Department of Sociology and Family Studies Connections

Department of Sociology and Family Studies

College of Arts and Sciences

Abilene Christian University

Goals for Involving Faculty and Students

in Scholarly Research and Creative Activities

A. The Department will adopt what is largely considered a “best practice model” for teaching/mentoring undergraduate students in social research and statistics as follows:

1. Students first enroll in SOCI 415: Social Research during the fall semester in which they produce a formal research proposal; then,

2. Students enroll in SOCI 416: Social Statistics the following spring semester during which they engage in the actual collection and analysis of data according to the designed methodology described in their research proposal prepared during the fall semester.

3. Where possible, the same professor will teach the research and statistics courses in order to promote continuity between professor and student.

B. The Department will seek to support 1-2 faculty members per year in mentoring ACU students in research projects with the expressed purpose of presenting the research findings at the ACU undergraduate festival and other outlets appropriate to the discipline. One or more students will develop and submit a research proposal to study a topic of interests under the supervision of a faculty member. Students will report the findings of the study via classroom presentations, at the undergraduate research festival, at local and state conferences, or other settings.

C. The Department will request each faculty member to identify one or two courses in which they will embed research related scholarly activity. For example: in FAM 251 students currently 1) select a topic, 2) create and revise interview questions, 3) collect and analyze qualitative data, and  4) disseminate findings through notebook and in-class presentations.