Crowdsourcing Civics Instruction to Improve Student Civic Knowledge, Skills, and Citizen Engagement

Secondary students’ lack of civic knowledge, skills, and engagement is well documented in the literature. States continue to address the issue through an increase in mandated civics requirements, but a striking improvement has not been confirmed. Improving civics instructional delivery through crowdsourcing holds promise in addressing deficits in students’ acquisition of civic knowledge, skills, and engagement. Crowdsourcing is the act of using the internet to obtain information and input from multiple parties on specific topics and to find solutions to problems. The purpose of this study was to determine if crowdsourcing may be an effective instructional tool that civics teachers could use in their classrooms to close the civics achievement gap. The following research questions guided this study: What are civics teachers’ perceptions of the effectiveness of crowdsourcing as an instructional tool in high school civics courses, and how can crowdsourcing be implemented into high school civics curriculum? A case study design was determined to be the appropriate methodology to use to answer the research questions. A survey instrument with both Likert Scale and open-ended questions was administered to civics teachers in seven urban school districts in Florida. Results from the data analysis indicate that crowdsourcing can be an effective instructional tool for teaching civics. However, survey bias inhibited the study’s ability to determine what other examples of crowdsourcing can be implemented in the civics classroom.