Sociology 357 Methods of Sociological Inquiry Fall 2010 Section 2: TR, 9:30 – 10:45am, 6125 Social Science Building Section 11: TR, 2:30 – 3:45pm, 222 Ingraham Hall Instructor: Geoff Bakken, 7110 Social Science, [email protected], 608.262.3569 Office Hours: Tuesdays and Thursdays, 11am – 12pm, and by appointment Online course materials: Available through Learn@UW Introduction Sociology 357 is a basic course on how to do social science research and how to evaluate the research of others. This is a training course where you will learn by doing. After an introduction to the elements of research, you will spend most of the semester working on a variety of projects, applying the concepts we cover early on as you conduct your own research, and as we evaluate the research of others. Many heads are better than one when it comes to designing and evaluating social research, so the course will involve group work and a lot of discussion. Coming prepared and being willing to participate are key prerequisites for joining the class. My goals in teaching this course are (1) to introduce you to the language and logic of research design in order to provide you with a good foundation for future learning; (2) to teach you how to read a research report with a critical eye, so that you can know how to tell how trustworthy its information is; (3) to expose you to a variety of research methods that you may encounter in the future; (4) to convince you that social scientific research is not a highly esoteric activity, but rather a relatively straightforward, systematic set of procedures that will allow you to answer your questions about the world; (5) to have you learn first hand about the successes and problems of research by trying out several data collection methods on a small scale; (6) to show you that research is both an intellectual and emotional activity that can both frustrating and highly rewarding. Soc 357 is not a statistics course and assumes no background in methods. You will do a small amount of statistics in your projects, 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 without much difficulty. If you have already taken any other research methods course, please talk to me, as this course will probably cover what you already know. In addition to keeping up with daily readings and assignments, you should plan NOW to set aside substantial blocks of time outside of class to work on projects during the semester. A schedule of due dates is included below. Course Materials There is one required textbook for the course: The Practice of Social Research by Earl Babbie, 12th Edition (2010). It can be bought at the University Bookstore. A course reader containing additional readings can be purchased at the Social Science Copy Center (6120 Social Science).The readings from the course reader will also be posted on the course site through Learn@UW. Both the Babbie book and a copy of the course reader will be available on reserve at the Helen C. White Library. You will also need paper or note cards in the 3x5" size. This is the smallest size note card, and is also a standard size note pad. You will need about 35 of these for the course (one for each day of class). You may also make them yourself, or recycle cards that have been written on one side. Requirements and Grading The largest share of your grade is based on four projects: three data collection assignments and an article analysis. The data collection projects are a structured field observation, a simple questionnaire and a field experiment; these are worth 20% each. A detailed analysis of a professional research article is your take-home exam in this class and is worth 20%. There will be one take-home quiz on sampling, which is worth 5%. There will be frequent homework assignments that will be worth a total of 10%. The last 5% is based on attendance and giving daily feedback on the class sessions. Grading Breakdown Assignment % of Grade Due Date Sampling Assignment 5% 10/7 (Th) Field Observation Project 20% 10/19 (T) Questionnaire Project 20% 11/18 (Th) Experiment Project 20% 12/2 (Th) Article Analysis Project 20% 12/20 (M) Homework 10% See schedule Attendance/Participation 5% Daily reactions The exercises in class are not “real” research. As you will learn, real research is much too time consuming to fit into a course. You will be doing scaled-down projects that teach you important lessons about research without taking so much time. Everything you do in this class is solely for your education. You are not part of anybody‟s research project. Instructions for the projects appear in the course reader. Final projects should be submitted both electronically (through Learn@UW) and in person. For group papers, only one copy need be submitted per group, although it should include all group members‟ names. Group members will be asked to report on the division of labor within each group, and it is possible for people within the same group to receive different grades if it is clear that one group member has put in markedly higher (or lower) quality work than his or her team members. Improving This is a skills course, and if you work hard enough you can learn to do something you didn‟t get right the first time. You may redo any of the first three research projects (excluding the article analysis) in an attempt to improve your work. Redoing an exercise means starting completely over and doing all new work; it is not just correcting the mistakes on the first exercise. (As you will learn, much of the time in this class your mistakes can provide you with the best way tolearn, and need not count against you.) You must do better work to get a better grade: this is not extra credit and effort does not count. If you do more than one version of an assignment, your best grade will count. You must allow a week for the grading of any re-submitted assignment. You must submit the old (graded) exercise and any grade sheets when you submit new work for re-grading. Please speak with me before redoing any exercise. Homework and Readings There will be 10 short homework assignments to give you practice on major skills that are directly relevant to the
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