‘I’m not a natural mathematician’: Inquiry-based learning, constructive alignment and introductory quantitative social science

There is continuing concern about the paucity of social science graduates who have the quantitative skills required by academia and industry. Not only do students often lack the confidence to explore, and use, statistical techniques, the dominance of qualitative research in many disciplines has also often constrained programme-level integration of more quantitative material. However, whilst the topic of statistical literacy is relatively well researched within the more general educational literature, the evidence-base with respect to the effectiveness of teaching and learning of quantitative research methods in the social science remains somewhat limited. This paper describes the development, integration and evaluation of a series of student-led inquiry-based quantitative workbooks within a sociology/social policy undergraduate degree. It outlines how the workbooks were constructively aligned within a ‘methods spine’ and offers some insight into quantitative teaching and learning generally. The paper also discusses some of the opportunities and challenges of taking both an aligned and IBL approach to the teaching of quantitative methods. In doing so it adds to growing evidence that ‘problem-based pedagogies’ tend to increase educational gain over and above more didactic approaches to learning and teaching. It highlights three key findings: programme-level approaches to curriculum design can be crucial in improving quantitative skills, particularly where they are tailored to student needs; a general indifference to quantitative methods is likely to be due to a process of disenfranchisement that happens before and during students’ engagement with university; and, meaningfully engaging students as partners in the process of designing, integrating and evaluating curricula can help to overcome some of the barriers associated with the learning and teaching of quantitative skills

Genesis of an Expert System For UMR Degree Auditing

This paper describes the features, design, and development of an expert system for degree auditing at the University of Missouri--Rolla. It summarizes artificial intelligence as it is known today while specifically addressing expert systems. It describes selected expert systems currently in existence. The present audit procedure utilized at the University of Missouri--Rolla is discussed. A description is given of the design and development of an expert system, written in LISP, to conduct a degree audit. Finally there are concluding remarks which include an analysis of the system and a discussion of possible system enhancement

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Social studies have a contentious history as a school subject and this article begins with an overview of the historically competing viewpoints on the nature and purposes of social studies education in the North American context. Next, we provide a critical examination of recent educational reforms in the USA (No Child Left Behind and Common Core State Standards), which use high-stakes testing as a tool for standardizing the social studies curriculum and teaching methods. The final section of the article examines both the significant levels of resistance to high-stakes testing and curriculum standardization by students, teachers, and the public and the question of whether social studies education will promote citizenship that is adaptive to the status quo or the reconstruction society in more equitable and socially just ways.Los estudios sociales tienen una historia contenciosa como asignatura escolar y este artículo comienza con una visión general de los puntos de vista que históricamente compiten sobre la naturaleza y fines de la educación de estudios sociales en el contexto de América del Norte. A continuación, se ofrece un examen crítico de las reformas educativas recientes en los EE.UU. (Ningún Niño se Queda Atrás y los Estándares Estatales Comunes), que utilizan las pruebas de alta exigencia como una herramienta para estandarizar el currículo de estudios sociales y los métodos de enseñanza. La sección final del artículo examimna tanto los niveles significativos de resistencia de los estudiantes, profesores y el público a las pruebas de alta exigencia y a la estandarización del currículo y la pregunta de si la educación en estudios sociales promoverá ciudadanía adaptable al status quo o a la reconstrucción de la sociedad en formas mas equitativas y socialmente más justas.

Educación en estudios sociales y reforma de la educación basada en estándares en Norte América: Estandarización del currículo, pruebas de alta exigencia y resistencia.

Social studies have a contentious history as a school subject and this article begins with an overview of the historically competing viewpoints on the nature and purposes of social studies education in the North American context. Next, we provide a critical examination of recent educational reforms in the USA (No Child Left Behind and Common Core State Standards), which use high-stakes testing as a tool for standardizing the social studies curriculum and teaching methods. The final section of the article examines both the significant levels of resistance to high-stakes testing and curriculum standardization by students, teachers, and the public and the question of whether social studies education will promote citizenship that is adaptive to the status quo or the reconstruction society in more equitable and socially just ways

Developing research-led teaching: two cases of practical data reuse in the classroom

Research-led teaching is an area that has gained attention and prominence within higher education. This article reviews two teaching resources developed from archived research data and demonstrates how this type of data reuse helps teachers establish a clear connection between research and teaching. The two teaching resources, developed by the authors in their time working at the UK Data Service, were created for use in higher education, and use Annette Lawson’s 1980s study of adultery and Stanley Cohen’s 1960s study of Mods and Rockers. The authors describe the resources in detail, explain how and why the content was developed, and explore the potential value that preserved real-world research data can have when using research to teach. The reviews of these resources point to the great possibilities for future development of teaching resources using archived data to support a range of teaching modules, from methods to topical undergraduate courses, as well as demonstrate the value of archived data and documentation for research practices

