Publishing as Pedagogy: Creating a Peer Reviewed Class Journal
By Claire Timperley, Isabel Doudney and Rita Shasha, Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington
In this article we explore a radically inclusive vision of students as scholars through showcasing a peer reviewed class journal assignment used in an upper-level undergraduate political science class. This assignment exposes undergraduate students to the publication process and enables them to see their potential to contribute to the discipline, supports the development of advanced research and writing skills, and creates a curious, engaged and reflective community of learners.
This assignment is novel in offering this opportunity to regular undergraduate students. Most undergraduate research opportunities are available to the select few, for example those enrolled in Honors programs, selected to submit to university-wide undergraduate research journals or individually mentored by a professor. The assumption underlying this assignment, however, is that all senior undergraduate students are capable of producing high quality, original work, if given incentive and support to do so.
The class journal designed for this course aimed to simulate the academic peer-review process, enabling students to develop their own original research article, undergo and respond to peer review, and publish their work in a class journal. Students were not only responsible for their own individual research, but took on roles across the journal editing and publication process, including copy-editing, peer review allocation, journal formatting and creating a cover page.
There were three main learning objectives for this assignment: 1) to strengthen students’ understandings of their potential as scholars; 2) to develop advanced research and writing skills, and 3) to cultivate a community of reflective, ethusiastic learners. Student feedback reflected success across all three objectives. Many student noted that they had never been told they had something to offer the subject they were studying or given an opportunity to engage in peer review and present their work for publication before. Working on the journal gave students a stronger sense of academic work as a collaborative and creative endeavor rather than a competitive or passive one, and many reported that the communal nature of this assignment counteracted the sense of isolation and anxiety that many felt as a consequence of the pandemic. Some students even went on to submit and publish their work in the national political science research magazine.
For the three co-authors of this article (two students from the class and the instructor) the experience of creating a peer reviewed class journal was a hugely rewarding one. The assignment was conceived and designed before the pandemic, but held up well in the context of a rapid move to hybrid learning. One of the student co-authors took this course almost entirely online from overseas, while the other was able to attend classes in person, but despite these different modalities, both agreed that the community developed through this assignment was a notable aspect of its success. Students across the course noted how much they loved the assignment, and spoke of their growing confidence, a sense of accomplishment, the community bonds that formed, and how memorable, enjoyable and valuable the assignment was. We strongly encourage other political science educators to consider the possibilities of publishing as pedagogy.
The Journal of Political Science Education is an intellectually rigorous, path-breaking, agenda-setting journal that publishes the highest quality scholarship on teaching and pedagogical issues in political science. The journal aims to represent the full range of questions, issues and approaches regarding political science education, including teaching-related issues, methods and techniques, learning/teaching activities and devices, educational assessment in political science, graduate education, and curriculum development.