A purpose of the Master of Public Administration (MPA) program is to translate theory into practical concepts to prepare leaders of the public and nonprofit sectors. The practice continues to employ entrepreneurial activities throughout the world. The academy has researched, written, and published extensively about entrepreneurship to build…

This article is a contribution to a special issue of "Teaching Public Administration," which offers teachers with many years' experience the opportunity to reflect on changes over time. The context for this paper is teaching public administration in Northern Ireland, a region of the UK that has a sizeable public sector but a distinctive…

As the scale and frequency of disasters continues to intensify, public administration programs in both China and the United States are increasingly acknowledging the importance of integrating emergency management into public administration education. After briefly reviewing and comparing their respective emergency management systems, this study…

Reflection is an essential ingredient of academic education in Public Administration, both for an academic and a professional career. Making a distinction between reflectivity and reflexivity we identify 30 foci of reflection. The main question of the article is how these forms of reflection can be taught and learned in PA programs, especially in…

Higher education accrediting bodies are increasing the emphasis on assessing student learning outcomes as opposed to teaching methodology. The purpose of this article is to describe the process used by Troy University's Master of Public Administration program to change their assessment approach from a course learning objective perspective to a…

Effective public policy education must prepare students both to integrate the lessons of multiple disciplines and to apply these across diverse substantive areas. How can these objectives best be accomplished? Research on adult learning and professional education points toward applied, problem-based, cooperative, and student-driven pedagogy. This…

A study compared outcomes of master's programs in public administration and other professional-education programs organized in cohort (intact student groups in lock-step course patterns) and noncohort formats. Students in cohort format had cognitive and affective learning gains equivalent or superior to traditional format students. Learning gains…

An approach to designing a competency-based master's program in public administration that integrates political science, management, and value-based approaches into a holistic package is described. Pedagogically the approach seeks to balance conceptual knowledge with skill acquisition for specific situations, providing a curriculum more relevant…

Examines efforts made in recent years to introduce ethics into the curricula of graduate studies programs in public affairs and administration. The questionnaire asked a broad series of questions eliciting both quantitative (program size, organizational structure) and qualitative information (educational goals). Includes statistical and tabular…