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Web-based Survey of IHUM Students—Fall 2001—Summary
At the end of autumn quarter 2001-2002, a short questionnaire was added to the web registration process for winter/spring IHUM tracks. In order to reach the preference forms for the latter, students had to see, and, we hoped, respond to the five questions posed on that questionnaire. Those questions were as follows:
By posing the questions in this order, we intended to encourage students to think specifically about what one should be getting out of an IHUM course before evaluating their own courses, rather than applying vague and unstated criteria to the latter.
1104 students filled out these questionnaires, yielding over 200 pages (single-spaced, 9-point type) of data. The summary below is based on a sample of 10% of this large set: the answers of 117 students.
Our sample was selected from the whole set of student responses randomly in the following way: The answers to question #5 covered 38 1/4 pages, in which students' answers appeared in the order of their online registration. 10% of the answers was slightly less than four pages. To exclude any possible bias involved in early or late registration, our procedure for selection was to pick for evaluation the first page out of the 38, then three successive pages each 12 later than the last (thus pages 1, 13, 25 and 37). The results were the question #5 responses of 117 students. We then retrieved from the answers to questions #1 through #4 the responses of those same students. ______________________
1. What purpose(s) do you think a good IHUM lecture should serve?
It's almost impossible to summarize the desiderata here numerically. It seems clear that most students feel that it is the job of the lecturers to illuminate and/or contextualize the texts that are being discussed (this is the criterion mentioned most often). They want the lectures to stimulate them intellectually (next most often), give them different disciplinary perspectives on the texts, be clearly connected with the theme of the course, be related to current life and concerns, build on, not regurgitate, text-related topics, and connect with the following section discussions. They address the importance of broadening the scope of students' interests, fostering critical thinking skills, and going for depth, not breadth. A number of other criteria are mentioned by a few people, such as structural clarity (clearly important) and addressing exam or essay material in lecture (probably less so). Below are representative quotes from our sample of student responses (the identifying number of each respondent is indicated in parentheses):
An effective lecture should illuminate the readings (if the text is heavy and perhaps hard to understand lectures could help student understanding) and also to incite good discussion and critical thinking about these texts by introducing applicable outside ideas and parallels. (4)
An effective IHUM lecture should draw on the texts as a method of explaining some larger, more general point, or it should draw on text to answer a specific question that is posed by this course. A lecture does not have to do so much close reading of the text - that sort of analysis belongs in section - but it should draw on the text to explain some larger idea. (23)
The lecture should make insights into the material that students will not yet be able to do on their own. They should explain that which needs explaining and provide further background or information relating to the work and the topic and/or theme of the course as a whole. (382)
An IHUM lecture should provide students with a general background for the weekly readings, as well as guidelines for what to focus on when going through the assignments. An effective lecture should provide an analyzation of the readings which the students can use as a starting off point for section discussion. (728)
An effective IHUM lecture should introduce students to various aspects of the humanities and social sciences - such as anthropology, history, sociology, philosophy, and psychology. It be engaging; that is, it should discuss issues of interest and variety. Students should gain insight into the humanities, and become a little more proficient in a couple of disciplines. For example, from my IHUM lecture, I have learned more about philosophy and anthropology. (1062)
