ANTHROPOLOGY 493
PRACTICUM IN ANTHROPOLOGY
ANTH 493. Practicum in Anthropology
Field or laboratory course: variable hours per week (1-6).
Prerequisities: ANTH 121, or ANTH 220 or ANTH 222, and permission of instructor.
This course provides experience in all aspects of a field or laboratory research project in cultural anthropology, physical anthropology, or archaeology. It is taught when field sites or laboratory work are available. It may be repeated when topics vary, for a maximum of twelve hours credit. No more than a total of nine hours credit from ANTH 492, ANTH 493, ANTH 498, and ANTH 499 may be counted toward the 37 hours for the Anthropology major.
This course will allow students to work collaboratively on particular research projects supervised by the anthropology faculty. The maximum number of credit hours will require a 240 hour commitment to a project, and will include students in the process of developing a research design, fieldwork, analysis, and writing of a particular project. Fewer hours of credit will be allotted for more focused work on a subset of these stages of a particular project. A total of forty hours of work will equal one hour of credit (this is consistent with the credit hours allotted for the Field School in Archaeology, ANTH 492). The course will be taught when field sites or laboratory work are available and appropriate to the subfields of cultural anthropology, physical anthropology and archaeology.
Faculty and students will work as colleagues in developing the parameters of the research project, and their roles as researchers in it. For example, in a cultural anthropology research project, students will participate in literature review, sampling, developing questions for the field experience, role-playing interviewing techniques, debriefing field experiences, computer-based (and non computer-based) pattern-seeking analysis techniques, drafting writing, and final product writing. (For fewer credits, a subset of these activities will be assigned to students.)
The course provides experience in all aspects of a field or laboratory research project in cultural anthropology, physical anthropology, or archaeology. Students participate in research design, fieldwork, analysis, and writing, or a subset of these stages, for a particular project. Students will learn to carry out the field/laboratory techniques integral to their particular research project in cultural anthropology, physical anthropology, or archaeology. For example, for cultural anthropology they will learn interviewing techniques ranging from unstructured discovery to more structured eliciting of information about particular cultural traits. For all projects, students will learn how to read sophisticated literature as background for primary data collection research. They will learn the practical, as well as the theoretical aspects of sampling. They will learn analysis techniques that aid in discovering patterns and themes. When writing drafts and final products, students will learn how to state themes and marshall evidence to support those themes. They will have a good deal of practice with use of the computer, both as a wordprocessing and as an analysis tool.
Student work will be evaluated on its quantity, quality, and timeliness with regard to how well it serves to meet the project goals. Students will be informed when they have strayed from basic principles of good anthropological practice by the directing faculty member. Final assessment will judge whether these lessons have culminated in changes that produce a better final product. It is anticipated that final products will be of grant report or professional paper quality, and will be graded with this outcome as the goal.
The examples given above are derived from student-faculty collaborative projects in cultural anthropology that have been completed or are ongoing. When the topic is archaeology or physical anthropology, the skills learned will be somewhat different and appropriate to research in those subfields of anthropology. For example, archaeological projects might involve detailed artifact analyses of remains from one or more archaeological sites or participation in small-scale archaeological field surveys or excavations under the direction of a faculty member. Physical anthropology projects might involve the detailed analysis of human skeletal remains from extant or future collections housed at Radford University. The overall principle of collaborative research with student involvement in as many phases as possible will be the same in all projects, however. These project opportunities often become available during the regular academic year as well as during the summer.
DATE ACTION REVIEWED
September, 2001 Reviewed Peggy A. Shifflett