Methods of Social Inquiry Soc 357 Instructor: Sarah Warren Office: 7109 Social Sciences Email: [email protected] Office Hours: Thursday 12-2 pm Section 8: Tues. & Thurs. 4-5:15 Section 9: Tues. & Thurs. 2:30-3:45 This course gives a broad overview of methods used to conduct sociological research. In it, you will learn how it is that we can claim to “know” something, even when this thing is outside the realm of personal experience. In additional, you will learn how to formulate a research question, decide on the best methods to answer your question and develop the research design necessary to carry out this research project. At the completion of this course, students will be able to… • Describe and compare various research techniques used in the social sciences. • Assess the usefulness of research methods for answering a variety of empirical questions. • Evaluate/critique published research articles on the basis of methodological merits. • Construct a testable research hypothesis. • Design an appropriate analytical approach for testing this hypothesis. I intend this course to be useful for majors in sociology as well as non-majors. Ideally, you will learn to think more critically about scientific research, in addition to being poised for job opportunities that require familiarity with basic social research concepts and techniques. This should not be thought of as a statistics course, and requires no background in statistics. You will use a small amount of statistics in your assignments, which will be easier if you have already had elementary statistics, but you can learn what you need to know for these projects in this course. If you have already taken any other research methods course, please talk to me, as this course will probably cover what you already know. Required Readings: Babbie, Earl. The Basics of Social Research. Fourth Edition. Gladwell, Malcolm. Outliers: The Story of Success. New York: Little, Brown and Company. In addition to the two books, the course will include a series of readings. These readings will be available on the course website at learn@UW. Course Requirements: Your grade for this course is made up of in-class assignments and participation, reading reactions, exams and projects. There are 400 points that you can get during the semester, and your grade will be based on the percentage of points you get.Point Breakdown: Exam 1: 10 % (40 points) Exam 2: 10% (40 points) Assignment 1: Content Analysis Project 12.5% (50 points) Assignment 2: Fieldnotes 12.5% (50 points) Assignment 3: Quantitative Analysis in Lab 12.5% (50 points) In-class participation (includes reading responses and in-class assignments): 15% (60 points) Presentation: 7.5% (30 points) Final Project: 20% (80 points) Reading Responses: Before each class, you will be required to submit a reading response to the course site at learn@UW. Each response should include the central argument of the reading for that day, one thing you found interesting and a question. The question might be something you did not understand or it might be a critique of the reading. In addition, you need to respond to at least one other person’s reading response in a thoughtful way. I will hand out guidelines for online communication. You will be excused from four reading responses throughout the semester without penalty. Exams and Projects: There will be two exams in the early part of the semester. Throughout the semester, there will be three projects, all of which I will describe in more detail as we approach the due dates for the projects. The first project will be a content analysis project, in which you replicate a previous study of personal ads. Then you will create your own coding scheme and do an analysis on your own. The second project will consist of taking field notes. For this project, we will do a “test run” together and then you will observe and write field notes on your own. The third project will consist of quantitative secondary data analysis. We will meet in the computer lab for this where you will learn the basics of a statistical software program and run basic statistical analyses. Final Research Proposal In lieu of a final exam or term paper, the culmination of this methods class will be a research proposal, in which you present your idea for an original research project, taking into consideration the major concepts presented in the course. The proposal will include a topic that you have identified as worthy of study. It will then compare and contrast two different methodological approaches to studying this topic, noting the different questions that you can ask and answer when using different methods. It will include a discussion of the variables, hypotheses, sampling strategy, proposed methodology, and plan for analyzing the results. In essence, the first 5 weeks of the course, which will introduce you to all of these concepts, will give you a chance to start thinking through this project. By the end of the semester, you will have had enough practice and experience to be able to write the proposal (and maybe one day) carry out the research. To be clear: this is not a standard term paper or presentation of original research. Instead, this is your chance to design a social scientific research project, which is the first step in actually conducting original research.Course Policies: Attendance: Attendance is important for this class. You will get one free absence before I start to deduct points from your participation grade. You do not need to tell me why you missed a class. Instead, I expect you to take responsibility for your missed class. This means that if you miss a class, you will not be able to make up the points. It also means that I expect you to ask your classmates for any material that you missed on that day – do not ask me for this material. Due Dates: All assignments are due during class, with the exception of reading responses, which are must be posted to learn@UW by noon on the day of class. Anything that is not turned in on time will be penalized 5 points for every day that is late. Email: Email is an important form of communication, and as such, there are certain guidelines that I expect you to follow. First, I expect you to communicate with me in a respectful way. This means that your emails need to contain a salutation and need to be grammatically correct. If your email does not address me (as in “Dear Sarah”) or contains
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