Undergraduate Social Science Research Articles

Place and pedagogy: using space and materiality in teaching social science in Southern Africa

ABSTRACT This article responds to recent perspectives from the Global South calling for the decolonisation of universities. Drawing on examples from two post-independence universities in Southern Africa – Sol Plaatje University in South Africa, and Great Zimbabwe University in Zimbabwe – we examine pedagogic innovation in undergraduate social science teaching. In particular, we examine the use of space and materiality as teaching tools in social anthropology. We argue for the promotion of what we call emplacement: such that materiality is not only used to relativise and deconstruct inherited world views about the Global South, in order that views from within the Global South are given centrality, but also such that students can situate themselves as embodied persons within concrete spaces and communities which carry particular social, economic and political histories. We see such a move as a decolonial one, that allows for the creation and maintenance of students as embodied, knowledge-making persons situated within communities, rather than as abstracted individuals to whom academia imparts knowledge created by others.

Improving Student Success in the Capstone Seminar: The Importance of a Prior Research Intensive Experience

Most undergraduate social science programs require the completion of a capstone experience before graduation. Despite the recognized potential of capstone courses to deepen learning, many students do not perform well. The present study examines several factors that may prepare students for academic success in a fairly typical capstone course for undergraduate political science majors. We hypothesize that students who earn high grades in research intensive courses will also earn high grades in the capstone course, even after controlling for other factors related to academic performance. Our results show that successfully completing research intensive training in just one course, even above and beyond the introductory methods course, improves capstone performance. We conclude with a discussion of how our findings lend further support to arguments in favor of “scaffolding” political science curricula to funnel students from less to more intensive research experiences as they move toward the completion of their degrees.

Information Seeking Behavior of the Humanities and Social Science Undergraduates: A Case of University of Colombo

This paper discusses the Information Seeking Behavior (ISB) of the Humanities and Social Science (HSS) undergraduates of the University of Colombo with three objectives; to study the information resource usage of the undergraduates, to study the barriers they encounter in seeking and using the information and to study the information seeking process of the undergraduates. A questionnaire and Focus Group Meetings (FGMs) were used to gather quantitative and qualitative data. Convenient Sampling method was used and the response rate was 82% out of 550 questionnaires while 95 attended the FGMs. SPSS (ver. 22) and manual analysis were used to analyze data. Most respondents use Internet instead of library resources and do not use standard criteria to evaluate information. The majority consult their batch mates for help in using information resources. At the same time, most of them have not received any training in using the library resources or Internet. They face several barriers related to library resources, facilities, services and training which prevent them from reaching the library first for their information needs. The processes they follow to search and use information correspond to some other information seeking models. It is recommended that additional research is required to substantiate the gravity of this issue and librarians need to collaborate with the faculty to improve their ISB.

Sosyal Bilgiler Öğretmen Adaylarının Proje Tabanlı Öğrenme (PTÖ) Algılarının İncelenmesi

We are living in a technology driven fast moving age in which students need 21st century skills to be successful in work and daily life. Project Based Learning (PBL) that requires students to make a project is recommended to achieve the aforementioned skills. One of the focuses of the research is teachers' and students' perceptions of the benefits and challenges of PBL and project. According to the research, these perceptions effect teachers and teacher candidates’ qualifications, experiences and artifacts. The aim of this study was to identify perceptions of pre-service social studies teachers who have not sufficient experiences in the projects. The survey method was used in the study. A total of 145 students comprised the participants. This study was conducted in an undergraduate social science teacher education program at Faculty of Education in Trabzon, Turkey during autumn semester of the 2014-2015 school year. The open ended questions were administered and mind maps were asked to the participants to define what they perceived as project. A qualitative analysis was conducted and results were presented in graphs and tables. This study concluded that teacher candidates perceive projects as for preparing teaching materials and an instruction technique to teach subject matter of social studies. Recommendations for practitioners and researchers are presented.

Self-learning of Information Literacy Competencies in Higher Education: The Perspective of Social Sciences Students

Preference for autonomous versus directed learning for the acquisition of information competencies (ICs) was analyzed among undergraduate social science students according to gender, degree program, belief in importance, and self-efficacy. Data were gathered using the IL-HUMASS (Information Literacy Humanities Social Sciences) online survey from students at five public Spanish universities enrolled in audiovisual communication, education, information science, pedagogy, journalism, psychology, social work, and tourism undergraduate programs during the 2013–2014 academic year. Mann-Whitney U, Kruskal-Wallis, and chi-square tests, as well as discriminant analysis, were performed. The results revealed a higher preference for the directed learning style in the four IL competency categories: searching, evaluation, processing, and communication-dissemination. Audiovisual communication, education, and journalism students showed a predilection for autonomous learning, whereas information science and psychology students preferred directed learning. Higher scores in belief in importance correlated with a greater preference for autonomous learning. In contrast, higher levels of self-efficacy were associated with a greater preference for directed learning.

