Microcomputing puts an amazingly versatile instructional tool into the hands of political scientists. It provides the ability to do far more than process data in ways political science SPSS and SAS users are familiar with. Microcomputing enables the student to interact with instructor provided programs which provide immediate feedback tailored to the student's speed and abilities.

One example is a program which will poll voters and provide instantaneous feedback on the results of an individual's vote as averaged with all previous votes. Our department uses this program on “Open House Day”, a high school oriented outreach. It replaces an earlier manual version of the same thing in which visitors to the department's display were asked to vote on forms which were tallied later.