However, if our earlier review of recitation and non-recitation student experience is consistent, then there should be an evident improvement. Restructuring each of the foundation courses to four hours should increase student exposure to a more detailed reconstruction o fthe past and expand their speficic knowledge base. Medium-level students continue to be tied to the idea that history is simply a chronology. Poorer student still have not a clue. There is some evidence that student writing has improved both in the clarity of expression and in the grasp of historical analysis.
Oral presentations are generally less satisfactory.
Students need to understand the difference between a thesis and a topic. Oral presentations seem to lack structure and coherence. More opportunity for oral presentations early in a student's career in the foundation course recitations should have some impact on this problem. Improvement is noted in some upper division courses that have very formal and structured oral presentations. Student writing in the department's capstone course is, in the judgment of those Professors who teach this course, improving.