College of Liberal Arts
Please direct all questions about the flag proposal process to the Center for the Skills & Experience Flags.
MAS 376 Community Research and Analysis
Department of Mexican American and Latina/o Studies
Please describe how students will engage in independent investigation and presentation of their own work through the course. Please explain specifically how your course engages students in the process of inquiry in your discipline.
Community Research & Analysis is an experiential, service-learning course, where students learn the nuts and bolt of quantitative research as they collectively undertake a research study for a Texas-based organization or agency that works with or engages issues of importance to Latina/o and Black communities. The development and implementation of the research study is student-driven. This means that every student participates in and contributes to each step of the research process, including IRB/human subjects training and approval, survey development and dissemination, data cleaning and analysis, and presentation of research findings. This is accomplished through both class activities and discussion, as well as various written assignments, including a final report and formal presentation of findings.
What kinds of projects, artifacts, presentations, or performances do your students produce as a result of engaging in this process of inquiry?
Each student (or research team of 3-4 students depending on class size) completes a final report of findings based on quantitative data analysis that addresses specific research questions related to the overall research project. Students also present their research findings both in class and in a public forum.
Please explain what independent work students will do in this course. If students are engaged in team-based projects, explain how every student will exercise responsibility for and independence with some portion of the project.
Although the class centers on a collective research study, students actively participate in every stage of the scientific research process. During the early stages of the study, each student completes IRB training and completes independent assignments that contribute to the overall research design. For example, in one writing assignment, students are required to write a certain number of survey questions and also have an opportunity to critique each other’s questions. Each student is then tasked with testing the final survey instrument, which is primarily composed of questions developed by students. In another individuals assignment, students participate in and describe their efforts related to data collection. Although the details of this assignment vary depending on the type of survey used and populations targeted, all student must participate in the dissemination of the survey. After data collection is complete, each student participates in data cleaning and codebook creation as part of their final project. Each individual (or research team) selects specific research questions to answer in their final report. During semesters where students work on final reports in research teams, I provide guidelines for how much analysis each member must complete and require that students submit independent rough drafts of their contribution. I also require that every student participate in group presentations.
What pedagogical strategies do you use to prepare students to undertake the inquiry process in your course? If applicable, how does the work that students produce in this course build upon skills or knowledge they have developed in previous coursework?
In this course, many lessons and assignments are structured around the research study students collectively engage. I use a variety of techniques to prepare students including traditional class lectures and readings, class discussion, assignments that allow students to practice their new learned skills, hand-on assignments that allow them to engage the study, and peer evaluations, which allows students to see and critique each other’s work as well as improve their own work based on these critiques. Using the survey development portion of the course as an example, I often begin by introducing students to survey construction through formal lectures and readings that address various topics (e.g., operationalizing concepts, questionnaire development, question wording and structure) and through class activities and discussion that offer students opportunities to think about some of these issues in depth. Next I challenge students to create their own survey questions and questionnaires related to the class study with the expectation that they will follow best practices based on what they learned in class. Students then have the opportunity to critique another student’s questions and then revise their own questions based on the comments they receive. After the survey is complete (usually a class effort), students again have the opportunity to test the survey and offer additional comments and critiques. Thus the inquiry process is not just a product of but also part of the learning process.
Please specify what percentage of the students’ grade is based on the process of inquiry described above. Note that for a 3-hour course, at least one-third of the course grade must be based on the students’ independent investigation and presentation of their own work. (Students’ independent work must constitute one-half of the grade for 2-hour courses and all of the grade for 1-hour courses.)
Half of the student’s grade is based on the process of inquiry described above. 20% for assignments related to research design. 10% for assignments related to data collection and cleaning. 20% for the final report with detailed data analysis and presentation of findings.