Abstract
In this article, we describe student perceptions of, and experiences in, a one-semester, required sociology research capstone course. The data come from 106 students in eight sections of the course taught at three institutions. We used multiple methods for data collection: questionnaires, focus groups, and learning reflection essays. Our results include students’ having a good sense of what to expect from the course, reporting learning many research-related skills, and having more positive attitudes about the course in the postmeasures than in the premeasures. Students also stated that the highly structured nature of the course was important for their success but somewhat frustrating. Other important student perceptions were that the course was demanding and time consuming; past courses helped prepare for the capstone experience but that there are gaps in this preparation; they learn best via active learning, feedback, and application; they are proud of their course achievements; and they are engaged in the discipline but are ambiguous about future work in sociology.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
Supplementary Material
Please find the following supplemental material available below.
For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.
For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.
