Undergraduate Research at Sinclair Community College

1
Undergraduate Research at Sinclair Community
College

• Katherine R. Rowell
• Director, Center for Teaching and Learning
• Professor of Sociology
• Tonya Barnes, Student, Sociology and Social Work

2
Enrollment

• 23,000 credit students
• 35,000 40,000 unduplicated students annually
• 65,000 individuals served through non-credit
  programming

3
Sinclair Students
4
Programs

• Fully accredited by The Higher Learning
  Commission
• of the North Central Association
• Degrees
• Associate of Applied Science
• Associate of Arts
• Associate of Science
• Associate of Technical Study
• Associate of Individualized Study
• Career Programs
• University Parallel
• Certificates
• Short Term Technical Certificates
• Specialized Courses

5
Why a Research Course at the Community College
Level?

• American Sociology Association and SSDAN along
  with NSF Funding
• The Integrating Data Analysis Project (IDA)
• Service Learning
• Honors Program
• We know this helps students learn!!!!
• The major impetus is that research in the
  undergraduate curriculum increases student
  learning

6
Sociology Department Experience

• For the past five years, the departments has
  intentionally been integrating data analysis
  throughout our curriculum
• Students who have had this experienced asked for
  an opportunity to have a research course

7
Description of the Class

• 10 students registered for the course
• All had at least one course with me and had
  experienced an integrating data analysis module
• We do not have a major in two year degrees, most
  were liberal arts majors and one was business
• 4 of the 10 were honors students

8
Why did students take the course?

• Since there is no guarantee that a new course
  will transfer, students knew this up front.
• They had developed a real interest in research.
• All of the students were actively involved in the
  class.

9
Course Description

• As sociologists, we conduct research for the
  primary purpose of providing trustworthy
  information and evidence about society. There are
  two types of sociological research-academic and
  applied. Academic researchers typically work in a
  university or college setting and conduct
  research to primarily focus on research to help
  expand the scientific understanding of human
  society. Applied Research is research that
  focuses on meeting the research needs of an
  organization like a business or social agency.
  Research is an important part of any career.

10
Course description continued

• This course will provide you as a student a basic
  introductory understanding of how to conduct
  survey research and use secondary data analysis
  to understand the society and world around us.
  Students will have an opportunity to complete an
  academic research project, applied research
  project, and write a research proposal for a
  future research project.

11
Course Objectives Part I

• Understand the scientific research method and the
  types of research methods used to study society.
• Develop social responsibility and an ethic of
  service attitudes and understandings needed to
  live in society as responsible citizens and to
  contribute to building a caring and just society.
• Demonstrate critical thinking thru the use of the
  sociological perspective of the major social
  institutions, and social change mechanisms.
• Demonstrate professional effectiveness and
  teamwork by exhibiting leadership, cooperation,
  and making productive contributions to group
  written and oral assignments. Students must also
  demonstrate a respect for diverse view points
  within the group.
• Interpret statistical tables, graphs, charts as
  they apply to an understanding of the major
  institutions and social change.

12
Course Objectives Part II

• Calculate and interpret the measures of central
  tendency as a means of processing data sets.
• Learn the basics about survey research including
  sampling, survey construction, anonymity,
  confidentiality.
• Examine the rules of ethics in research and how
  to effectively deal with the Institutional Review
  Process.
• Develop and understanding of both academic and
  applied research through experiences in both
  types of research.
• Increase understanding of information literacy
  including how to use the library to search for
  academic resources and how to read journal
  articles.
• Examine the role of institutional planning and
  research and grants in higher education and how
  research is used on a college campus to make
  decisions.
• Learn how to enter data into SPSS and Microsoft
  Excel.

