This award provides funds to purchase equipment for the Department of Sociology at Memphis State University. The equipment will be used to improve the undergraduate social research curriculum in sociology and to increase the number of women and minorities choosing careers involving social research. The undergraduate social research curriculum will be revamped beginning with the required courses dealing with methodology and techniques of scientific inquiry and later changing the research component of substantive courses. Courses will be changed to emphasize the development of analytic and critical thinking skills instead of rote memorization and cookbook learning. They will also be revised to incorporate the analysis of substantive research questions of special relevance to women, minorities, working class, and Southern students (the least represented groups in social research fields). The funds will be used to purchase 16 microcomputers and special software to equip a laboratory capable of providing simultaneous hands-on education in sociological research methods and statistics to as many as thirty undergraduate students in each of six classes in the first year. The software to be purchased includes two statistical and two data base packages. These packages will facilitate the development of critical thinking and analytic skills by enabling students to work jointly on instructor-guided research activities as well as to conduct individual research projects on topics of special interest to women, minorities, working class, and Southern students. The grantee institution is matching this NSF award with funds from non-Federal sources.
