Why Run Experiments in a Lecture Hall?
Most IR courses teach constructivism as a theory to be memorized: “Ideas shape interests, framing matters, anarchy is what states make of it.” Students nod, take notes, and move on.
I wanted something different. What if students could experience constructivism instead of just reading about it?
That’s the idea behind the in-class framing experiments I run in Modules 1–3. Each one works the same way:
The facts are identical across conditions. Only the framing differs. After a break, I analyze the responses live and we look at whether the different framings shifted perception — often dramatically.
The pedagogical payoff is immediate. When students see that their own responses diverged based on a paragraph they read five minutes ago, the constructivist claim about framing goes from abstract theory to lived experience. It also teaches survey methodology, experimental design, and data interpretation — skills that transfer well beyond IR.
The Design Logic
Each experiment follows a between-subjects randomized design:
- Three conditions: two theoretically motivated framings and one neutral control
- Random assignment: Qualtrics assigns respondents in a 1:1:1 ratio
- Same outcome battery: five Likert-scale items (1–5) measuring the dependent variable, with two reverse-coded items to reduce acquiescence bias
- Scoring: mean of the five items after reverse-coding, producing a single composite score per respondent
The framings are drawn directly from the theoretical material covered in each module. This is the key design choice: the experiment isn’t a detour from the lecture — it is the lecture, running in parallel.
Experiment 1: Framing U.S.–China Relations
Control — "U.S.–China Relations: A Snapshot"
A neutral description of bilateral trade volume, Security Council membership, military postures, and diplomatic channels. No evaluative framing.
Hobbesian — "U.S.–China Relations: Growing Rivalry"
Emphasizes naval competition, alliance strengthening (AUKUS, Quad), the historical pattern of rising-power conflict ("from Athens and Sparta to Germany and Britain"), and a "cycle of mistrust that diplomacy has so far failed to break."
Lockean — "U.S.–China Relations: Channels of Cooperation"
Emphasizes new climate agreements, restored military communication channels, integrated supply chains, and the observation that "both governments have repeatedly chosen negotiation over escalation."
What this illustrates: A single paragraph of framing — read in under 30 seconds — shifts the average cooperation perception score by nearly a full point on a 5-point scale. The same underlying facts about U.S.–China relations produce measurably different perceptions depending on the narrative frame. That’s the constructivist insight made concrete.
Experiment 2: Framing Nuclear Safety
Stability — "Nuclear Deterrence: A Stabilizing Force"
Emphasizes that no two nuclear-armed states have gone to war, the "long peace" of the Cold War, and deterrence logic: "when both sides face the prospect of mutual destruction, neither is willing to risk war."
Danger — "Nuclear Weapons: An Existential Threat"
Emphasizes near-misses (the 1983 Soviet false alarm, the 1961 North Carolina incident), the risk of accident or unauthorized use, and the February 2026 expiration of the last U.S.–Russia arms control treaty.
Control — "Nuclear Weapons: A Brief Overview"
Neutral summary: nine nuclear-armed states, stockpile peaked at ~70,000 warheads, now ~12,500. Notes existing treaties and institutions without evaluative framing.
What this illustrates: The Waltz–Sagan debate isn’t just an academic disagreement — it maps onto a genuine perceptual split that can be induced by narrative framing. Students who read the “stability” frame rate nuclear weapons as significantly safer than those who read the “danger” frame. The lesson: how we talk about nuclear weapons shapes what we think we know about them.
Experiment 3: Historical Analogies and Strategic Thinking
European Frame — Lessons from Early 20th-Century Europe
A fictional scenario ("Indara Sea region, State R") framed through the analogy of rising Germany destabilizing the European balance of power. Emphasizes security competition, alliance formation, and the risk of miscalculation.
Asian Frame — Lessons from Southeast Asia
The identical scenario framed through the analogy of ASEAN's strategy of institutional binding. Emphasizes multilateral engagement, shared norms, and managing power asymmetries without forcing states to choose sides.
Control — No Historical Analogy
The same scenario presented without any historical analogy. States only that "scholars and policymakers disagree about what outcomes are most likely."
What this illustrates: The same facts, the same scenario, the same question — but students primed with a European historical analogy lean toward balance-of-power recommendations, while those primed with an Asian analogy lean toward institutional engagement. This is exactly what Acharya’s critique of Western-centric IR predicts: the frameworks we import shape the conclusions we reach. When European history is the default lens, balancing looks natural. When Asian history is the lens, engagement does.
Ethics and Data Practices
A few things I want to be transparent about:
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No real data is shown on this site. Students were not informed that their responses would be publicly displayed, and publishing them would be a violation of the trust they placed in the survey process. All charts use simulated data generated to illustrate the experimental design.
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Simulated data is illustrative, not predictive. The patterns shown above are directionally consistent with what framing experiments typically produce, but the specific numbers are fabricated. Real results may be stronger, weaker, or null.
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Survey participation is voluntary. Students are invited to participate but are not required to. The surveys include an optional free-text field for course feedback, which I read privately.
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Knowledge checks are not graded. The multiple-choice questions that follow each experiment are for formative assessment only — they help me gauge whether the readings were understood, and they give students a low-stakes check on their own comprehension.
What Makes This Approach Work
The experiments succeed pedagogically because they operate at three levels simultaneously:
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Substantive: They test claims from the assigned readings. The Module 1 experiment tests the constructivist claim that framing shapes perception. The Module 2 experiment tests whether the Waltz–Sagan debate maps onto a perceptual split. The Module 3 experiment tests Acharya’s argument that historical analogies constrain strategic imagination.
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Methodological: Students learn what random assignment means, what a Likert scale is, what reverse-coding does, and how to interpret a bar chart with confidence intervals — all in a context where they care about the results because the data is about them.
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Experiential: The most powerful moment comes when students realize that their own responses were shaped by a paragraph they read minutes ago. That moment — the realization that I am susceptible to framing effects — is worth more than any lecture on constructivism.