2. What purpose(s) do you think an effective IHUM section should serve?
In many ways, the section is clearly the place where many students would place the heart of their IHUM class. It is also burdened with a lot of expectations, not necessarily in total harmony with one another. By far the most mentioned desideratum for IHUM sections was that they animate true discussions between class members, encouraging everybody to develop and express their own thoughts on the texts and lectures. These are typical quotes: It should engage everyone in the discussion to explore the concepts and purpose of the book by talking about topics among peers. The discussion section leader should avoid lecturing but steer the course of the conversation in the correct direction by posing questions and challenging accepted views. (391)
To allow discussion between students about their own interpretations of the texts; the section leader should be as uninvolved as possible and just allow the students to explore their own ideas. (719)
On the other hand, there are many students, sometimes the same students, who feel that the point of section is to answer questions about and clarify both lectures and texts:
To review content of lecture and provide further information. While the discussion element of section is helpful, not all of it should be given over to that. A significant part should be given over to elements and background of the text that the lecturer did not hit on. Namely the TFs should have information beyond the lecture about the texts. (390)
IHUM discussion should focus on the texts more than just having people say whatever comes to their minds, which often has nothing to do with the texts. (397)
Indeed, there are some students (although this view was not mentioned as often) who feel that the sections should be geared at least somewhat to the course assignments and tests:
An IHUM discussion should both expand and clarify the lecture and readings. IHUM discussions should help to expand in the language of the modern teenager rather than the language of the expert academic. IHUM discussions should also be a building ground for the beginning of papers, and serve as an example of how to engage in academic discussion. (20)
Beyond these issues of real conversational involvement of the students, clarification of lectures and texts, and assignment-driven tasks, students mentioned (less often, though presumably in many cases out of brevity) focusing on course themes, relating the material to the lives of current frosh, enhancing reasoning ability, and close reading of the texts, in more or less descending order.
3. What do you think you should learn in an IHUM course about how to approach texts?
There were several major desiderata mentioned in answers to this question. Many students wanted to learn to approach texts from multiple perspectives, a desire they saw as furthered by the lecturers from different disciplines:
IHUM should teach students how to read critically, but it should especially teach students how different fields approach a text. A philosopher would approach a text in a fundamentally different way from an English professor. (24)
be open to multiple interpretations, learn how to pick an interpretation or feel comfortable with ambiguity (727)
I think what I should learn from an IHUM course about how to approach texts is that a work must be examined from different viewpoints and perspectives before one can draw a conclusion, hence the number of multiple professors and their view-points. (1036)
One student pointed out that some kinds of texts, and some perspectives, should play a larger role in IHUM:
I think that I should learn about different aspects of the world that I haven't had the chance to study. I would like to have knowledge of the history and culture of as many areas of the world as possible, and I would also like to learn about major philosophers in different periods of time. I believe that while a lot of the IHUM programs teach about most of these things, they only concentrate on Western civilization. There should also be classes about Africa and other parts of the world, if the aim of IHUM courses is to make students more open to the world. In IHUM, we should also learn approach the texts without any prejudgement and absorb its main points. (722)
A number of students wanted to get better at picking out the main themes and ideas of the texts they were reading, to learn what was important and what less important. For a few of these, this was related to course assignments:
I wish there were more emphasis on how to read a text to then relate to a paper. What elements should be focused on, which imagery is pertinant? These distinguishments would be helpful. (6)
I should learn how to read it correctly, which points are most important, and what I should concentrate most on. (400)
I think that I should learn how to pick out the important parts of lengthy texts and to read efficiently and comprehensively. (710)
We should learn how to effectively distill the authors main points and themes from the texts. (713)
As a few of these quotes should show, there is sometimes something of a contradiction between the two preceding desiderata. If multiple perspectives on texts and on the world are important, the pertinent and important elements are not always going to be easy to find in a text, nor is the correct reading. Thus for a large number of students, the emphasis was on complication rather than simplification. That is, they want to learn how to analyze, interpret and criticize texts rather than just pick out the main points:
The most important thing that IHUM should stress is that reading must be interpreted and always questioned, not just taken at face value. Just because a famous person wrote a certain book does not mean that book is correct. Students should be taught not only to question, but also to argue convincingly why they question the material. (32)
Should learn to read texts in an analytical and objective way, but also in an interactive and interpretive way. (373)
how to analyze them critically, how to dig through layers of meaning in order to try to get at an author's intent, and how to draw ideas from works of literature in order to be able to apply them in a broader, oftentimes different, field of work (1045)
Other issues addressed by a number of the students’ answers involved the importance of understanding the historical context of the works being read, relating the texts to other texts and to contemporary issues, and getting used to reading and understanding works from different genres written at widely separated periods.
4. What purposes do you think should be served by assignments (e.g., essays, exams, oral reports, group projects) in an IHUM course?
