This project provides cutting-edge methods training to early-career social scientists and conducts research to evaluate the effectiveness of techniques for teaching research methods. The PIs bring together a community of over 100 anthropologists and social scientists to develop and disseminate methods through outreach, publication, teaching, and mentorship. A major focus will be summer Cultural Anthropology Methods Program, in which diverse Ph.D. students from across the U.S. will be recruited for intensive methods instruction and mentorship in research design. In addition, the project will create a publicly available online learning course that makes easy-to-use anthropological research methods widely accessible. This will substantially enrich the availability and quality of nationally available methods training in cultural anthropology and allied fields.
To advance scientific knowledge of how to teach methods in cultural anthropology, this project will also serve as a research platform. All stages of project implementation, from planning, to teaching, to student success, will be used to generate data. Datasets generated will include: meeting recordings and transcripts; participant-observation and field notes; direct observations; student interviews; and pre-test/post-test assessments of student learning. Research will examine the efficacy of our main teaching modalities (hands-on instruction, flipped classroom models, interactive lectures, student-led presentations, small groups, and one-on-one instruction). In addition, we will compare student outcomes in online (Year 1) and in-person (Year 2-3) versions of graduate student instruction. Results will be published and disseminated widely, including via a publicly available website, to ensure that research capacity extends beyond Program participants.
This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.
