Introductory Sociology Course Research Articles

The Role of the Introductory Sociology Course on Students' Perceptions of Achievement of General Education Goals

As higher education accreditation agencies emphasize achievement of general education learning goals for undergraduate students, departments are increasingly required to identify and assess the contributions of their disciplines to achievement of these goals. This exploratory study conducted at a large urban university and its satellite campus seeks to identify students' perceptions of the contributions of the Introduction to Sociology course to the general education goals specified by a single university. This study also seeks to identify the most frequently used pedagogies used by introductory sociology instructors. Results indicate students perceive that Introduction to Sociology facilitates achievement of critical thinking skills, integration and application of knowledge, and understanding of society and culture. Results also indicate that lecture is a nearly ubiquitous teaching strategy. Students report instructors utilize in-class discussion frequently. Small group activities, writing assignments, videos, and online discussion were less frequently utilized.

Teaching Beyond the Bounds: An Interdisciplinary Introduction to Psychology and Sociology

We describe the development and evolution of an interdisciplinary introductory course in psychology and sociology. Such a course benefits students by encouraging a wider view of the social sciences and interdisciplinary critical thinking. The challenges of a combined course include reduced content for each discipline, the selection of appropriate texts, and the negotiation of course processes between two professors. Course evaluations indicated that students appreciated thinking beyond the bounds of 1 discipline. Additionally, statistical analyses suggested that our students received similar grades in upper level psychology courses as a cohort of psychology majors who completed the traditional introduction to psychology course.

First Day Sociology

The first day of an introductory sociol ogy course provides a crucial first impres sion to both students and instructor (Brouillette and Turner 1992; Dorn 1987; Higgins 1999; Leming 1979). The informa tion instructors present on the organization, content, and expectations of the course re duces student anxiety and uncertainty (Dorn 1987; Goldsmid and Wilson 1980; Riffer 1983). Instructors use self-introductions to address first day concerns and to provide information about the students, the teacher, and the learning environment (i.e., coll? gial, participatory) of the class. As they are normally conducted, however, self introductions do not tackle the important question of sociological content. After han dling administrative matters, reviewing the syllabus, and completing introductions, little time usually remains on the first day for examining social life (Higgins 1999). The exercise discussed in this paper effectively capitalizes on a valuable element of the first class with a quick illustration that allows students to immediately explore the socio logical imagination and learn a key concept: social norms. Students regularly encounter self introductions in classes, voluntary organiza tions, and other forums where facilitators ask participants to divulge personal details including name, hometown, and interests. Although students often take part in such activities, it is unlikely that they generally employ a sociological perspective and con sider the manner in which norms regulate their responses. Indeed, students are sur prised to discover that such an ordinary experience can be examined using a socio logical lens (see also, Kaufman 1997). A critical analysis of a taken-for-granted situa tion allows sensitization to the concept and facilitates perception, consideration and, ultimately, understanding by incorporating the new material (Straus 1986). Students experientially gather an understanding of norms, which profitably taps into different learning styles (Dukes 1997; Kain and Neas 1993).

Learning by Exams: The Impact of Two-Stage Cooperative Tests

Decades of research have documented the positive impacts of cooperative learning on student success: increased learning, retention through graduation, improved critical thinking, and intrinsic motivation. One cooperative teaching technique, however, has received relatively little attention. In the two-stage cooperative, group, or “pyramid” exam students first take an exam individually—as in traditional testing—and then take the same exam together with their learning group, with the exam grade being a weighted combination of their individual and group scores. This approach uses the exam itself not only for evaluation, but also as a learning tool. Although some researchers have studied group exams, they have not isolated the impact of group tests from individual achievement—an important omission. Using data from a mass lecture introductory sociology course, I found that holding individual achievement constant the group exam process significantly increased learning both for students who knew the material initially and for those who did not. This suggests that cooperative exams not only enhance learning but also allow for the process and form of testing to become more closely linked to the process and form of teaching and learning.