While some students stated that course assignments should test knowledge and/or understanding of the course material, and one even noted (perhaps obviously) that these assignments should provide the basis for evaluation of the students, most students by far felt that the function of assignments was to solidify and deepen students’ understanding of the material, allow them to develop and argue for their own perspective on it, and generally foster their clarity of thought, creativity, writing skills and rhetorical abilities. Some illustrative quotes:
To solidify the understanding of the readings, lectures, and discussions while encouraging students to use own creative and critical thinking skills. (4)
Assignments should serve as a period of discovery for the student. Before an assignment, i.e. in regular lecture or discussion sections, there is discovery happening, for students are learning about the texts and how to read them. However, assignments offer a chance for individual thinking and they force us to put our thinking into a coherent argument which others can appreciate. Thus, assignments such as papers are important in that they force us to do original thinking and explain that thinking well- these skills both allow us to understand texts in a much better way than if there were no such assignments. (23)
Force the students to think more in-depth about the texts and practice taking a stance and defending it. (378)
The most effective assignments would allow the students to take what they have heard in lecture and discussion and use this knowledge as a foundation to create their own interpretations. The assignments should be an opportunity for the students to present their own ideas and to work independently. (1042)
Assignments should be a way of assessing how well students are doing in the course - how well they are learning to read and analyze texts, understand ideas brought forth in lecture and section, and come up with their own ideas and theses. However, assignments should also be used in themselves as learning devices: through working with and thinking about ideas and texts for projects, papers etc., the student should grow as a thinker and a writer. (1062)
A number of students took the opportunity to express their opinions of the usefulness of various kinds of assignments. Some liked group projects, two argued that exams served no purpose, one argued that multiple short essays were better than one or two long ones, one felt that ideas, not grammar, should be graded, one argued against word limits in essays. Overall, none of these opinions was expressed often enough to discern a trend.
5. How would you describe your fall quarter IHUM experience in light of your answers to questions 1-4 above?
Here it seemed useful to establish at least a rough numerical equivalent to the students' narrative answers. In Stanford fashion, it follows a 5-point scale, but these are our definitions for the points, with five illustrative comments for each valuation:
1 - all positive:
I think that my fall quarter IHUM matched all the above comments. (1)
Wonderful experience. I took (Course X). The professors gave great lectures and I had a very good discussion leader. (27)
During my fall IHUM I was often given the opportunity to challenge the ideas presented in lecture. It was also amazing how much we exhausted the literature and how I discovered a meaning in each work that I would never before have imagined. My understanding of the writing style demanded by these types of classes has also improved. (31)
I loved it - I think Professor X is a great lecturer, and all of the above apply to him. TF Y also incorporated all of these comments as well in her discussion groups. (388)
My lecturers did an excellent job of establishing a background or presenting the histories of the texts we read. Once they had created a foundation, they then discussed their own interpretations and what meanings they drew from the literature. My section group tried to continue the ideas from lecture and learn how to then present their own views in writing. (1042)
2 - positive, with some cavils:
it did an ok job... (3)
questions 1 and 2 were fulfilled; I personally still need help with number 3; for number 4, the assignments were more of a test than a platform to appreciate student thought which I found problematic (17)
I enjoyed the lectures and the discussions, I think they provided me with a lot of new insight and the ability to think better. The writing assignments were not as well thought out as they should have been. They didn't promote a better understanding of the text just a grueling waste of time. (379)
My IHUM lecture has been interesting for the most part. Sometimes too much material is covered in a lecture so the main points are lost. More time should be given to discuss issues that interest the students in section, but overall section was interesting. (711)
It was good. I enjoyed my section but believed that there should have been a more even distribution of conversation among the people in the class. I also believe my section leader is a very amazing TF. He was extremely intelligent and knew how to help us and improve us as students. (1034)
3 - neutral (answers placed in this category by what are perhaps closest to judgment calls):
