Quality Review

The 2008 Peer Review Report provided a detailed assessment of teaching in the department. The full report can be read here and the key section relating to teaching is reproduced below.

3. TEACHING

Interviewees and focus group meetings indicated that the quality of teaching in the department is high. Teaching is taken very seriously; the department has a reputation on campus for good teaching and a ‘caring attitude’ to students. Both undergraduate and post-graduate students were very positive about the department and made particular reference to: (i) the quality of teaching; (ii) the value of tutorials; (iii) availability of personnel; (iv) the care for students; and (v) the general commitment of staff and tutors.

A. UNDERGRADUATE
The undergraduate curriculum is organised to facilitate clear logical progression in content, focus and complexity. The focus during the first year is on critical thinking and the sociological imagination. The second year focuses on the fundamentals of sociology and the third year on doing contemporary sociology. Within the theme of each year, courses are organised into three strands: concepts and theories; the substance of society; and research methods and design. Overall, students found the sociology curriculum to be “very good but challenging,” and they suggested that it helped them to develop “an awareness of self” and “a way of thinking.”

The department offers an impressive first year teaching programme under difficult circumstances which, we understand, are currently being addressed at the university level. We understand that the numbers taking sociology as a first year subject in 2008 exceeded the capacity of the university’s largest lecture hall. The associated requirement for lecturers to ‘double teach’ places significant demands upon already stretched resources and gives rise to additional quality risks; lecturers suggested that it is difficult to convey an enthusiasm for material that is being delivered for a second time over the course of a week. Tutorial arrangements were found to mitigate some of the associated quality risks, and students suggested that the availability/dedication of tutors helped to personalise the subject and learning experience. The downside, particularly at a time of financial retrenchment, is that tutorial costs are high (estimated at between a quarter and a third of the department’s budget). Overall, however, the tutorial system seems to be worth the expenditure.
Despite the difficulties with which it has to deal, the department’s high retention numbers after the first year indicate the success of its first-year programme. Most students take sociology in first year as their third option. At one point it was seen as an ‘easy option’, but this is no longer the case, and good students are won over to sociology for the second and third years by the quality of first-year teaching and the approachability and supportiveness of the staff. There was also high praise for the commitment and pedagogical talents of the first-year tutors, who very frequently are the key point of contact between students and the teaching staff. Staff from the Department of Adult and Community Education had further praise for the quality of service teaching provided by the Sociology Department.

High retention rates after the first year (between 50% and 60% in recent years, with some drop-off in 2007) mean large numbers in second and third years. This has resulted in a high student-to-staff ratio overall: 29.3 to 1 in 2007-2008. Challenges associated with increasing enrolment levels have the potential to adversely affect the quality of student learning, making more difficult, for example, the use of alternative pedagogies, like research-based essays or multi-step research projects. On the other hand all the indications are of a quality programme in both second and third years. There was particular praise from mature students with whom we held a focus group meeting.

There is no simple solution to the problem of high numbers. University funding priorities and the wish to accommodate student choices militate against capping student numbers, at least in the short to medium term, although this step may eventually need to be taken. The high student-to-staff ratio will be taken into account in future decisions about staffing, and the department should be in line to acquire more staff in time, but this is unlikely to be soon. This raises the question of whether anything else can be done.

The Self-Assessment Report suggests that the offering of a choice of elective courses may ease the large size of First Year courses. Another response to the problem of high enrolments would be to take advantage of the potential of modularisation by actively encouraging students to take modules currently offered by other departments within the framework of new interdisciplinary courses or streams.

Opportunities to promote modularised linkages with other faculty have increased with the prospect of inter-departmental and interdisciplinary degrees (Economics and Social History; Politics, Economics and Policy; Irish Studies; European Studies).

This points to the potential to promote linkages with departments responsible for e.g. Business, Law, Psychology and European Studies to develop courses or ‘streams’ around themes such as: (i) community advocacy/human rights, (ii) human/employee/international relations, (iii) mediation, (iv) market research, public relations, advertising, etc. Importantly, it might not be necessary to develop separate or additional inter-departmental degrees to do this; instead careful timetabling, planning and the promotion of modular combinations could have the same result.

The rationale for such courses or streams would need to be made clear to students, illustrated in course descriptions, highlighted on the website and forwarded to students prior to enrolment. The future occupational advantages/benefits to be derived from such courses would need to be clearly outlined. In this way the department’s teaching burden would be shared with other departments while simultaneously offering students greater career direction.