13
Major Course Projects

• House of Bread Service Learning Project
• Replication of an Academic Study
• Each student developed a research proposal
• 3 Secondary Analysis Projects
• Learned SPSS and Excel
• We filmed the experience

14
House of Bread Lessons Learned

• Overall, this project was the most successful of
  the projects completed in the course. Our
  findings helped the House of Bread make a case
  with the City of Dayton for homeless assistance.
• Face to face interviewing was difficult for some
  students. Some students were better at conducting
  interviews than others.
• We learned that to get participants we had to
  give interviewees something. We ended up giving
  each interviewee a personal hygiene product gift
  bag.
• Qualitative Data is time consuming to enter and
  analyze
• Direct participation in a research project is a
  great way to learn how to do research and we felt
  that our research made a difference.

15
Study We Chose to Replicate

• Comparative Study of Traditional and
  Nontraditional Students, Identities and Needs
• Authors Mary Scheuer Senter and Richard Senter,
  Jr.
• NASPA Journal Volume 35, no. 4, Summer 1998
• Authors were kind enough to share a copy of their
  survey with us
• Original study examined the differences between
  traditional and nontraditional students on a 4
  year campus
• We hypothesized that there might be differences
  if we examined nontraditional students at a
  community college
• Original study found that traditional students
  had as many needs as nontraditional students
  (there was more to this study). Our class thought
  we might find different outcomes if we studied
  nontraditional at a community college.

16
Brief Findings of Replication Study

• Our study sample includes a total of 135
  University and Community College students.
• 98 Sinclair Community College Students
• 37 Wittenberg University Students
• 96 White, 24 African American, 14 Other
• 29 Males and 106 Females
• 90 Students Identified as Traditional
• 42 Students Identified as Non-Traditional

17
Academic Replication Study Lessons Learned

• Our survey asked way too many questions (we added
  to many to the original)
• Entering all that data by hand is very tedious
  and time consuming
• Finding students to take our survey seriously and
  take the time to complete it was difficult
  because of the length of the survey
• We did not find any significant findings due to
  problems with the sample and many students not
  completing the survey

18
Research Proposals developed in Class

• Lisa OHearn Unlearning Prejudice in Situations
  of Project
• Deborah WengerEffective Teaching Strategies for
  Young Latino Immigrant Children
• Colleen LimSelling Obesity on the Campus of
  Sinclair Community College
• Caroline JentlesonSelf Image of Children in
  Poverty
• Tonya BarnesThe Effectiveness and Outcomes of
  Church Outreach
• Mathew EvistonBarriers to Health Care
• Gary ScottJuvenile Attitudes towards the Police
  in the Inner City vs. the Suburbs
• Brandon FennellPrejudice Against Body Art and
  Modification in the Work Place
• Jessica EmmrichChanging Religious Attitudes
  Among College Students

19
Three students completed research proposals they
developed in the next quarter

• Tonya Barnes went on to complete a research
  project and worked with another faculty member on
  Achieving the Dream Data. She presented at STARS
  and the North Central Sociological Association
• Lisa OHearn went on to complete her research
  project Winter Quarter 2009 and presented at the
  STARS conference
• Gary Scott went on to complete his research
  project Winter Quarter 2009 and presented at the
  STARS conference

20
Student Perspective

• Tonya Barnes shares her experiences with research
  over the past two years while at Sinclair
  Community College
• Why did she get involved?
• How has it been beneficial?
• Has it affected her future plans?

21
Institutional Issues at Community Colleges

• IRB ( Five years ago we did not have an IRB
  because of the department interest in
  undergraduate research, we now have an IRB)
• Funding for student travel ( I was able to find
  funding through Honors Program and STARS program
  in Ohio)
• Academic culture that seems to suggest research
  should be saved for third and fourth year
  students
• Transferability

22
Future of a Research Methods Course

• We are focusing on integrating data analysis in
  all our courses
• We would like to offer a research methods course
  but the issue of transferability with 4 year
  institutions is problematic
• Will continue to offer it every other year

23
Concluding thoughts

• Why is it worthwhile to faculty?
• Why is it worthwhile to students?

24
Creative Commons License

• This work is licensed under the Creative Commons
  Attribution 3.0 United States License. To view a
  copy of this license, visit http//creativecommon
  s.org/licenses/by/3.0/us/ or send a letter to
  Creative Commons, 171 Second Street, Suite 300,
  San Francisco, California, 94105, USA.