Teaching Political Science Online : Gender, Age and Frequency of Enrollment as Determinants of Student Perceptions and Expectations

The literature on online educations suggest that gender, age and frequency of enrollment in online classes impacts student performance in such classes. For example, females and non-traditional aged students tend to perform better in online classes than their male, traditional-aged colleagues. Building on that literature and applying it to the discipline of Political Science, this analysis looks at the impact of these variables on studentsﾒ perceptions and expectations for online Political Science classes. The data for this analysis were drawn from surveys administered to students enrolled in online courses offered by the Political Science Department during the spring 2004, fall 2006 and fall 2008 semesters. The UW-Whitewater Political Science Department has been a campus leader in online education offering several online classes each semester for several years and also allows student to complete their major wholly via online courses. The findings will also be discussed in the broader context of higher education policy. (Although this clearly falls into the ﾓTeaching, Research, ﾅ section of the WPSA, the form requires that two sections are selected for submission. Given that one variable is gender, Women and Politics was chosen as the second section.)