Credits: 5

Course time(s): At least once/year, both on campus and online

General Education: Does not fulfill gen-ed requirements (but required for Soc/Soc welfare concentration)

Catalog description: Survey of basic social research strategies with emphasis on collection and analysis of data, including its effective presentation. This course also fulfills a required University Writing Requirement (UWR).

Prerequisites: None, but Soc 204 or 205 is recommended, and college level reading and writing ability is expected.

Most recent syllabus: W’21 (online); F’19 (on campus)

Recent textbooks used:

• Amy Blackstone. 2015. Principles of Sociological Inquiry: Qualitative and Quantitative Methods. Saylor Foundation (licensed under Creative Commons by 3.0)
• Joel Best. 2008. Stat-spotting: A Field Guide to Identifying Dubious Data. Berkeley: University of California Press.
• Daniel F. Chambliss and Russell K. Schutt. 2013. Making Sense of the Social World: Methods of Investigation. Los Angeles: Sage Publications.
• Other readings as assigned in Canvas

General topics covered: Background, inquiry, formulating answerable research questions, data collection and analyses, research design, literature review.

Course learning outcomes

• Firm grasp of the role of research in producing social scientific knowledge and theory
• Familiarity with accepted methods of conducting social research
• Practice in reviewing, summarizing and critiquing relevant research literature
• Practice in designing research, collecting and analyzing data
• Experience in proposing a research project, from formulating an answerable question to planning the specific details of tying your proposal to existing research and theory, sampling, choosing a method, analyzing data, and anticipating outcomes, obstacles, and limitations

The subject matter of this course is critical to understanding both why Sociology is a social science, and the ways in which information, knowledge and theory within the discipline are generated. Students will spend some portion of time actually doing research, learning from mistakes, considering alternative methods and approaches, grasping the basic principles of social research, and interpreting and critiquing each other’s work.