Project Activities
Researchers implemented Project Citizen as a class-wide intervention. Researchers recruited schools and randomly assigned them to receive the intervention or to serve as a control school in each of the three years of the study. Treatment schools implemented Project Citizen ingrade 5 to 12 classrooms. Teachers who implemented Project Citizen received professional development consultations from the developer at the start and at various points during the year. During this time period the researchers collected and analyzed data.
Structured Abstract
Setting
A total of 210 public and private middle and high schools throughout the United States were enrolled in the study. The researchers recruited a sample of schools that represent the diversity of the nation in respect to such factors as urban, rural, and suburban settings, socioeconomic status, and race and ethnicity.
Sample
A combined total of 6,521 students enrolled in the study and 5,415 stayed. 70 schools were recruited for each study cohort; 35 schools were randomly assigned to the PC group and 35 to the control group.
In Project Citizen, classes of students work cooperatively to identify a public policy problem in their community. Students research the problem, evaluate alternative solutions, develop their own solution in the form of a public policy, and create a political action plan to enlist local or state authorities to adopt their proposed policy. Students develop a portfolio of their work and present their project. Many of the classes involved in the program take the next step of direct civic engagement by contacting public officials and attempting to influence them to adopt their policy proposal. Since its inception in 1993, Project Citizen has been implemented in all fifty states, the District of Columbia, and in more than 70 nations.
Research design and methods
The researchers randomly assigned 210 participating middle and high schools to the intervention or to the control conditions. The study employed a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods. The core quantitative study design consisted of multi-site, school-level, randomized controlled trials based on pretest/posttest surveys to assess the impact of the professional development program on middle school and high school teachers and the Project Citizen curriculum intervention on students. The school was the unit of randomization, as Project Citizen is most frequently implemented as a school-based project that can involve more than one teacher and/or class. The qualitative components of the research design included ethnographies of the professional development program summer institutes, classroom ethnographies to observe the implementation of the Project Citizen curriculum, and teacher interviews.
Control condition
Schools in the control condition employed a standard civics, social studies, or American government curriculum where the teachers worked from a textbook and used standard pedagogies, such as lecture and class discussion.
Key measures
The measures were developed from the extant academic civics literature and prior studies which had known reliability and validity. The team selected items that have demonstrated statistical reliability and included items designed by the research team. The measures were not overly-aligned with the intervention. The measures focused on student knowledge of government, on public policy processes, and in the acquisition of civic skills and dispositions. The team also integrated concepts and measures from across disciplines, including items on civic-related SEL and STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) competencies.
Data analytic strategy
To estimate the effect of Project Citizen, researchers used analysis of covariance models to estimate differences in the adjusted mean knowledge scores for subjects in the intervention and control groups while controlling for covariates. Researchers used posttest knowledge as the dependent measure, intervention/control group as a fixed factor, school as a random factor, and pretest knowledge as a covariate. They assessed students' civic knowledge gains, development of civic dispositions, skills, civic-related SEL competencies, and learning in STEM. They assessed teacher content knowledge and pedagogy.
Cost analysis strategy
Researchers examined the costs associated with implementing the intervention using the ingredients method, which entailed systematically collecting and analyzing all expenditures on personnel, facilities, equipment, materials, and training.
Key outcomes
The main findings of this project will be shared here once they are publicly available in a peer-reviewed publication.
People and institutions involved
IES program contact(s)
Products and publications
The products of this project include evidence of the efficacy of the Project Citizen program, peer reviewed publications, and reports provided to stakeholders in the field as well as the general public through social media and networks. Final research report
Project website:
Publications:
ERIC Citations: Find available citations in ERIC for this award here.
Select Publications:
Journal articles
Owen, D., & Irion-Groth, A. (2020). Civic Education for Youth Empowerment: The Impact of We the People and Project Citizen. Journal of Higher Education Theory and Practice, 24 (4).
Gallo, M., and Owen, D. (2021). Closing the Civic Empowerment Gap: Professional Development for Teachers of High-Need Students. The Journal of the Middle States Council for the Social Studies, 3, 17-23.
Proceedings and papers
Owen, D.and Irion-Groth, A. (2022). Teaching Civic Engagement Through Immersive Experience: Students’ Acquisition of Civic Knowledge, Skills, and Dispositions. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, September 16.
Owen, Diana. 2024. Fostering Civic Engagement through Project-Based Learning. Paper prepared for presentation at the Workshop on Empirical Studies of Civic Engagement and Civic Education, American Political Science Association, February 8-9, Virtual Conference.
Owen, D. and Irion-Groth, A. (2024). Preparing Students for Civic Engagement through Project Citizen. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, Philadelphia, PA, Sep 5-7.
Available data:
Per the project’s data management plan, the set cannot be released publicly until five years after the final report. However, people can contact the research team for information about the data at cerl@georgetown.edu.
Supplemental information
Co-Principal Investigator: Owen, Diana
Questions about this project?
To answer additional questions about this project or provide feedback, please contact the program officer.
