The Impact of Teaching Political Science on Political Awareness of Petra University Students: a Jordanian Case

Abstract

The study aimed at identifying the impact of teaching political science on the political consciousness of Petra University students, and to answer the study questions , a sample of the 131 students was selected , those enrolled in three sections in the first quarter of the academic year 2012/2013 ,a  questionnaire was developed to collect information ;it was built of 30 paragraphs and distributed  , but only  87 of these were valid and analyzed  . Results showed that the degree of political awareness among students was high with a mean of (3.70), in addition to the presence of statistically significant differences in the degree of impact of teaching political science on the political awareness of those students from their point of view, in terms of the gender variable, while no statistically significant differences appeared in terms of faculty, nor in terms of the variable grade point average –GPA. In the light of the results, the study recommended further studies on the subject, in order to disseminate the teaching of politics to be included in all universities that do not teach or enlist this topic within their programs.

Key words: political awareness, the principles of political science, political participation, political education.