Course Description

This is a survey course of family development across the lifespan, including the study of the family as a system, family interaction, and family roles. The course will emphasize the relationship of the family and its environment. Consideration is given to the cultural diversity and heritage of families. (Three credit hours.)

Program Statement for Marriage and Family Studies

March 2021

As the world is becoming more diverse in its values and perspectives on marriage and the family, it becomes increasingly important that students and faculty understand our mission as a major in Marriage and Family Studies at BYU-Idaho. Consistent with the University, our mission is to prepare family life professionals to strengthen families throughout the world as true disciples of Jesus Christ, as outlined in the doctrines and teachings of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. 

Regardless of current or future philosophies or practices related to the family unit, the major of Marriage and Family Studies at BYU-Idaho is built upon The Family: A Proclamation to the World. Although this program will explore a variety of views and perspectives on the family, and each student is entitled to his or her own beliefs, it will emphasize research and theory and be guided by eternal truths as taught by the Lord’s prophets. In short, our major strives to follow the admonition from President Dallin H. Oaks that “every generation has its tests and its chance to stand and prove itself. I believe our attitude toward and use of the family proclamation is one of those tests for this generation. I pray for all Latter-day Saints to stand firm in that test” (The Plan and the Proclamation, October 2017 General Conference).

Course Outcomes

By the end of the course, students will be able to do the following:

1. Examine marriage and family research and its connection to revealed truths relating to strong marriages and families.
2. Describe healthy marriages and families through an understanding of attraction, dating, mate selection, marriage, and family attributes of various cultures, rituals, and belief systems.
3. Apply principles of attachment, communication, conflict resolution, and commitment to all interpersonal relationships, especially family relationships. 
4. Analyze the important role of gender, healthy sexuality, parenthood, work-life balance, stressors, transitions, and coping mechanisms in marriage and family relationships.

Required Materials

Lauer, Robert H. & Lauer, Jeanette C. (2023) Marriage & Family: The Quest for Intimacy (10th ed.). McGraw-Hill.

• Print ISBN: 9781264300358

This required e-book for this course is a low-cost, auto-access, digital textbook. Access the textbook using the Course Materials link in the left course menu. The textbook is delivered through VitalSource and can be accessed on the first day of the term. Your student financial account will be charged automatically on the first day of class.

You must have access to a computer and a webcam.

Opting Out of the e-book

If you have already ordered the print textbook, you may opt-out in order to receive a refund. You must opt-out by the current term’s Drop Date to receive a refund. When you opt-out, you will lose access to the Auto Access e-book.

To Opt-Out

1. Go to your Booklist.
2. On your Booklist: Select the red Remove Me from Content button for the item you no longer want access to.
   • NOTE: Some classes do not allow you to cancel the material because it is not available outside of BYU-Idaho and is required to complete the course.
3. If you later decide you need the Auto Access materials, you can go back to your Booklist and select the green Add Me to Content button.
   • Your student account will be charged automatically.

Turnitin

Turnitin is an electronic text-matching system that compares a student assignment against a database of sources and generates an originality report. The report highlights any matched text, calculates a Turnitin Similarity score for the matched text, and provides links for the matched text to the original source document, or a similar document on its database.

Turnitin is used on most written assignments in this course.

While it is expected that nearly every assignment will have some matching text, you would be wise to explore strategies to allow you to avoid plagiarism. Reference the video Avoiding Plagiarism for more strategies.

Due Dates

Due dates for specific activities are indicated on the activity page, modules page, calendar, and other places in the course. It is very important that you update your profile to be sure the time zone is set to your local time zone. This will ensure that the due dates in the course are displayed for you in your local time zone.

Regularly check the Calendar and the To-Do list to see when your assignments are due. Use the calendar to plan for upcoming assignments.

Caution: Be aware of daylight savings time (DST) and how that could affect the times that assignments are due—as they may change throughout the semester. For instance, if you lived in Sau Paulo Brazil during Winter semester, your time would be five hours ahead in January, then four hours ahead in February when Brazil DST ends and only three hours ahead beginning in March when US mountain time DST begins.

