Theory vs. Skills Courses in Small Programs 13
Theory vs. Skills Courses in Small Programs
The debate over hands-on vs. theory instruction has raged on over multiple generations of journalists and journalism teachers and in many countries besides just the United States. Many practitioners and students stress the importance of skills courses which mimic the work that is done at newspapers, magazines and radio and TV stations. Editors hiring fresh graduates want job candidates who have a wealth of experience in reporting, editing and page design. Students soon entering that workplace want to be prepared for the tasks that await them and, more importantly, want to have sample clips, video/audio packages and designs that will impress interviewers and help them land that first job.
On the other side of the debate are faculty members, especially those at larger, research-oriented institutions. These teachers view their role as not just being trade school instructors churning out automatons capable of writing an inverted pyramid news story and using tools like Adobe Photoshop and InDesign. Journalism graduates, they argue, must first and foremost be critical thinkers. These graduates must have a broad-based education that is essential for all citizens, especially journalists, in a democratic society. They must understand the history and social context of both old media and be able to navigate through and hopefully help shape new media through an understanding that goes beyond proficiency with technological tools. And, these students-soon-to-be-journalists must also be grounded in ethical theory and cognizant of the legal ramifications of the work they will do.
This debate has a tremendous impact on the content of individual courses along with curriculum development as a whole. The theory vs. hands-on battles in journalism instruction become especially interesting at small programs. On one hand, in smaller programs without a major or a full-fledged curriculum, students must necessarily take a majority of non-journalism courses and often have a broader, liberal arts education. At the same time, the lack of journalism courses in these smaller programs forces the journalism instruction to be more hands-on. If, for example, a school only offers three journalism courses, those courses may be an introductory reporting class, an advanced reporting class and an editing or design class. There would hardly be room in the curriculum for a history and theory of mass communication or a mass media law and ethics course—or perhaps even students to fill such classes. In some smaller programs, especially if they are housed in an English department, there may also be a dearth of faculty qualified to teach such classes. The stress on hands-on academic work at smaller institutions is also apparent from a survey we conducted in 2004. Eighty-four percent of advisers at schools with enrollments under 2,000 were at schools that offered a for-credit newspaper or yearbook workshop class, almost twice the 45.7 percent figure at schools over 5,000.
As teachers in a small program and at a school with a focus on “applied learning” in its mission statement, we have been intrigued by the theory vs hands-on debate and have wanted to venture beyond many of the generalized, anecdotal observations outlined above. To that end we devised and distributed a survey last year.
Survey methodology
To answer our many questions about theory vs. hands-on debates at large and small schools, we distributed our survey to over 500 advisers of college newspapers and yearbooks. In order to ensure our surveys reached our target audience, we used a membership list from College Media Advisers. From that list of over 700 names, we eliminated all those who did not indicate they advised a newspaper or yearbook. We naturally eliminated ourselves, too, bringing the total number of those surveyed down to 515.
The survey contained 42 questions. Those who were at an institution offering a for-credit publication workshop class were to answer 37 of the 42 questions. Those who weren’t at a school offering a workshop class answered the first 17 demographic and other questions and five questions specifically tailored for them.
We distributed the survey in mid-October of 2006. By the end of the year, 144 people had returned the survey, a 28 percent response rate.
Survey results
Demographics
In creating our size categories, we were reacting to a 1998 Kopenhaver and Spielberger survey which displayed a large discrepancy between the percentages of respondents in their categories of 1,000 and under (2.8 percent), 1,001-7,500 (42.1 percent), 7,501-15,000 (26.6), 15,001-20,000 (8.9) and over 20,000 (19.6). Because of the wide disparity in the number of respondents in each category and because there is a big difference between a school of 1,001 and a school of 7,500, we used a different breakdown. Our numbers in each category were the following:
-Under 2,000: 19 (13 percent)
-2,001 to 5,000: 40 (28 percent)
-5,001-10,000: 26 (18 percent)
-10,001-20,000: 31 (22 percent)
-20,001 and over: 28 (19 percent)
Another demographic question related to academic vs staff appointment, which might have an impact on attitudes toward theory and skills. Sixty percent of the respondents, 86 advisers, indicated an academic-only appointment, while 25 percent were administration/staff and six percent were part-time/adjunct employees. The remaining nine percent indicated a combination of two of these choices.
The other key demographic question related to accreditation. One-third of the schools were ACEJMC accredited. As one would expect, the larger schools were more likely to be accredited; only 16 percent of schools under 10,000 were accredited, compared to 59 percent of those over 10,000 having accreditation.
Theory vs. hands-on courses
The first non-demographic question was targeted at the academics and asked “What percentage of your journalism courses contain hands-on assignments that try to mirror real-world practices?” The response indicated a majority, 52 percent, had more than 75 percent of their courses contain such a segment, while only six percent of respondents noted that less than 25 percent of their coursework contains hands-on assignments.
Contrary to our earlier assumption about small programs having more hands-on courses, the numbers were higher at the larger schools. At schools 5,000 and under, 48 percent had 75+ percent of the coursework contain hands-on elements, compared to 56 percent at schools over 5,000.
