Matthew Woessner
Biographic Data
| ID | 709547 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Matthew Woessner |
| GIVEN NAMES | Matthew |
| FAMILY NAME | Woessner |
| SIGNATURE | WOESSNER M |
| AFFILIATIONS | Pennsylvania State University |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-1948-9056 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 16 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 52 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 16 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2004 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2021 |
| H-INDEX | 4 |
Still Pluralist After All These Years? Considering Whether Political Science Fosters Tolerance for Dissent or Merely Promotes Leftist Values
An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content
Why College Students Drift Left: The Stability of Political Identity and Relative Malleability of Issue Positions among College Students
In considering the liberalizing effect of college on students’ political values, we argue that political identities—in the form of self-identified ideology or partisanship—are components of social identity and are resistant to change. Using data from the Higher Education Research Institute’s student surveys, we show that what movement in identity does occur is mostly a regression to the mean effect. On several issue positions, however, students m…
Faculty Constitutions in the Ivory Tower: Exploring the Balance of Power between the Professoriate and the Administration
The presumption that rules and institutional structures profoundly influence an organization’s behavior is deeply rooted in the study of governance. Whereas social scientists have explored the link between institutional structure and political power at the national, state, and local level, there is virtually no quantitative research on how competing constitutional frameworks influence power in an academic setting. The researchers theorize that, g…
Books by Our Readers
The Judicial Process: Law
The End of an Era
Teaching with SimCity: Using Sophisticated Gaming Simulations to Teach Concepts in Introductory American Government
One of the key challenges of teaching a college survey course such as introductory American government is the lack of interest on the part of students, many of whom take the course to satisfy a general-education requirement. Recognizing that young people are fascinated by video games, the author devised a governance simulation built on the popular computer game SimCity. Although the video-game industry designed these sophisticated simulations to …
Reflections on Academic Liberalism and Conservative Criticism
Seeking Relevance: American Political Science and America
Diversifying the Academy: How Conservative Academics Can Thrive in Liberal Academia
Researchers have long recognized that higher education is dominated by professors whose politics are well to the left of the American political center. The cause and implications of this ideological imbalance have been intensely debated since the 1960s. Although critics of higher education, such as David Horowitz, argue that the political imbalance in academia is largely the result of ideological discrimination, emerging research on the views, va…
"Promoting a "House of Study
I Think My Professor is a Democrat: Considering Whether Students Recognize and React to Faculty Politics
Notwithstanding political science professors' concerted efforts to remain politically neutral in the classroom, we find evidence that students are able to successfully identify the partisan loyalties of their professors. Furthermore, we find that there is a tendency for students to drift toward the Democratic Party over the course of the semester, yet the direction of the shift appears to be unrelated to either the instructor's actual political l…
Slavery Reparations and Race Relations in America: Assessing How the Restitutions Debate Influences Public Support for Blacks, Civil Rights, and Affirmative Action
The subject of slavery reparations has received considerable attention from both the popular press and the research community. Yet while some speculate that the reparations movement may be increasing racial hostility, to date there has been no systematic study of the impact of reparation arguments on white attitudes toward blacks. Using a simple priming experiment incorporated within a statewide survey, we examine public reactions to the slavery …
My Professor is a Partisan Hack: How Perceptions of a Professor's Political Views Affect Student Course Evaluations
In recent years, a number of prominent political commentators have raised concerns about the lack of ideological diversity on college campuses (Shapiro 2004; Black 2004; Kors and Silvergate 1999; Kimball 1998). Among other accusations, they claim that liberal college professors may actually penalize students for expressing conservative opinions by assigning them lower marks on exams and assignments (Horowitz 2003; Hebel 2004). Their concern is no…
Raiders of the Lost Vote: A Theory-Driven Model of Ballot Invalidation in Florida's 2000 Election
In analyzing the results of the 2000 Florida election, we argue the need for a more theoretical model of ballot invalidation. The majority of studies to date link together both undervotes and overvotes into one measure of “rejected,” “voided” or “invalidated” ballots. We demonstrate that these two types of errors are notably distinct. Specifically, overvoting involves more cognitive or “decision” errors, while undervoting is more a product of mec…
Scandal, Elites, and Presidential Popularity: Considering the Importance of Cues in Public Support of the President