Using a Research Article to Foster Moral Reflection and Global Awareness in Teaching About Religion and Politics, Theory Testing, and Democracy in the Muslim World

Encouraging students to reflect on their ethical principles and to develop a global outlook have been identified as key pedagogical goals in recent national reports on higher education. This article shows how instructors can use a current article from the American Sociological Review (ASR) to facilitate moral reflection and global awareness. The ASR article, with its focus on the political implications of moral cosmologies of Muslims, its cross-national methodology, and its non-western geographical focus, is well suited to these pedagogical goals. We offer active learning exercises designed to promote ethical examination and global understandings in an introductory sociology course, a theory course, and an upper-level course on political sociology, sociology of religion, or globalization.

The Effect of Data Analysis Modules in the Introductory Sociology Course: Lessons for the Social Sciences

This article offers an evaluation of the implementation of the American Sociological Association's Integrating Data Analysis Project in a large introductory sociology course. This project was designed following an examination of the curricula of 13 disciplines that revealed that sociology failed to integrate empirical, quantitative literacy components throughout the undergraduate curriculum. Thus, efforts to introduce students to data analysis early and often were established as a best practice in the discipline. Results revealed that the students found the modules helped them understand the empirical nature of sociology. The students expressed an interest in participating in future research projects in sociology and/or other disciplines. They were not overly anxious about the quantitative literacy components of the course. Including on-line data analysis strategies using publicly available data and complimentary software represent cost and time-effective methods of introducing quantitative literacy into the social science classroom. Many social and behavioral sciences other than sociology have also discovered that their students lack a clear understanding of the relationship between empirical research and substantive topics within the discipline. Consequently, the lessons learned from the efforts of the ASA could be applied across many disciplines to form a more cohesive curriculum for many disciplines.

Introducing Multimedia Presentations and a Course Website to an Introductory Sociology Course: How Technology Affects Student Perceptions of Teaching Effectiveness

I use a quasi-experiment and follow-up questionnaire to ascertain the effects of PowerPoint multimedia presentations and a Blackboard course website on the course grades and perceptions of teaching effectiveness of introductory sociology students. Results of t-tests showed no statistically significant difference in course grades between experimental and control groups. However, students' responses to standardized teaching evaluations were considerably more favorable in the experimental group; all measured dimensions of perceived teaching effectiveness yielded statistically significant increases, with substantial increases in perceptions of instructor rapport and grading. I use the ideas of George Herbert Mead to interpret the results and increase sociological understanding of the relationship between the introduction of instructional technology and student perceptions of teaching effectiveness. In Mead's terms, the introduction of technology is not merely a self-involved act performed by the instructor that changes the modality of course presentation but a social process involving both instructor and students. Within this process the introduction of technology is both a nonsignificant gesture, which elicits from students an unconscious or “instinctively” favorable impression of the course, and a significant symbol, which calls forth behavioral responses from students, conscious actions that substantially alter their perceptions of the course. Students not only reacted positively to the instructor's use of technology but through their own use of the technology increased their involvement in the course and came to perceive its teaching more favorably.

The Impact of Roles and Frames on Attributions of Responsibility: The Case of Cold War Human Radiation Experiments1

The phrase Cold War human radiation experiments has been used by the media to categorize a broad range of research programs involving radiation experiments conducted during the Cold War era. The present study uses vignettes based on 3 widely disseminated “horror stories” used by the media to frame the radiation experiments as deviant. Both the role of the actor (autonomous or obedient) and the media frame (sensational, counter claim, or control) were manipulated in the vignettes for the purpose of testing their independent effects on attributions of responsibility. Data were collected from 337 undergraduate students enrolled in introductory sociology courses to examine whether role, frame, or both shaped respondents’ attributions of responsibility to the individual or organization involved in the experiments. Results indicate that role has a significant effect on how individuals attribute responsibility, but media frames do not.

