Deliberative Democracy: Investigating the Longitudinal Impacts of Democratic Activities in Introductory Biology Courses

Abstract

There have been multiple national calls for curricular reform in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM), including a need to instill democratic skills in students. Democratic skill building can be embedded in STEM classrooms through intentional “deliberative pedagogies” that include communication, collaboration, and application of information. We developed and implemented a deliberative pedagogy, Deliberative Democracy (DD), for introductory majors and nonmajors undergraduate biology courses and took a longitudinal, qualitative research approach to understand students' experiences and perceptions of DD. We asked students to respond to open-ended survey questions regarding DD at two time points and conducted semi-structured follow-up interviews. All data were iteratively open-coded using content analysis. Students' perceptions of DD were lasting and generally positive, including self-reported themes related to DD promoting their awareness of the “real-world applications of science,” and increased “scientific literacy.” Negative perceptions of DD were largely related to issues with “group dynamics.” We detected differences between majors' and nonmajors' perceptions of DD, including in regard to scientific literacy and class time use. DD is a replicable pedagogy that can assist in instilling democratic skills in biology students.

Modifying the ASPECT Survey to Support the Validity of Student Perception Data from Different Active Learning Environments

“…Two types of active learning strategies were assessed within the same class: (i) deliberative democracy (DD) modules and (ii) classroom response systems (clickers). DD is a small group active learning strategy that includes a multiday deliberation exercise where students are introduced to a real-world problem that correlates with their course content and, through reading, deliberation, and research, they are asked to come to a consensus on a policy recommendation ( 13 – 15 ). In this study, the DD activity consisted of a 2-day module where students gathered information on their own between DD activity days and brought the information back to class to inform group discussion and consensus making.…”