Assignments

Assignments are due at the end of each week. Students should complete the Study assignment early each week, since some assignments will necessitate students to check their course website every couple of days to keep informed of changes and new discussion postings.

Weekly assignments will consist of things such as discussion groups, discussion summaries, quizzes, short papers, and worksheets. The most important piece of this class is participation. Check the course website several times weekly in order to keep up with announcements, times, assignments, and changes.

Participation in all class assignments is expected. The nature of the course involves class discussion about important and sensitive information. This makes it impossible for students to make up or receive credit for missed discussion groups (internet-based) as students will not be able to converse with their classmates. Remember, you are responsible for checking the website for announcements, changes, assignments, and so on. If you fail to check the website several times weekly, you’ll lose points and get behind.

This course includes required synchronous meetings.

Discussion Groups (10 points each)

Each week includes mandatory participation in either an asynchronous discussion (in I-Learn) or synchronous online discussion using Zoom. (Zoom is an application that is something like a group Skype session.) You will be given topics for discussion and will be expected to offer meaningful observations and responses to the discussion prompts (questions).

Students are expected to be polite and respectful of others in the class, especially when they have views that differ from yours. Although participation is expected, students must be cautious about revealing personal information about themselves or their families that they may later regret sharing. Students must hold in confidence personal information that is shared by other students. This means that all personal information that is revealed from other students must remain private and must not be discussed outside of class.

Asynchronous Discussions

In the asynchronous discussions, students will post to a discussion board and respond to peers’ observations, questions, and responses throughout the week.

Discussion requirements include the following:

• Spend a minimum of 60 minutes participating in the weekly discussion boards.
• Post an initial response to the discussion prompt by the middle of the week.
• Respond to at least three posts in response to other students by the end-of-week deadline.
• You must write a total of four postings (minimum) each discussion.

Synchronous Discussions (Zoom)

Weeks 03, 06, 09, and 12 provide opportunities to interact synchronously (live) using an application called Zoom. You will sign up for a group by selecting a group time that is most convenient to you. You are expected to attend and participate live four times during the semester. There is no alternative way to earn points for these discussions. Plan your schedule around these Zoom sessions.

Zoom Discussion Requirements

• Participate for 60 minutes with your group at the scheduled time.
• Submit an individual summary of the discussion. Your summary will include the key points your group discussed.

Reading Quizzes (20 points each)

Students have an obligation to be prepared to contribute to the learning environment. When students have not read the assigned reading before participating in discussion groups, and so on, it detracts from learning, especially when discussing the material in small groups. To help motivate you to be prepared for the week, you’ll be asked to complete an online quiz over the readings for that week.

This quiz can be completed anytime during the week, but you are encouraged to complete the quizzes early in the week so that you have this background when participating in the discussion groups and other assignments. Generally, this should be one of the first things you do each week.

Exams (100 points each, 200 points total)

Two exams will be given during the course of the semester, one midterm exam (in Week 07) and a final exam (Week 14). Exams will most likely include items that are true and false, multiple-choice, and matching. Exams will cover reading material and everything that is covered in class, including class discussions, video clips, and so on. The final exam will not be comprehensive but will just cover the information since the midterm exam.

The exams are timed. You are allowed two attempts for each exam and the highest score will be kept. Exams must be taken when scheduled. If you know you are going to be out of town when an exam is scheduled, please arrange to have internet access so that you can take the exam during the regularly scheduled time.

Reaction Paragraphs (10 points each)

Every week you will be asked to write a reaction paragraph about the principles you learned during the week.

This assignment will become meaningful as you seriously reflect on the week's topics and seek to be taught about marriage and family life by the Holy Ghost and record your thoughts.

Other Assignments

NOTE: In every paper you write, you should cite any reference used, otherwise it is considered plagiarism and is dishonest. If you get any information anywhere other than from your own knowledge, you need to cite where you got the information from. Even if it’s from our textbook, or someone else. In citing these sources, follow the APA citation style.