I felt lectures would drag on sometimes as in the attempt to elucidate the text, nothing new or important was said and perhaps the lecturer had no thesis to give. Discussion groups, though occasionally following tangents really did help with general understanding and ability to conceptualize thoughts. (4)
My IHUM experience for the autumn quarter has been adequate. (16)
One of my two professors lectured extremely poorly during fall quarter. While he was engaging and exciting--and brought outside material which was also interesting, he failed to concretely explain much at all in the way of concepts directly from the book. The assignments were okay, although I think the course leaders failed to give me very much direction in terms of choosing my final project topic. (391)
It was decent. (712)
I read and analyzed six incredible texts, but I feel that my professors and teaching fellows missed the larger picture in analyzing these texts. The two principles of gleaning useful principles and ideas, and understanding why a work is aesthetically pleasing were largely ignored. The professors offered great insight into the structure and literary elements of the texts, but I feel the greater lesson of how to incorporate these texts into our lives was not addressed. (724)
4 - negative, but offering a glimmer of hope:
The lectures were not particularly useful in that the professors many times talked abstractly about ideas with out a clear reference to the text. The lecturers also gave way too much background information on the Authors with out being clear about the connection to the text. (11)
It was quite unfulfilling in the manner that I didn't get out of it what I was expecting. I didn't learn as much as I was hoping. This quarter I want to actually get something out of IHUM (393)
My course failed to maintain focus. Profs and TA's were reluctant to address the material and focal points of the course, because they were so concerned that it would give us ideas on what to write in our paper. Of course if lectures and discussions are effective they should provide us with ideas and avenues to explore and expand upon ideas. This approach caused lecture and section to fall short of the big picture. The intent and focal points of the course as a whole were never covered because the prof's and ta's didn't want to give us ideas for the paper. Thus, the class was hampered and lecture and section was rambling about unimportant things while the focal point of the course remained unaddressed, except it was left for the student to address alone in his paper. The input of the profs, T.A's, and other students would have given multiple voices and perceptives to view the text, and in no way would it silence the view or perceptive of the student who is writing the paper. (708)
It was a mediocre experience. There was little room to let my opinions be expressed or us critical thinking. The course was too strict in its conceptual application. (723)
I had a fairly poor fall quarter IHUM. I felt that the texts were not tied together, the IHUM lacked focus and the students were given very little direction. The only positive aspect of my fall IHUM was the discussion group where I was allowed to openly discuss the readings with other students. (1061)
5 - totally negative:
it was a painful experience and achieved these to only a minimal extent. (8)
I did not like the first two texts we read at all because I did not feel we learnt anything much from them-we could have done better with more useful, more interesting texts. I liked only some of the lectures and am not sure how much I got out of the discussion sections. I definitely did not like the IHUM experience-it was very different and a lot less interesting than I thought it would be and I would have been better off taking another humanities course that I actually enjoyed-this was pretty much a waste of time except in that I learned how to write a literary analysis. (395)
My TF turns Ihum into a confusing whirlpool of hell. Both of my professors go off on tangents and never seem to actually focus on the material or present opposing opinions. (715)
It did not meet up to many of my expectations, the reading was dry and some discussions were uneventful. In addition, there were members of my section who talked excessively about their feelings and this drastically reduced the time spent on the material. In addition, these feelings did not add too much of a perspective on the material. (717)
I disliked it greatly. The paper topics were uninspiring (and thus so were my papers) and the discussion in section was much to narrow for me to enjoy. (1052)
The actual numbers of students falling into each category are emphatically not reflected by the equality granted to each rating category in the quotations above. In fact, the five representative answers assigned a 5 exhaust the set. Below are the numbers of responses (out of 117) falling into each rating level:
1 - 47 (40%) 2 - 35 (30%) 3 - 14 (12%) 4 - 9 (7.7%) 5 - 5 (4.3%) hard to interpret - 2 (numbers 25 and 390) (1.7%) no answer - 5 (4.3%)
On the whole, then, at the end of Fall quarter of 2001-02, our students appear to have been satisfied with what they learned in their first quarter of IHUM, given the criteria that they themselves specified for the different parts of the course. |
Stanford University, 2003
http://www.stanford.edu/group/vpue/ihumrev