Course: ENVS 419 Environmental Research Design
Faculty: Carol Goland, Assistant Professor, Environmental Studies Program
Librarian: Debra Andreadis, Science Librarian
Since 1995 (the inception of the Environmental Studies major), about eight cohorts of Environmental Studies students have undertaken senior research. As elsewhere at Denison, some ENVS students undertake senior research to fulfill requirements of the Honors program. In addition, Environmental Studies students who are pursuing interdisciplinary concentrations within the major (e.g., "Coastal Zone Management," "Environmental Planning and Design") also undertake senior research as an integrative and culminating experience.
After several years' experience directing ENVS senior research students, we created a two-semester senior research seminar, which students took Fall and Spring semester of their senior year (ENVS 420 and 421). The courses were designed to assist students in the research process and to foster intellectual exchange between them. Several years ago, we moved the seminar sequence one semester earlier. We created ENVS 419 (Environmental Research Design) to help students initiate their senior research projects, and we have had two cohorts of students now complete the senior research process having begun in the ENVS 419 course. Students who enroll in this course are primarily second semester juniors who expect to undertake year-long senior research in Environmental Studies the following year. This course helps them initiate that work. A minority of students who enroll in the course may use it to prepare for a summer research project, study abroad project, or other future research undertaking.
The purpose of the course is to introduce students to the research process, and our experience is that this course has proved invaluable in allowing students to begin their senior year better prepared to define their projects. Nonetheless, we can most certainly do better. The opportunity to work with a librarian to enhance the information literacy component of this class is invaluable, since questions related to the production of information, accessing of information, and evaluation of information are key to this course and to the subsequent success of our students' senior research projects.
This class explores research design and methodology across the broad spectrum encompassed by environmental studies. We consider elements of the research process such as qualitative vs. quantitative research, descriptive, exploratory, and predictive research, and establishing a methodology. Students in this course learn to take what are often fuzzy or vague topical interests and transform them into researchable questions. That transformation is based on a critical use the literature to (1) identify scholarly questions and approaches within existing literature; (2) identify areas where disagreements or gaps may exist; (3) become familiar with methodological practices in the research area; and (4) establish the significance of the proposed research question. By the end of the course students are expected to produce a research proposal that will guide their senior research projects. A substantial literature review is a major component of the proposal. We expect greater attention to information literacy in the ENVS 419 class will result in greater continuity between the proposal submitted in the Spring and the actual project undertaken for senior research. Students will be able to start significant research activities earlier in the Fall semester of their senior year, which should substantially enhance their ability to complete and submit high quality senior research theses.
To achieve the goals of this course, students must become sophisticated users of information resources. Indeed, the needs of students in this class match well with the definition of information literacy: Students must become adept at using a variety of tools to search the literature and they must learn how to critically evaluate sources (primary vs. secondary; popular vs. peer-reviewed). They must articulate and progressively refine research questions and in parallel conduct more precise resource searches. They must learn how to evaluate conflicting information based on differences in historical, theoretical, or empirical context. They should learn expectations regarding citing sources and attributing appropriate credit.
To incorporate these information literacy skills in this course, Debra Andreadis and I will work together in redesigning this course and creating learning activities for the students that emphasize basic and advanced information literacy skills relevant to undertaking senior research in Environmental Studies. While topics and activities will be finalized as Debra and I embark on this work, a tentative list of subjects would include these:
This project takes on special importance in the context of an interdisciplinary program such as Environmental Studies. In any given cohort of senior researchers, there may be a dizzying array of disciplinary perspectives represented, from ecology to religion to economics. For example, in a single year we had one student using remote sensing methods for environmental assessment of an estuary, another looking at religious conversion and environmentalism in Latin America, and yet another analyzing the economic implications of new organic food standards. One of the challenges of interdisciplinarity in any setting is to communicate across the assumptions and paradigms of divergent fields of inquiry. In this class, students pursuing a diverse set of research projects constantly engage in peer feedback, and in doing so learn to communicate and interact across these disciplinary specialties. Specific class activities (the "supportive trios" exercise), foster this cooperation. In doing so, they develop skills in interdisciplinarity that will be important later when they find themselves in work settings in which they may need to communicate specialized information to a variety of audiences. Developing information literacy skills in this context is especially important since it provides students the opportunity to understand more thoroughly how information is generated and evaluated in fields of study outside their own area of specialty.
Evaluation of this project will take place at two and perhaps three points in time. The first is immediately upon completion of the class, when we can evaluate students' initial reactions to the information literacy components of it. To do this, we would adapt questions from the template prepared by the Mellon Grant Steering Committee and include those with the standard course evaluation administered to the students at the end of the semester. A potential second point of assessment would be Fall 2003, when students are doing senior research and take ENVS 420: Senior Research Seminar. Perhaps the most important assessment can be made upon completion of senior research in Spring 2004. Ideally, we will want an assessment made by both students and their research advisors.
Time line for course development and implementation
Estimate of the amount of faculty time that will be needed to complete the project
I would expect to devote on average one-half day per week to this project for development and at least a full day per week during Spring semester for its implementation.