Previous research on presidential job approval has neglected to consider how elites influence public assessments of the executive, particularly as it applies to potentially private misconduct. This article suggests that, in the aftermath of a major political event (such as a scandal), citizens look to elite rhetoric as a barometer of issue importance. Utilizing two distinct experimental designs, I show that, in the wake of a personal scandal, sub…
Beating the House: How Inadequate Penalties for Cheating Make Plagiarism an Excellent Gamble
An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content
Scandal, Elites, and Presidential Popularity: Considering the Importance of Cues in Public Support of the President
Previous research on presidential job approval has neglected to consider how elites influence public assessments of the executive, particularly as it applies to potentially private misconduct. This article suggests that, in the aftermath of a major political event (such as a scandal), citizens look to elite rhetoric as a barometer of issue importance. Utilizing two distinct experimental designs, I show that, in the wake of a personal scandal, sub…
My Professor is a Partisan Hack: How Perceptions of a Professor's Political Views Affect Student Course Evaluations
In recent years, a number of prominent political commentators have raised concerns about the lack of ideological diversity on college campuses (Shapiro 2004; Black 2004; Kors and Silvergate 1999; Kimball 1998). Among other accusations, they claim that liberal college professors may actually penalize students for expressing conservative opinions by assigning them lower marks on exams and assignments (Horowitz 2003; Hebel 2004). Their concern is no…
Diversifying the Academy: How Conservative Academics Can Thrive in Liberal Academia
Researchers have long recognized that higher education is dominated by professors whose politics are well to the left of the American political center. The cause and implications of this ideological imbalance have been intensely debated since the 1960s. Although critics of higher education, such as David Horowitz, argue that the political imbalance in academia is largely the result of ideological discrimination, emerging research on the views, va…
Why College Students Drift Left: The Stability of Political Identity and Relative Malleability of Issue Positions among College Students
In considering the liberalizing effect of college on students’ political values, we argue that political identities—in the form of self-identified ideology or partisanship—are components of social identity and are resistant to change. Using data from the Higher Education Research Institute’s student surveys, we show that what movement in identity does occur is mostly a regression to the mean effect. On several issue positions, however, students m…
Teaching with SimCity: Using Sophisticated Gaming Simulations to Teach Concepts in Introductory American Government
One of the key challenges of teaching a college survey course such as introductory American government is the lack of interest on the part of students, many of whom take the course to satisfy a general-education requirement. Recognizing that young people are fascinated by video games, the author devised a governance simulation built on the popular computer game SimCity. Although the video-game industry designed these sophisticated simulations to …
Slavery Reparations and Race Relations in America: Assessing How the Restitutions Debate Influences Public Support for Blacks, Civil Rights, and Affirmative Action
The subject of slavery reparations has received considerable attention from both the popular press and the research community. Yet while some speculate that the reparations movement may be increasing racial hostility, to date there has been no systematic study of the impact of reparation arguments on white attitudes toward blacks. Using a simple priming experiment incorporated within a statewide survey, we examine public reactions to the slavery …
Reflections on Academic Liberalism and Conservative Criticism
I Think My Professor is a Democrat: Considering Whether Students Recognize and React to Faculty Politics
Notwithstanding political science professors' concerted efforts to remain politically neutral in the classroom, we find evidence that students are able to successfully identify the partisan loyalties of their professors. Furthermore, we find that there is a tendency for students to drift toward the Democratic Party over the course of the semester, yet the direction of the shift appears to be unrelated to either the instructor's actual political l…
Beating the House: How Inadequate Penalties for Cheating Make Plagiarism an Excellent Gamble
An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content
Faculty Constitutions in the Ivory Tower: Exploring the Balance of Power between the Professoriate and the Administration
The presumption that rules and institutional structures profoundly influence an organization’s behavior is deeply rooted in the study of governance. Whereas social scientists have explored the link between institutional structure and political power at the national, state, and local level, there is virtually no quantitative research on how competing constitutional frameworks influence power in an academic setting. The researchers theorize that, g…
"Promoting a "House of Study
Raiders of the Lost Vote: A Theory-Driven Model of Ballot Invalidation in Florida's 2000 Election
In analyzing the results of the 2000 Florida election, we argue the need for a more theoretical model of ballot invalidation. The majority of studies to date link together both undervotes and overvotes into one measure of “rejected,” “voided” or “invalidated” ballots. We demonstrate that these two types of errors are notably distinct. Specifically, overvoting involves more cognitive or “decision” errors, while undervoting is more a product of mec…
Beating the House: How Inadequate Penalties for Cheating Make Plagiarism an Excellent Gamble