Investigating Online Dialogue Journal Writing Impacts on Low Proficiency Students’ Writing Anxiety

This mixed methods case study was conducted in a Malaysian public university and it investigated the impact of online dialogue journal writing (ODJW) on low proficiency ESL undergraduates’ writing anxiety levels and types of writing anxiety. The ODJW intervention project was conducted as a supplementary writing activity outside the regular contact hours of the Preparatory English Course. This case study required students to write dialogue journal entries to the researcher and to their partner based on topics provided in the university’s e-learning portal (eLearn@USM). The participants were 26 first year Social Science undergraduates who were involved in this 12 week study. Purposive sampling technique was utilised to select the respondents who belonged to an intact group. The Second Language Writing Anxiety Inventory (SLWAI) was employed in the study to measure students’ writing anxiety and also types of writing anxiety, namely somatic anxiety, cognitive anxiety and avoidance behaviour. The findings revealed that students’ writing anxiety levels were significantly reduced and most of them experienced a shift in the type of writing anxiety, from somatic anxiety to cognitive anxiety. It is recommended that the ODJW be used as a tool to alleviate writing anxiety among low proficiency ESL undergraduates.

What (and who) works in widening participation? Supporting direct entrant student transitions to higher education

ABSTRACTThis article considers support programmes for direct entrant (DE) student transitions as a widening participation strategy. We reflect upon one induction and support project with 27 students transitioning from further education into the second year of undergraduate social science degree programmes in a Scottish university. We use focus group data to discuss what works (barriers to successful transitions, project successes and limitations) and primarily who works; how responsibility for supporting DE student transitions is distributed and which students benefit. Original findings confirm existing evidence that becoming an ‘independent learner’ is a challenge for DE students. However, analysis problematizes and significantly expands existing understandings of relationships with staff and peer support, and contributes new insight into how the materiality and everyday logistics of the university relate to DE student transitions. We argue for more institutionally embedded approaches to supporting student transitions, including resourcing academic staff to develop and provide this support.

Digital divide in quantitative methods: The effects of computer‐assisted instruction and students' attitudes on knowledge acquisition

AbstractComputer‐assisted instruction can change the way introductory statistics and quantitative methods courses are taught. Using a two‐group pretest–posttest design, we conducted an experiment using an undergraduate social science student sample to investigate whether the introduction of statistical software to teaching quantitative methods would improve knowledge acquisition and attitudes toward quantitative methods courses. Our project confirmed that implementing computer‐assisted instructional methods increased knowledge acquisition in quantitative methods courses compared with students' academic performance in other courses, measured by grade point average. We also found that student attitudes have weak and mostly nonsignificant influence on quantitative methods knowledge tests. Additionally, the paper suggests a curriculum‐level approach to teaching quantitative methods to undergraduate students.

From action to intra-action? Agency, identity and ‘goals’ in a relational approach to climate change education

Engaging with new materialist/posthuman approaches to agency, in this paper I explore what might happen to the goal of cultivating climate action if we decentre the human from our climate pedagogies. Specifically, I engage with Karen Barad’s concept of intra-action which argues that agency is not possessed by individual things or beings, but emerges through relationships. I work with experiences and occurrences from Climate Change Responses, an undergraduate social science course that I tutored in 2015 (CCR15). I explore how in CCR15, while trying to learn to better mitigate climate change, we became climate killjoys, resisting, challenging and disrupting pleasurable carbon intensive practices. Through these empirical examples, I show that ‘climate intra-action’ can enable us to attend to how human and more-than-human identities change through engagement with climate change; how our human capacities to affect climate emerge through acting-with more-than-human entanglements; and thus how unanticipated, different actions can emerge in climate change education. I therefore suggest that an intra-active approach to climate change education research and practice might enable less anthropocentric and more relationally attuned climate change ‘response-abilities’, for both teachers and students.

Maracatu, Trabalho e Organizing

Resumo O presente caso para ensino é baseado no curta-documentário Maracatu, Maracatus, e explora a dinâmica de um grupo de maracatu, o Maracatu Morro Alto, localizado na periferia da cidade do Recife, no Estado de Pernambuco. Busca-se enfatizar a importância da cultura popular para os membros da comunidade Morro Alto; os significados atribuídos ao trabalho desenvolvido neste contexto; o maracatu enquanto organizing; a gestão exercida pelos mestres do maracatu como práticas; e os principais conflitos vivenciados atualmente pelo maracatu. O caso destina-se principalmente a estudantes de cursos de graduação de Ciências Sociais, Antropologia, Administração, bem como àquelas pessoas interessadas em compreender as dinâmicas da cultura popular, mais especificamente, do maracatu desenvolvido em Pernambuco.

