Researcher: Michael Griffin
Position: Assistant Professor in Classics and Philosophy
Faculty: Arts
Department: Classics and Philosophy
Year level: First
Problem addressed:
Absence of a criteria to measure the effects of undergraduate study in the humanities on students’ critical thinking, self-esteem, and capacity to empathize with others – qualities often associated with the mission of the university to “educate global citizens.”
Solution approach:
Students in courses from a mix of disciplines (philosophy, literature, business, etc.) took tests in the first week of class and in the last week of class measuring their level of intercultural fluency or perspective taking. Argument-intensive philosophy classes were considered the experimental group and all other courses were the control group.
Evaluation approach:
The research employed an online survey that uses measure standards from social psychology, noting for any positive or negative change in intercultural fluency and perspective taking. Next researchers will look at correlations between these results and performance in class.
Preliminary findings:
There has been some positive change in the integrative complexity scores in the experimental group, compared to the control group.
Can you give some background on the research?
Michael Griffin: [At] the beginning of our learning outcomes exercise in the Faculty of Arts I noticed we used a lot of similar language across departments and programs about perspective taking and citizenship as outcomes for Liberal Arts education or Humanities education. We thought we should be graduating people who are somehow good citizens or who were effective at intercultural fluency or perspective taking broadly conceived. But I realized that none of us had really thought very much about how, if at all, that kind of thing could be measured.
What was the research question?
MG: The project that I approached CTLT about was a pilot effort to come up with some criteria drawn from social science, from psychology and education that we might be able to use to quantify those kinds of results and then to experiment with some instruments to administer them in classes
The two research questions were: In what way can we measure the effects of undergraduate study in the humanities on students’ critical thinking, self-esteem, and capacity to empathize with others? And can these qualities be treated as outcomes of their learning?
The hypothesis was that some of the activities in humanities courses, [for example] a lot of lively but open-minded debate over philosophical questions, might produce some change in the traits that we might be able to measure. Whereas maybe just studying marketing or studying math might not.
How was the experiment set up?
MG: We developed an online survey that uses measure standards from social psychology. One was called the interpersonal reactivity index. One was called the empathy quotient. The one I was really excited about came out of research in psychology at UBC – Professor Peter Suedfeld’s research on integrative complexities.
Once we had the instrument with these different measures, we looked at finding and recruiting some classes to pre- and post-studies. We administered the study in the first week of class and then again in the last week of class and just look for positive or negative change.
We tried to get a mix of different disciplines – some in philosophy and classics, some in literature, some in the Sauder School of Business. We were really focusing on these kinds of argument-intensive philosophy classes as our experimental group and everything else as a control group.
What did you find?
MG: Nothing is final at this point because we’re still waiting for reliability scores on the integrative complexity. They are very preliminary results. But we see some positive change in the integrative complexity scores in the experimental group, compared to the controlled group. If the results are accurate that would be a positive encouragement that there was some statistically significant change, suggesting that what was going on in those courses might be a significant, positive driver of empathy and perspective-taking in integrative complexity.
How did you evaluate your findings?
MG: We looked for any positive or negative change in these attributes using the instruments that we had. We’re seeing if it’s statistically significant. Secondly, I think we want to look at correlations between these results and other variables in the teaching of the class – like the teaching perspective of the instructor, possibly the grades of the students – so we get a sense if performance in class is correlated with this kind of change.
How will this study impact teaching and learning?
MG: I think that broadly a lot of us who are teaching in the humanities or in philosophy think that this is hopefully some of the social good of what we are doing. The more we find out about what activities or kinds of student engagement strategies produce this ability to take other perspectives and integrate them, the more I would like to pursue those kinds of strategies in my own teaching practice. At this point I don’t know from the study results which methods or kinds of interaction will turn out to be the most beneficial, but I think the more we can communicate from the study to a community of practice in the humanities, the more we will be able to encourage teachers to adopt on the ground strategies that actually yield these results.
How will this study impact future research?
MG: I think it’s an exciting way of looking at how humanities in particular can contribute to our UBC mission of graduating global citizens. I think that’s a nice thing to think about – recognizing that as a goal of the university and what we can do to contribute to it.
That being said, we’ve learned that the 13-week time scale is probably too short because most of these characteristics are pretty ingrained traits rather than very movable.
So for the second year of the project we’re running a second iteration of the survey which will try to look for change across year groups of majors. We’ll be looking for change between second, third and fourth years within different majors and disciplines so we can see change across 36 months instead of 13 weeks and see if that gives us a clearer result.
This project has been supported by the SoTL Seed program, 2014.