Developing Research-Led Teaching: Two Cases of Practical Data Reuse in the Classroom

Research-led teaching is an area that has gained attention and prominence within higher education. This article reviews two teaching resources developed from archived research data and demonstrates how this type of data reuse helps teachers establish a clear connection between research and teaching. The two teaching resources, developed by the authors in their time working at the UK Data Service, were created for use in higher education, and use Annette Lawson’s 1980s study of adultery and Stanley Cohen’s 1960s study of Mods and Rockers. The authors describe the resources in detail, explain how and why the content was developed, and explore the potential value that preserved real-world research data can have when using research to teach. The reviews of these resources point to the great possibilities for future development of teaching resources using archived data to support a range of teaching modules, from methods to topical undergraduate courses, as well as demonstrate the value of archived data and documentation for research practices

Student learning through work placements

The core aim of this research study is to analyse the effects of experiential learning pedagogy on students, received during work based student placements. This study identifies and examines the perceptions held by higher education (HE) stakeholders, regarding the effects of experiential learning work placements on students. My research is situated in Bourdieusian concepts, which include ‘habitus’, ‘field’, and ‘cultural reproduction’ (Bourdieu, 1977b, p72; 1986a, p60; 1977a, p487). My research found employability is an agency in its own right. Employability had a doxa (a societally embedded opinion) (Bourdieu, 1977b, p169) effect on my research study. Most of the research responses were given in employability terms. The majority of research participants clearly indicated other aspects of experiential learning, e.g. students developing self-efficacy were a secondary consideration. Preparedness for work was the key priority. My research found, all HE stakeholders have been influenced to ‘ideologically reproduce’ the employability agenda, in order to ‘fit in’ with the current HE landscape (Bourdieu, 1977a, p490; Bourdieu, 1990, p53; Brady, 2012, p346). This research study found that Holdsworth and Quinn’s (2012, p386) ‘reproductive’ or ‘deconstructive’ concepts present in their ‘Student Volunteering’ study, were replicated by students on unpaid experiential learning work placements, with either a ‘Third Sector’ organisation or a statutory agency. This study also identified hitherto undiscovered causal factors, absent in Holdsworth and Quinn’s (2012) study. These are additional social actors, which significantly influence whether students become ‘reproductive’ or ‘deconstructive’ during experiential learning work placements. This research found the ‘wider society’ is an existential agency, which has a strategic governance role representing society as a whole. The ‘wider society’ has a societal remit to coordinate delivery of all society’s needs, which includes social care provision and environmental management. Trained people are required to deliver this societal remit, so the ‘wider society’ is an experiential learning higher education stakeholder

A framework for evaluating an introductory statistics programme at the University of the Western Cape

Philosophiae Doctor - PhDThere have been calls both from the government and private sector for Higher Education institutions to introduce programmes that produce employable graduates whilst at the same time contributing to the growing economy of the country by addressing the skills shortage. Transformation and intervention committees have since been introduced to follow the extent to which the challenges are being addressed (DOE, 1996; 1997; Luescher and Symes, 2003; Forbes, 2007). Amongst the list of issues that needed urgent address were the skills shortage and underperformance of students particularly university entering students (Daniels, 2007; De Klerk, 2006; Cooper, 2001). Research particularly in the South African context, has revealed that contributing to the underperformance of university entering students and shortage of skills are: the legacy of apartheid (forcing certain racial groups to focus on selected areas such as teaching and nursing), the schooling system (resulting in university entering students to struggle), the home language and academic language. Barrell (1998), places stress on language as a contributing factor towards the performance of students. Although not much research has been done on skills shortage, most of the areas with skills shortage require Mathematics, either on a minimum or comprehensive scale. Students who have a strong Mathematics background have proved to perform better compared to students who have a limited or no Mathematics background at all in Grade 12 (Hahn, 1988; Conners, McCown & Roskos-Ewoldsen, 1998; Nolan, 2002).The department of Statistics offers an Introductory Statistics (IS) course at first year level. Resources available to enhance student learning include: a problem-solving component with web-based tutorials and students attending lectures three hours per week. The course material and all the necessary information regarding the course including teach yourself problems, useful web-sites and links students can make use of, are all stored under the Knowledge- Environment for Web-based learning (KEWL). Despite all the available information, the students were not performing well and they were not interested in the course. The department regards statistical numeracy as a life skill. The desire of the department is to break down the fear of Statistics and to bring about a perspective change in students' mindsets. The study was part of a contribution to ensuring that the department has the best first year students in Statistics in the Western Cape achieving a success rate comparable to the national norm.South Afric