An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content
Raiders of the Lost Vote: A Theory-Driven Model of Ballot Invalidation in Florida's 2000 Election
In analyzing the results of the 2000 Florida election, we argue the need for a more theoretical model of ballot invalidation. The majority of studies to date link together both undervotes and overvotes into one measure of “rejected,” “voided” or “invalidated” ballots. We demonstrate that these two types of errors are notably distinct. Specifically, overvoting involves more cognitive or “decision” errors, while undervoting is more a product of mec…
Scandal, Elites, and Presidential Popularity: Considering the Importance of Cues in Public Support of the President
Previous research on presidential job approval has neglected to consider how elites influence public assessments of the executive, particularly as it applies to potentially private misconduct. This article suggests that, in the aftermath of a major political event (such as a scandal), citizens look to elite rhetoric as a barometer of issue importance. Utilizing two distinct experimental designs, I show that, in the wake of a personal scandal, sub…
Slavery Reparations and Race Relations in America: Assessing How the Restitutions Debate Influences Public Support for Blacks, Civil Rights, and Affirmative Action
The subject of slavery reparations has received considerable attention from both the popular press and the research community. Yet while some speculate that the reparations movement may be increasing racial hostility, to date there has been no systematic study of the impact of reparation arguments on white attitudes toward blacks. Using a simple priming experiment incorporated within a statewide survey, we examine public reactions to the slavery …
My Professor is a Partisan Hack: How Perceptions of a Professor's Political Views Affect Student Course Evaluations
In recent years, a number of prominent political commentators have raised concerns about the lack of ideological diversity on college campuses (Shapiro 2004; Black 2004; Kors and Silvergate 1999; Kimball 1998). Among other accusations, they claim that liberal college professors may actually penalize students for expressing conservative opinions by assigning them lower marks on exams and assignments (Horowitz 2003; Hebel 2004). Their concern is no…
I Think My Professor is a Democrat: Considering Whether Students Recognize and React to Faculty Politics
Notwithstanding political science professors' concerted efforts to remain politically neutral in the classroom, we find evidence that students are able to successfully identify the partisan loyalties of their professors. Furthermore, we find that there is a tendency for students to drift toward the Democratic Party over the course of the semester, yet the direction of the shift appears to be unrelated to either the instructor's actual political l…
"Promoting a "House of Study
Seeking Relevance: American Political Science and America
Diversifying the Academy: How Conservative Academics Can Thrive in Liberal Academia
Researchers have long recognized that higher education is dominated by professors whose politics are well to the left of the American political center. The cause and implications of this ideological imbalance have been intensely debated since the 1960s. Although critics of higher education, such as David Horowitz, argue that the political imbalance in academia is largely the result of ideological discrimination, emerging research on the views, va…
The End of an Era
Teaching with SimCity: Using Sophisticated Gaming Simulations to Teach Concepts in Introductory American Government
One of the key challenges of teaching a college survey course such as introductory American government is the lack of interest on the part of students, many of whom take the course to satisfy a general-education requirement. Recognizing that young people are fascinated by video games, the author devised a governance simulation built on the popular computer game SimCity. Although the video-game industry designed these sophisticated simulations to …
Reflections on Academic Liberalism and Conservative Criticism
Books by Our Readers
The Judicial Process: Law
Faculty Constitutions in the Ivory Tower: Exploring the Balance of Power between the Professoriate and the Administration
The presumption that rules and institutional structures profoundly influence an organization’s behavior is deeply rooted in the study of governance. Whereas social scientists have explored the link between institutional structure and political power at the national, state, and local level, there is virtually no quantitative research on how competing constitutional frameworks influence power in an academic setting. The researchers theorize that, g…
Why College Students Drift Left: The Stability of Political Identity and Relative Malleability of Issue Positions among College Students
In considering the liberalizing effect of college on students’ political values, we argue that political identities—in the form of self-identified ideology or partisanship—are components of social identity and are resistant to change. Using data from the Higher Education Research Institute’s student surveys, we show that what movement in identity does occur is mostly a regression to the mean effect. On several issue positions, however, students m…
Still Pluralist After All These Years? Considering Whether Political Science Fosters Tolerance for Dissent or Merely Promotes Leftist Values
An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content
Political science (14 works) · Law (13 works) · Politics (10 works) · Psychology (10 works) · Sociology (10 works) · Academic Freedom and Politics (7 works) · Higher education (7 works) · Law (5 works) · Social Psychology (5 works) · Computer Science (4 works)