APPENDIX C.
Notes from assessment meeting with Mary Roche, May 13, 2008
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When we began talking with Mary about the internship, she first shared her general impressions of the class as a whole. She explained that she revised some of the assignments for the class again this semester, but the paper that we analyzed, which she referred to as a literature review on a social problem, was still being utilized in Spring 2008. She stated that in most classes about half of the students state that they have never done a literature review upon beginning the class. Mary claimed that one of the biggest problems in the class is that the students do not know what a sociological journal article is and are perplexed about how to find any sort of scholarly work. This was a perfect segue to our discussion of the rubric and the first category, Locating Scholarly Research.
Locating Scholarly Research
Mary repeatedly emphasized the point that the students are confused when it comes to locating scholarly materials. She stated that she finds this out in the online version of Soc 495 when students email her and express their frustration and ask for help. She has found that students often utilize journal articles and books that are from psychology and law on their assignments, instead of using sources that are strictly sociological as she requires. She allows the use of criminology journals because many criminology scholars are sociologists. She tells the students to go to the Sociofile database to do their searches and encourages students to go to the library and get assistance from the librarians. She links the online class to the library, but finds that many students do not go to the library link.
Mary explained that she is confronted by students and questioned about the requirements of the assignment frequently. Students explain that the “hundred hours” of internship involved in the class make the academic requirements more difficult to achieve (e.g., library research outside of class time). She reports that she is deeply committed to keeping the high academic standards of the class.
We asked Mary whether the format of the class (i.e., online or in person) affects the students’ reaction to the assignment and their ability to locate appropriate literature for their assignments. She said there is no significant difference that is related to the format. She stated that in every class there is always a reasonably large sized group who are “clueless” and that this portion of the class consists of both sociology and criminology & justice studies majors.
Understanding Sociological Research & Summarizing and Synthesizing Scholarly Research
Mary stated that in her experience she has found that the students do much better in understanding and summarizing the literature than they do in locating it. She noted that they can understand what the author is stating and can basically regurgitate it, but still have difficulty synthesizing the materials that they gather in a meaningful way. Mary reflected upon her own experience as an undergraduate and graduate student at CSUSM, and stated that she thinks she didn’t actually develop the ability to synthesize scholarly material until graduate school. Previously, she had modeled one of the required assignments for Soc 495 after an assignment that she completed in Dr. Darlene Piña’s graduate course. The Soc 495 assignment specifically required students to find four sociological articles and to write a synthesis of their major themes. They had a very difficult time with the assignment and she no longer utilizes that particular assignment.
Mechanical Issues
The other problem that Mary emphasized as a major one is that many students are not able to write well. She described the problem as “pervasive.” She stated that many times she cannot even decipher what the students are trying to communicate. One issue she singled out was the needs of students whose first language is not English. She believes that additional writing support is needed for these students. However, the problems with grammar and style are not limited to bi- or multilingual students. Mary stated that she tries her best to accommodate the varied writing needs of students by allowing them to send a draft of their papers to her ten days before it is due. Students rarely take her up on the offer, but when they do, she edits their papers and sends it back to them to revise.
Her Experiences with Sociology and CJS Majors
Although Mary stated that students from both the sociology and criminology and justice studies majors have problems with writing a sociological literature review, she noted that CJS students appear to be more challenged in this area. She stated that CJS students struggle more with applying sociology to their internship settings. She believes that they have more problems with “real life” sociology.
Observations upon the Development of Skills Throughout the Course
Mary noted that upon finishing the class students most students have improved upon their critical thinking skills. Students clearly demonstrate a good understanding of sociology at the end of the course. In particular, they are able to view social problems in more complex ways. For example, by the end of the class, students are able to articulate that although youth drug abuse may be seen by the mainstream as disease (a psychological or physical problem), but it can also be seen as a socially constructed social problem involving power dynamics related to culture, politics, media, and social control.
She makes the class very interactive in an effort to help them learn and she responds to students individually. The small class size, usually around 20 students, allows her to interact closely with the class as a whole and one-on-one settings.
She facilitates the sociological thinking of CJS students by referring to them as “Justice Students” and encourages them to consider social justice issues and how they are relevant to their internship settings.
Nevertheless, all of the aforementioned areas of weakness still are an issue in the class for some segment of the students.
Curricular Recommendations
Mary made many suggestions for how our other classes can better prepare students to write a literature review in Soc 495.
1/ She stated that students should be required to write literature reviews in all of our core classes in order to familiarize them with the process. In particular, she suggested that beginning with Soc 101, students become familiar with sociological research. Soc 300, the theory class, is an ideal course for students to recognize the various styles of literature review.
2/ She suggested that all students be required to take sociological theory in order to better meet the demands of the class. She stated that the theory is needed to help them better understand sociology and to apply sociology to the world around them.
3/ She suggested that students would benefit from an exposure to qualitative methods. Many of the students have not taken qualitative methods when they take 495 (CJS students are not required to). Many students do not understand simple terms such as “the setting.” She explains that is also very hard for students to see the day-to-day workings of a particular setting (e.g., the police department) and to understand these interactions in a sociological way. She has to do a lot of backtracking to get them up to speed. She spends the beginning of the semester (re)introducing key concepts that should have been learned by students in previous courses.
4/ She recommended adding service learning components to more of our courses as a means of help the students better accomplish the SLOs we are evaluating. She claimed that if the students understand sociology better, they will understand the literature better and know what to look for when doing their literature searches. She commended Margaret Crowdes for being someone who requires her students to do service learning and stated that Margaret’s former students invariably excel in Mary’s 495 class.
5/ She stated that something needs to be done to help the students improve their writing skills and we had a discussion about how an undergraduate class on writing within the discipline of sociology might be useful (similar to the one Linda teaches at the graduate level). Mary also suggested that the larger question of what is considered sufficient competence in writing needs to be addressed by university, and that she believes that maybe the students should have to pass a writing exam of some sort before graduation, beyond the writing competency currently required.