Computer Mediated Communication and Student Learning in Large Introductory Sociology Classes

Over the past several years, scholars of teaching and learning have demonstrated the potential of collaborative learning strategies for improving student learning. This paper examines the use of computer-mediated communication to promote collaborative student learning in large introductory sociology courses. Specifically, we summarize a project we conducted during the 2000-2001 academic year in which we added online collaborative learning activities to the curriculum of two large sections of introductory sociology. Drawing on Novak et al.'s (1999) Just-In-Time Teaching methods, we developed online activities to help prepare students for subsequent in-class work and to cultivate a sense of group solidarity among smaller teams within the larger class. The results suggest that student engagement in the online group learning activities was strongly predictive of better student academic achievement on the biweekly quizzes, cumulative final exam, and course paper. These findings highlight the potential value of online group work for fostering collaborative learning environments in large lecture courses as well as for enhancing student learning.

Just-In-Time Teaching in Sociology Or How I Convinced My Students to Actually Read the Assignment

data in my introductory sociology course, I made a startling and disappointing discovery. For the most part, students simply were not bothering to read the basics version of the introductory survey textbook that I assigned. This discovery presented me with two related challenges. First, I had to carefully choose readings that would enhance student learning, active engagement with the material, and critical thinking. Second, I had to find an instructional method that would motivate students to actually read the material. In this teaching note, I describe how I came to select readers, rather than comprehensive survey textbooks, and how I utilized instructional technology through Just-in-Time (JiT) quizzes to encourage students to read them. Perhaps my students had good reason not to read the introductory textbook. Such textbooks have often been discussed and debated in the pages of Teaching Sociology. Rau and Baker (1989) criticized introductory texts for lacking intellectual depth and rigor. Hinch (1988) criticized their encyclopedic approach, charging that it failed to inspire critical thinking in students and erroneously separated theory, method, and fact. Others have charged that introductory texts fail to provide sufficient or appropriate coverage of certain topic areas such as race and ethnicity (Dennick-Brecht 1993), class stratification (Lucal 1994), disability (Taub

Learning Communities as Transformative Pedagogy: Centering Diversity in Introductory Sociology

This paper discusses learning communities as pedagogy for introductory sociology courses, which are often plagued by student apathy. Most importantly, it examines the potential for learning communities to incorporate active and collaborative learning techniques as a vehicle to subvert dominant views of diversity, to see diversity as intersecting social inequalities that can be rearranged in favor of greater social equality. The effectiveness of a learning community with the theme of diversity for meeting these goals is assessed using qualitative and quantitative data. It is concluded that the pedagogic framework of the learning community did indeed push students to problematize their student role. Finally, a review of results from a pre/post-test questionnaire suggests that students entered the community as a fairly homogenous group in their views of diversity and left as a more heterogeneous group, indicating some shift in consciousness, however slight.

From Student Resistance to Embracing the Sociological Imagination: Unmasking Privilege, Social Conventions, and Racism

A crucial task of introductory sociology courses is to teach students the meaning and value of the sociological imagination. While this task is daunting under typical circumstances, it is more difficult when instructors are committed to raising students' critical awareness of social conventions that maintain systems of racial oppression. In this paper, we discuss our experiences with teaching this aspect of the sociological imagination to a group of ethnically and economically privileged students. Based upon our experiences and existing research, we propose that a rise in students' political conservatism and their adoption of color-blind racism may explain our students' recalcitrance and the increasing reports of resistance from those who teach race and inequality courses. We provide details of an assignment that eased students' recalcitrance by enabling them to demonstrate to themselves the fallacies of scientific racism. The assignment, a critical assessment of Rushton's scathing review of Gould's Mismeasure of Man, required students to exercise their sociological imagination to successfully unmask the agendas, fallacies, and consequences of scientific racism. Quotes from the students' assignments and the course evaluations show that the assignment conveys to recalcitrant students the utility of sociological analysis

Capturing the Experience: Transforming Community Service into Service Learning

Using a quasi-experimental design, this case study outlines the author's application of specific techniques necessary to implement a service learning component in an introductory sociology class. It also systematically compares the outcomes from two groups of students, one of which was involved in relatively unstructured community work and the other in a structured service learning assignment and examines the benefits experienced from this transformation. Although adding the structure necessary to accomplish effective service learning involved careful preliminary reflection, planning, and coordination, the study suggests that the service learning approach enhances students' development of a sociological orientation and understanding of structural linkages to poverty. It also indicates that students involved in structured service learning may better master course materials than students involved in less-structured community work, as measured by objective examination. Finally, the study supports earlier claims reported in the literature that service learning might be a particularly effective way of improving the efficacy of introductory sociology courses.

