to the students.