Sources of Students’ Anxiety in a Multidisciplinary Social Statistics Course

To what extent, and why, do social science undergraduates experience anxiety about taking statistics courses? Despite holding assumptions of rampant statistics anxiety among students, sociologists have conducted few empirical studies of this issue. We extend the literature by analyzing data from a survey of sociology, social work, and criminal justice students enrolled in seven sections of our department’s Social Statistics with Computer Applications course in the winter 2018 semester. Two thirds of respondents are anxious or very anxious about taking the course. They experience statistics anxiety primarily due to their lack of confidence in their ability to succeed in the course and their more general test-taking anxiety. This article offers a framework for instructors of social statistics courses to measure student anxiety and to address it in class in a way that aims to alleviate anxiety among the anxious while not alienating those who are comfortable in the course.

Factors deterring dentistry, medical, pharmacy, and social science undergraduates from pursuing nursing as a healthcare career: a cross-sectional study in an Asian university

BackgroundGlobally more registered nurses need to be recruited to meet the needs of aging populations and increased co-morbidity. Nursing recruitment remains challenging when compared to other healthcare programs. Despite healthcare students having similar motivation in joining the healthcare industry, many did not consider nursing as a career choice. This study aims to identify the deterrents to choosing nursing among healthcare undergraduates by examining the differences in the factors influencing healthcare career choices and nursing as a career choice.MethodsA cross sectional study was conducted using a 35-parallel items instrument known as Healthcare Career Choice and Nursing Career Choice scale. Six hundred and four (n = 604) first year medical, pharmacy, dentistry and social science students from a university in Singapore completed the survey.ResultsNursing as a career was perceived by healthcare students to be more likely influenced by prior healthcare exposure, the nature of the work, job prospects, and social influences. Lack of autonomous decision making, perceived lower ability to make diagnosis, having to attend to patients’ hygiene needs, engendered stigma, and lack of parental support were identified as deterring factors to choosing nursing as a career.ConclusionAn understanding of the deterrents to choosing nursing as career allows policy makers and educational leaders to focus on recruitment strategies. These include providing more exposure to nurses’ roles in early school years, helping young people to overcome the fear of providing personal hygiene care, promoting nurses’ autonomous nursing practice, addressing gender stigma, and overcoming parental objection.

The effects of decisional and academic procrastination on students’ feelings toward academic procrastination

Procrastination is often associated with feelings of discomfort. The current research examined the effects of decisional and academic procrastination on students’ feeling of discomfort related to academic procrastination and the desire to change their procrastination habits. We assumed that academic procrastination would mediate the relationship between decisional procrastination and students’ feelings toward academic procrastination. A total of 373 undergraduate social sciences students from northern Israel participated in the study. The results challenge the traditional perception that procrastination is mostly associated with feelings of discomfort and may imply that while decisional procrastinators experience discomfort associated with procrastination, academic procrastinators want to change their procrastination habits but do not report feelings of discomfort. The findings also suggest a difference between the two types of procrastination and may contribute to the argument that for some students, procrastination serves as an immediate emotional relief, followed by negative academic outcomes that enhance the desire to change this habit.

–ED ALLOMORPHS AND LINGUISTIC KNOWLEDGE OF MALAY SPEAKERS OF ENGLISH: A DESCRIPTIVE AND CORRELATIONAL STUDY

Malay is a language from the Austronesian family and unlike the Indo-European-originated English, it does not generally have inflectional temporal markers. Investigating this from a cross-linguistics - influence perspective, differences between the languages could mean difficulties for Malay speakers to acquire features of English. The objectives of this study are to investigate Malay speakers’ pronunciation of the English language –ed allomorphs – [d], [t] and [ɪd]/[əd] – and the relationship between the morphophonological forms and two types of linguistic knowledge, one of which is implicit while the other is explicit. Data were collated from fifty participants who are social science undergraduates and English majors who speak English as a second language. Four instruments were used to gauge the respondents’ verbal use of –ed allomorphs as well as their implicit and explicit knowledge of the allomorphs. Results indicate that the students’ verbal usage of the target items either lacks approximation to Standard English pronunciation or is largely dropped altogether. Results also suggest a moderate relationship between implicit and explicit knowledge of the allomorphs and their verbal production by Malay speakers of English. The finding illuminates acquisition problem of English language speakers whose mother tongue does not share similar inflectional markers. Pedagogical solutions can help learners of the English language to approximate Standard English and in the long run, enhance effective communication and increase chances of employability.

