Civic Engagement Assignments and Student Political Efficacy

ABSTRACT This article examines how to increase students’ self-reported feelings of political efficacy in introductory US government courses. We test the effectiveness of civic engagement assignments, such as writing a letter to one’s member of Congress and attending a public meeting, in increasing political efficacy beyond simply taking the course. By conducting pretests and posttests in both classes with (treatment group) and without (control group), the civic engagement assignments allowed us to isolate the effect of the assignments. We find significant effects for taking the course in both the treatment and control groups, confirming existing research that taking an introductory US government course increases students’ political efficacy. We also find treatment effects for multiple elements of the standard political efficacy questionnaire. That our intervention had these affects at a state university that is both a Hispanic Serving Institution and a Minority Serving Institution indicates that these types of civic engagement assignments hold significant potential not only for increasing political efficacy among students but also for increasing it among historical marginalized groups that typically participate in politics at lower rates than white Americans.