Sound and Vision: Using Progressive Rock to Teach Social Theory

theory to students' experiences. Another is the use of popular music in the sociology classroom. The literature on using music to teach sociology suggests that the medium is well .suited for use in a range of courses, and that it is an effective way of stimulating student interest and enhancing active learning. Among sociology instructors, the most common uses of music involve playing selected songs in class and discussing how the lyrics illustrate sociological concepts, ideas, and theories (Elterman 1983). Such a technique has been successfully applied in courses on deviance (Martinez 1995), race, class, and gender (Martinez 1994), theory (Burns and Martinez 1993), and introduction to sociology (Walczak and Reuter 1994). In fact, the materials collected in Reuter and Walczak's (1993) collection indicate that music can be used in almost any sociology course. Most recently, Ahlkvist (1999) has offered an alternative to the illustrative uses of music in sociology classes by making popular music the object of students' cultural analysis. Ahlkvist (1999) demonstrates how students in introductory sociology courses can learn about theories, concepts, and ideas by using them in their analysis of heavy metal music and subculture. By all accounts, illustrative and analytical uses of music in sociology classes are liked by students, and effective tools for making sociology relevant to them. *The author would like to thank the anonymous reviewers for their help in revising this paper. Please address all correspondence to the author at the Department of Sociology, University of Colorado, Colorado Springs, CO 809337150; e-mail: jarlandmarti@juno.com Editor's note: The reviewers were, in alphabetical order, Lilli Downes, Walter R. Jacobs, and Anthony M. Orum. Teaching Sociology, Vol. 29, 2001 (October:471-482) 471 This content downloaded from 157.55.39.170 on Tue, 26 Jul 2016 06:12:47 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 472 TEACHING SOCIOLOGY More generally, the value of multimedia learning is well established theoretically and empirically in the fields of psychology and education (Mayer 1997). Teaching techniques that engage multiple senses are well supported by theories of learning that emphasize the importance of drawing on organizing frameworks or schema that are meaningful to the learner (e.g., Neisser 1976; Paivio 1986; Torney-Purta 1991) and research on multimedia learning (e.g., Moreno and Mayer 1999; Park and Hannafin 1993; Penney 1989). According to Moreno and Mayer (2000), learning is enhanced when instructors present complementary stimuli that are relevant to the content of the lesson (p. 124), allowing students to use both auditory and visual processing channels. The technique described in this article employs popular music to address the challenges of teaching theory to introductory sociology students without glossing over its pivotal place in the course and the discipline. My approach to teaching theory to introductory students differs from most uses of music in the sociology classroom in that albums from a single music genre, rather than individual songs or lyrics, are used to highlight the distinctions between theoretical perspectives. I use progressive rock music to help students grasp theories holistically, rather than to illustrate isolated concepts and ideas. By demonstrating how the ideas of Marx, Durkheim, and Weber are expressed in the music of the classical progressive rock bands Pink Floyd, Yes, and Emerson, Lake and Palmer (ELP) respectively, students are able to grasp the distinctive focus of each of these classical theories.' In describing this teaching technique, I begin by offering a rationale for using progressive rock music. Secondly, I explain how I use this music in the classroom, and present evidence of the technique's effectiveness. In conclusion I discuss some limitations and alternative applications of the technique.

Lessons about Race in Introductory Sociology

RACE IS A TOPIC covered in most introductory sociology textbooks and taught in most introductory sociology courses. Teaching about race in a meaningful way in a general introductory course can be challenging. Davis (1992) and Pence and Fields (1999) discussed classroom responses to teaching about inequality that apply to teaching about race-resistance, paralysis, and rage. In my course, resistors deny that racism still exists, and if it does, maintain that they certainly are not racist. Other class members are tired of talking about race and cynically see classroom discussion as a code for airing politically correct views on the topic. These students put up a wall of silence. Some students express anger and opposition to acknowledging a history of racial oppression and their part in that history, while others have experienced the ubiquitousness of racism first hand. In such a climate, it is difficult to facilitate a dialogue that does not intensify resentment and fuel greater misunderstanding. Because race is such an emotionally laden topic, it is particularly difficult to create a classroom environment that is inclusive of

