Curriculum Innovation: Integrating Quantitative Methods and Substantive Teaching for HE Level One Sociology Students

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It is now evident that increasing the amount of QM teaching skills does not guarantee that social science students develop and retain quantitative skills. Extant research tells us that there is a need to merge and integrate substantive and QM courses. 'Integration' has been identified as a possible way of increasing knowledge and use of QM amongst undergraduates - as well as increasing familiarity with QM amongst staff - for a number of reasons. Research has highlighted how teaching QM in substantive course can help students to learn QM skills and may actually improve students understanding of the substantive content as well. The effectiveness of embedding QM teaching in real-life settings has also been demonstrated. Evidence suggests that sociology is an appropriate discipline for merging substantive and methods courses because sociology engages with social issues which are likely to be meaningful and memorable for students. In addition, student reactions to attempts to integrate substantive and QM course have been generally positive. Whilst there have been recent attempts to integrate QM into the undergraduate curricula they have suffered from two problems. (1) 'Integration' has been interpreted loosely. In its truest sense, integration involves weaving and combining QM and substantive teaching into an integral whole. (2) There has been only partial engagement with the general literature on pedagogy in Higher Education. Students are not a homogenous group. Students come from different backgrounds and employ different learning styles. This resonates with the conceptual change/student focused (CCSF) model of teaching, which advances a student centred approach that encourages 'deep learning'. In essence, any teaching innovation needs to engage with the 3P model of student learning; a model which illustrates the importance and interconnectedness of 'characteristics of the student', 'course and departmental learning context', 'student's perception of context', 'student's approach to learning' and 'student's learning outcomes'. The proposed project seeks to develop previous attempts to 'integrate' QM and substantive teaching. The proposed project emphasises the 'full integration' of QM skills into the undergraduate curriculum - joining the threads together in a coherent way - in a manner which ensures that it is achieved early, occurs frequently and which takes into account that student's have different approaches to learning. The proposed project seeks to achieve: full integration across substantive and quantitative modules; full coverage across the whole Level 1 curricula; full support from all Level 1 module convenors and tutors and the departmental management group; and full provision. We propose to develop online resources which will supplement other modes of teaching and be used to support all level 1 modules. In so doing we believe we will achieve a range of outcomes for students, the University of Surrey and the higher education sector and to the economy and wider society. A clear primary impact will be to raise capacity through the development of student's technical skills. In raising students' technical skills it is hoped that there will be wider benefits for the economy and society. We hope that more students will have the skills, courage and enthusiasm to apply for jobs in the QM sector and to go on to post graduate study in quantitative programmes, using these skills in the job market. More broadly, these graduates will be better equipped to utilise the sorts of complex challenges that society faces in the 21st century. We would seek to disseminate the results of the proposal. Evaluation of the initiative will be conducted; we would seek to publish the results of the evaluation in anappropriate journal; and we would liaise with the ESRC's Strategic Advisor for QMs discuss the challenges which have been faced, share plans and make resources available to others.