SOC 413: Juvenile Delinquency
Throughout the semester students work in groups of three to conduct case studies on notable incidents in juvenile delinquency. For the last two years, students in SOC 413 have completed case study reports of school shooting incidents. Throughout the semester, students complete readings about school shootings, meet twice with Michael Howser (social sciences librarian), and periodically submit drafts of their case study.

The ACT project centered on enhancing critical thinking skills through the group assignment, and the specific intent was to enhance their abilities to identify and assess the quality of supporting data for the group project.

During the spring 2007 semester, Dr. Muschert implemented a number of changes to the SOC 413 group project. Through the use of a pretest from the 2006 sections of SOC 413, Dr. Muschert was able to assess the effect of the new intervention on students' critical thinking. The findings of this assessment suggest that the changes did improve students' identification and utilization of supporting evidence in their writing projects.

The results suggest that future refinement of expectations might also help improve students' critical thinking. Some potential refinements for future semesters include:
• Clarifying to students what constitutes an adequate bibliographic search, including developing guidelines and suggestions.
•Creating a rubric that helps students understand adequate annotation for an annotated bibliography.

Assignments

Group Project Assignment

Rubrics

Group Project Rubric