Information Needs and Utilization among Social Science Undergraduates in Nigerian Universities

Information is a means through which knowledge about a phenomenon derived from observation, study experience or instruction and collection in varying ways. However, failure rates continue to increase in some universities in Nigeria, and information dissemination is not improving. This study, therefore, examines the information needs and utilisation of undergraduates in the Departments of Accountancy and Business Administration within three selected Nigerian Universities based on ownership. The study adopts qualitative research approach using interview method to collect data in the federal, state and privately owned universities. The research adopted snowball sampling method as it was difficult to determine the specific sample frame due to non-availability of intake records. The study therefore recruited ninety respondents for an interview from the three universities covering various disciplines in social sciences including Business Administration, Accounting, Economics and Finance. The study was guided by Wilson’s 1991 information behaviour model using it major variables of information needs, seeking, awareness, utilisation and outcome. Findings revealed that students require relevant information that will assist them to succeed in their academic career. It also found that information needs of students vary depending on their course of study. Students, however, utilise information for various purposes including academic work, social networking, community development and lifelong learning experience.

Factors Influencing Achievement in Undergraduate Social Science Research Methods Courses

Undergraduate social science research methods courses tend to have higher than average rates of failure and withdrawal. Lack of success in these courses impedes students’ progression through their degree programs and negatively impacts institutional retention and graduation rates. Grounded in adult learning theory, this mixed methods study examines the factors that influence student achievement in these courses among a sample of 724 social science students. Quantitative results indicate math self-concept, the belief that being good at math is necessary for success in the course; anxiety; attributions of course utility; learning approach; and GPA predict perceived learning. Qualitative results suggest students’ research self-concepts shape whether they take a deep learning approach (leaning in) or a surface learning approach (resistance) to the course. Course instructors also impact students’ perceptions of learning.

Enseñar y aprender Historia a partir del análisis de fuentes históricas. Una experiencia formativa en educación superior

Following the methodological framework of educational action-research, this article presents the results of a formative experience supported by the development of historical thinking skills in undergraduate Social Science students at Universidad La Gran Colombia, which was conducted in a Colombian history seminar as part of the curriculum of this academic program. This document, thus, analyzes the pedagogical and disciplinary potentialities derived from the treatment of strategic historical or second-order contents in the history teaching and learning process, which takes place in the initial Social Science teacher training program. It explores the educational advantages resulting from the pedagogical actions related to the development of historical skills, particularly those associated with the search, selection and analysis of historical sources. As a result, it is recommended that the teaching and learning of history in the context of undergraduate studies should not be focused on uncritical reproduction of information, but on the production of historical knowledge, a process in which the work on first and second-order sources is key.

Researching undergraduate social science research

ABSTRACTThe experience(s) of undergraduate research students in the social sciences is under-represented in the literature in comparison to the natural sciences or science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM). The strength of STEM undergraduate research learning environments is understood to be related to an apprenticeship-mode of learning supported by more experienced (post-graduate) peers, often through ongoing research projects. Studies of undergraduate research reveal that this is not typical in the social sciences, and students report facing specific challenges to the development of their identities as researchers that include fear, intellectual confusion and emotional unsettlement. This paper examines how a social science learning environment, designed as a research study itself, fostered beginning researchers communities of practice, realised a distinct mode of apprenticing based on peers’ similarly peripheral community membership, and enabled students to reframe emotional unsettlement. It argues that, effectively mediated, talk can powerfully improve undergraduate social science research students’ experiences.

Library Anxiety and Emotion Perception Among the Undergraduate Social Sciences Students: A Relationship Study

ABSTRACTPrevious research has mostly focused on the demographic and academic correlates of library anxiety. This study focused on the “library anxiety” and “emotion perception” of students, with the objective of examining the relationship between these two concepts. In total, 279 self-reporting questionnaires were used for analysis. The results confirmed the existence of the phenomenon of library anxiety, with these students being more anxious regarding the “user education” and “user knowledge” factors. They showed greater skills of emotion perception. A negatively significant relationship appeared between library anxiety and emotion perception. The results suggest that user education and emotion perception training programs should be developed to overcome students' problems.

Delivering education about sexual violence: reflections on the experience of teaching a sensitive topic in the social and health sciences

Sexual violence is a serious and prevalent violation that is experienced by as many as one in three people worldwide. Professionals working in areas of health, social work, law, policy-development and other fields engage with survivors of sexual violence. Their knowledge of this issue is an important determinant in how they react towards survivors and the quality of care they provide. It is essential that third-level students in the health and social sciences receive education on this topic; however, in Irish third-level education, instruction about sexual violence is often absent or minimal within these curricula. In this article the authors advocate for the inclusion of education about sexual violence within undergraduate and postgraduate social and health science programmes. They draw from their experience teaching about sexual violence in Irish third-level education to highlight the challenges and barriers in providing such instruction and provide practical pedagogical approaches and examples of how risks for students and lecturers can be mitigated and barriers reduced.