Teaching Research Methods through Residential Learning Communities

Learning communities have been implemented in colleges and universities across the country in an effort to enhance the learning experience for undergraduate students. Scholars have noted the potential for these communities to help students build skills outside of the classroom as well as improve their performance inside the classroom. In this paper, we investigate the potential for learning communities to improve students’ attitudes toward the oft-dreaded subject of research methods. In the fall 2022 and fall 2023 semesters, we conducted two large-scale research projects on college students’ voting behavior in which students in a residential learning community participated as undergraduate study assistants. In addition, we surveyed students who had participated in various forms of research across three years of the learning community. We find that experiential exposure to social science has a moderate and positive effect on students’ interest and propensity to study research methods.