Signals, Symbols, and Vibes: An Exercise in Cross-Cultural Interaction

AMONG THE TOPICS usually covered in introductory sociology courses, culture may be the most far-reaching and immediately relevant. Not only do cultural concerns cut across virtually every other topic in introductory courses, but the increasing diversity of the American population and the trend toward globalization demand that students understand the challenges and rewards inherent in cross-cultural interaction (Schmid 1995). As cross-cultural contact continues to increase and the boundaries among cultures become less and less clear, the skills needed to negotiate a culturally complicated world will continue to grow in importance (Sleek 1998). When concepts about culture are

Students' Assumptions and Professors' Presumptions: Creating a Learning Community for the Whole Student

Last spring semester, along with five other faculty and staff, we were approached by the new dean of the College of Arts and Sciences the University of Wisconsin-Stout campus about participating in a pilot bridge pro gram designed to help at risk students enter college and have a successful col lege experience. At the core of this pro gram would be a series of linked courses: English composition, basic writing, American national government, study skills, and an introductory sociology course. The students, who normally would be denied admittance to our uni

Music and Cultural Analysis in the Classroom: Introducing Sociology through Heavy Metal

This article demonstrates that popular music's potential as a tool for teaching interactive introductory sociology courses is enhanced when a cultural analysis of a specific music genre is incorporated into the classroom. Using this type of analysis as an integrative course theme promotes active learning as students apply sociological ideas to explain empirical reality. Using heavy metal music as an example, I present a two-part model for integrating a cultural analysis of this music and its subculture into the introductory course. Students first conduct a sociologically grounded cultural analysis of heavy metal music. Then they expand this analysis during the rest of the course by applying new concepts, theories, and research to explain this cultural object sociologically. The article's final section discusses the application of this model in a range of class contexts and provides student responses to its use in an introductory sociology course.

An Interview with Reece McGee

at Purdue University, where he holds a master teacher position in which he has taught only introductory sociology courses (in very large classes) from 1967 through the spring of 1993. He attended the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy, Macalester College, and the University of Minnesota as an undergraduate. He completed his MA and PhD. at Minnesota. He held regular faculty positions at Humboldt State College (now university), The University of Texas, and Macalester College before coming to Purdue. He has held visiting appointments at the University of California at Berkeley and the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill as a specialist in undergraduate education. He has received Distinguished Contributions to Teaching or Undergraduate Education awards from the ASA Section on Under-

An Alternative to a Traditional Lecture Course

tently better examination performance than in courses employing lectures and no daily quizzes. As shown in Lovell-Troy's (1989) recent review, more than 80 percent of introductory sociology courses use either lectures alone or discussions with lectures. In an early investigation of variables influencing attendance at lectures, Lloyd and his associates (1972) varied lectures in terms of their relevance to forthcoming examinations. Not surprisingly, attendance declined when content did not bear directly on the examinations. In another condition, when the right to attend lectures was made contingent on completing assignments, there was no increase in completion of assignments. More recently, Rysberg (1986) reports that students in a course involving unit testing to mastery not only performed significantly better than those in a lecture course, but also rated the course more positively. Similarly, Meredith (1985) reports that class members' perceptions of intimacy were related negatively to class size and positively to the use of discussion rather than lecture. The ratings of intimacy, in turn, were related positively to the students' evaluations of the course. Cohen (1983) reports similar results, in which class size, in a negative relationship, was the single most important predictor of evaluation of the lecturer's performance. In the typical lecture course, the instructor lectures for approximately an hour; assigns a textbook, which is recited to the students; and gives one or two examinations (which are returned to students only after a week or more) and a final (which is never returned). In the mass of material presented to students, what are they supposed to learn? How can they reasonably be expected to distinguish the important from the trivial? The need to help students master material is recognized increasingly in the literature, but the lecture method remains dominant (Mayer 1986; Saltman 1988).