'Team Based Learning' Applied to Political Science in Comparative Perspective

In Political Science studies, the traditional class and individual work predominate over other methods. However, the implementation of the Bologna system implies a more autonomous work of the students including individual and group work into the calculation of the credit value. This is a new challenge for the lecturer. Against this background, this study has applied a new methodology called Team-Based Learning (TBL) to a group of 100 political science students and has compared results to other teaching methods, namely weekly practice, semester essay and Problem-Based Learning to analyze to what extent TBL improves the learning capacity of students, their group work, leadership ability and ability to solve problems. Results indicate that TBL is more efficient than other methodologies compared in terms of acquisition of theoretical knowledge, active participation in class, keeping the agenda up to date and improving the student's expectation to pass the subject.