Strong and Successful Marriages—Interviews (15 points each)

You will interview three couples during the first eight weeks of the semester. You will complete (1) a checkpoint assignment to report you have found a couple to interview and (2) a worksheet with standard questions that you will ask the couples. You will do this for each of the three interviews.

Strong and Successful Marriage Paper (Week 10, 50 points)

Using the information from the three couples that you interviewed, you will write about their transition to marriage. You will include your observations and conclusions.

Active Parenting Worksheet (Week 12, 30 points)

Using the principles of parenting discussed in Dr. Michael Popkin's work, you will discuss situations when your parents (or other parents) used one or more of these parenting principles in their parenting. You will tie the information into the parenting principles presented, and explain how one or more of these principles was applied. 

Aging Worksheet (Week 13, 10 points)

After viewing a video about a family facing difficult decisions of responsibility and sacrifice, you will complete a worksheet.

Acquired Skills (Week 14, 10 points)

This is an assignment that you will complete in all Marriage and Family Studies (MFS) courses that you take. You will be asked to identify and catalog the skills you acquired in this class. While the assignment is primarily intended for MFS majors, this assignment can help all students prepare to market themselves as they recognize what skills they have acquired in their studies. 

Grading Policies

Grades will be based on the following:

Percentage Range	Letter Grade
100%–93%	A
92%–90%	A-
89%–87%	B+
86%–83%	B
82%–80%	B-
79%–77%	C+
76%–73%	C
72%–70%	C-
69%–67%	D+
66%–63%	D
62%–60%	D-
59%–00%	F

Late Work

As a sign of professionalism and respect, you should complete your work on time. However, your instructor has the discretion to accept late work or extend due dates as appropriate.

Teaching Assistant  (TA)

A teaching assistant will be assisting the instructor in this class.

Department Policy Regarding Intellectual Property and Course Materials

All of the materials in this course are covered by fair use and copyright law and are proprietary (intellectual property). Students are not permitted to sell, post, trade, share, distribute, or send any information contained in this course (including outlines, handouts, syllabi, exams, quizzes, PowerPoint presentations, lectures, audio, and video recordings, or images of the same, and so on (including your own work for this course) to any parties outside of this course (in other words, Course Hero, Quizlet, Google Docs, and so on) by any means (for example, posting, uploading, attachments, and so on) without the express written permission from the creator of these works and the department chair.

Any of these actions violate the Academic Honesty policies of Brigham Young University-Idaho and will be dealt with as such. The materials in this course are also intellectual property and taking any materials from the course and posting them outside of this course in any manner will be construed as theft and distribution of intellectual property. If you engage in any of these actions or use any of these materials without authorization, the instructor has the right to impose an appropriate academic sanction (for example give you a failing grade for the assignment and/or fail you from the course). Additionally, the respective course lead, program lead, and/or department chair also reserve the right to impose appropriate academic sanctions regardless of any imposed by the instructor.

University Policies

Students with Disabilities

Brigham Young University-Idaho is committed to providing a working and learning atmosphere that accommodates qualified persons with disabilities. If you have a disability and require accommodations, please contact the Accessibility Services Office at 1-208-496-9210 or visit their website and follow the Steps for Receiving Accommodations. Reasonable academic accommodations are reviewed for all students who have qualified documented disabilities. Services are coordinated with students and instructors by the Accessibility Services Office.

This course includes required synchronous meetings. If you are currently registered with the Accessibility Services Office and need an interpreter or transcriber for these meetings, please contact the deaf and hard of hearing coordinator at 1-208-496-9219.

Other University Policies

Student Honor and Other Policies

The materials in this course are also intellectual property and taking any materials from the course and posting them outside of this course in any manner (such as posting on Course Hero) will be construed as theft. If you post course materials without authorization, the instructor has the right to impose an appropriate academic sanction (for example, give you a failing grade for the assignment and/or fail you from the course).

Please read through the document called University Policies. It gives important information about the following topics:

• Student Honor
  • Academic Honesty
  • Student Conduct
    • Sexual Harassment
  • Student with Disabilities
  • Complaints and Grievances
  • Copyright Notice

Go to the Student Resources module to review further resources and information.