The next set of questions related to student and adviser attitudes about theory vs. hands-on courses. The first such question asked whether the adviser thought that hands-on courses were more or less important than theory courses. Using a five-point Likert scale, with 1 being “Less important than theory courses” and 5 being “more important than theory courses,” the mean for all of the schools was 4.04—clearly an indication that even those who teach the journalism classes lean strongly toward the hands-on courses. Once again, the small school numbers were a bit surprising with the low mean of 3.95 coming from schools 2,000 and under, with a high of 4.40 coming from schools in the 10,001-20,000 range.
Adviser perception of student attitudes were somewhat similar. Using the same Likert scale based on preferences of theory vs hands-on classes, the mean was 4.31, again a strong preference for the hands-on courses. While advisers in all size categories recorded at least one “5” not a single one gave a “1” rating, and in some categories no one indicated even a “2.”
The third question asked, “How much practical experience do your students get?”
The Likert scale was “Too much practical experience” one one end (1) and “Not enough practical experience” on the other (5). The mean response was 3.29, with all Likert ranges represented. There were no significant differences between school sizes
There was a bit of a difference between school sizes for the next question, “Outside of publication workshop courses, how often in your courses do students produce articles/layouts in a team/group?” With categories of Never (1), Seldom (2), Sometimes (3), Frequently (4) and Always (5), the mean score of 2.91, the highest mean came in the 5,001-10,000 category with 3.05, compared to the largest school category, which was 2.56.
Newspaper Workshop Courses
The most interesting size difference, however, came up in the questions about the journalism workshop courses. One question asked if the newspaper was part of the curriculum or whether it was independent, while the other question asked the same thing about the yearbook. In the smallest school category, two-thirds of the newspapers are connected to the curriculum. On the other end of the spectrum, at the schools over 10,001, only one-quarter have ties to the curriculum. Obviously, the larger the school is, the less likely there is a for-credit journalism workshop course which gives credit for working on the paper.
The yearbook numbers were similar, as 64 percent of schools 2,000 and under which had a yearbook had a connection between the book and the curriculum. At schools over 5,001, only 16 percent of the yearbooks were presented as part of the curriculum.
Size comes into play in part because of the need for small school to recruit enough staff members to put out a publication. As one adviser noted, “Students need the 3 credit incentive to join.”
Size is not the only factor in whether a school offers credit for working on the publications, as indicated by the following adviser response: “Yale does not offer such courses nor should it—it is not a ‘trade’ school.”
The final question dealt with internships. Yet again, there was a large difference between the large and small institutions. For schools 2,000 and under which had a journalism major, 83 percent required an internship. That figure contrasts sharply with the 47 percent figure at schools over 10,001. At all size levels, by far the most common internship requirement was three credit hours.
Discussion
Some of the results of the survey came as a bit of a surprise to us, while other numbers were not surprising. For one, we fully expected there to be a big difference between large and small school curriculum connections to the newspaper and the yearbook. Our 2004 survey showed that the smallest schools were twice as likely to have journalism workshop class, close to the rate of the question on this survey about newspapers being tied to the curriculum.
The internship numbers were also not altogether surprising, if for no other reason than logistics. In a smaller program, finding internships for a small number of students and coordinating an internship program would not be especially difficult. In a large journalism school with hundreds of majors, unless there is a laboratory newspaper that is run by the department, placement and supervision of interns is very difficult.
The attitudes toward theory and hands-on classes did yield some surprises, though. We expected to have a mean of 4.31 for student preferences for hands-on vs. theory classes; as mentioned in the introduction, students seem to be most interested in the classes which have a direct connection to the work they will be doing after graduation. But, the faculty perception number—4.04—was a bit of a shock. Clearly, very few of the advisers interviewed thought that theory courses were more important than hands-on courses. We expected a number much closer to 3, which would have represented a balance between the different types of classes. One possible explanation is the nature of the group surveyed. By using the membership list from College Media Advisers, we were naturally targeting those people who work in a very hands-on capacity. This group works on a daily basis with students who are applying their skills in an environment which mirrors that of commercial newspapers. In addition, these advisers are probably much more likely to have worked on for a newspaper or magazine than their colleagues and thus would naturally value the practical coursework more than theory. And, as our 2004 survey and multiple Kopenhaver and Spielberger surveys have indicated, these advisers are more likely to be considered staff than faculty and are less likely to have a Ph.D—and thus to have completed a lengthy theory-based research project. Had we asked a similar questions of professors culled from an AEJMC list, for example, theory-based classes would have been likely rated much higher.
Future research
As hinted at above, it would be interesting to examine the attitudes of newspaper and yearbook advisers with those of their other colleagues. More immediately, we plan to analyze data from other parts of our survey, including questions relating to coaching, conferencing, critiquing and teaching strategies used in the journalism workshop courses. We hope to also examine perceptions about how close the college newspaper experience is to that at a commercial publication and the use of teamwork in college publications. Using questions from the survey and analysis of course listings, we also hope to explore the impact of accreditation on whether journalism workshop courses are offered.