CRIMINOLOGY220
Introductionto
ResearchMethodsinCriminology
Summer/2016
TheCourse:CalendarDescription
An introduction to criminological research that is intended to develop the student's research and analytical skills. Specifically, the course will focus on the theory of inquiry, the logic, and structure of criminological inquiry, research design, data gathering, analysis and reporting. TheProfessor
Your instructor is Dr. Ted Palys. If you need to get in touch to arrange an appointment, ask a question, or other important matter, you have several alternatives: (a) Visit during designated office hours. My "usual" office is in School of Criminology at the Burnaby campus, but I will be getting an office to use in Surrey on lecture days (see below); (b) Send an e‐mail to palys@sfu.ca1 (c) Leave an urgent message with the secretaries in the Crim General Office: 778‐782‐3213; (d) Leave a note in my mailbox by the Criminology General Office at SFU/Burnaby. Designated office hours for the Spring semester are Thursdays, from 11:00 AM to 12:00 noon at the Surrey Campus in Room SUR 5164, and Fridays from 1:00 to 2:00 PM at SFU's Harbour Centre Campus in room HC 2154. Other times can be arranged by appointment. TheTeachingAssistant
The teaching assistant for this course is Aaren Ivers, who is doing her MA in Criminology. She will hold office hours from 11:00 AM to 12:00 noon on Fridays in SUR 5166. 1
Email should be used only to send information to the professor and/or TA or to make focussed inquiries that can be answered in a sentence or two at most. If you have questions that would require a longer response, the proper place to raise them would be in class, in tutorial, or office hours. 2
Textbooks
The one required text for the course is: Palys, T., & Atchison, C. (2014). Research Decisions: Quantitative, Qualitative and Mixed Methods Approaches. (5th Edition) Toronto: Thomson Nelson. The book has been used on various occasions in various courses, such that used copies are likely to be available. Other required readings and audio‐visual material will be made available through the course web page, which you can access through http://www.sfu.ca/~palys/ Knowing and understanding the text and readings is essential for understanding and contributing to lecture and tutorial group discussions, performing well on exams, and completing your written assignments. A schedule of course readings can be found on the course web page (see below). You are expected to do the assigned reading ahead of the class/tutorial for which the reading is scheduled to be discussed, and to be ready to ask questions and participate in discussion. Lectures
We meet each Thursday from 12:30 to 2:20 P.M. in SUR3090. Most lectures will be delivered using PowerPoint as an overall guide and to aid your note‐taking, though liberal use will also be made of other media as appropriate. A summary of each lecture that incorporates the PowerPoint slides and points that arise in discussion will be posted on the course web page, normally within 24 hours after class. Although questions about text content are always appreciated, lectures normally will not simply repeat the contents of Research Decisions. Instead, the focus will be on first ensuring that everyone is on the same page regarding the text material, and then use the book as a launching point to give examples and discuss topics introduced in the text in greater detail. Accordingly, it is important for you to keep up with the readings – and to prepare them ahead of time ‐‐ in order to partake in discussion and fully appreciate the lectures. Tutorials
Three main activities will characterize tutorials: (1) they are an opportunity for you to ask questions of your TA that you may not have had the time or opportunity to ask in lecture; (2) they provide the opportunity to discuss course readings and thereby to prepare you for the type and level of analysis that will be expected of you in relation to your term research project and exams; and (3) they are an opportunity to discuss your progress on the research project you will be working on throughout the semester. The time and location of tutorials, in the order they occur in any given week, are: Tutorial Day Time
Location D801 D802 D803 D804 Thursday Thursday Friday Friday 2:30 ‐ 3:20 3:30 ‐ 4:20 8:30 ‐ 9:20 9:30 ‐ 10:20 SUR 3150 SUR 3150 SUR 3010 SUR 3010 3
No part of your grade is based on tutorial attendance per se, although there are assignments and exercises you will be asked to do that you will be handing in during tutorials that are worth 10% of your total grade in the course. In any case, you will no doubt find attending tutorials useful for the completion of your term project and preparation for exams. TermResearchProject
Your term project for Crim 220 involves completion of a structured research project that we will construct together over the course of the semester. In keeping with the general approach of the course, the project you complete will be a mixed methods project that includes both a survey and some interviews. We will be constructing the survey in tutorial. You will be doing the interviews on your own. Your final assignment will involve you writing up the results of your research in a report that is no more than 5,000 words (about 20 double‐spaced pages using 12‐point font). Guidelines for this write‐up will be given to you later in the semester. Your grade on the term project final report will contribute 40% toward your final grade in the course. Exams
There will be two of these — a mid‐term and a final. The mid‐term exam will be held in class on Thursday, June 23rd, and will contribute 25% toward your final grade in the course. The final has been scheduled by the Registrar’s Office for August 18th from 9:30 AM to 11:30 AM at a location still to be determined; your grade on that will contribute 25% toward your final grade. The mid‐term exam will deal with all the material we cover up to and including the end of class on June 16; the final exam will deal only with material covered in the second half of the course, i.e., material covered from 30 June to 11 August. CourseWebPage
A course web page is located at http://www.sfu.ca/~palys/crim220.htm . It contains a course calendar, notices, hyperlinks to course readings, supplementary resources on topics of methodological interest, archived copies of all handouts in the event that you happen to miss a class, and is updated on a weekly basis. CourseEmail
The course email address is crim220‐d1@sfu.ca. Any person registered in the course can write an email to that address (from your SFU account or when logged into your SFU address via SFU Webmail) and it will be received by me, the TA, and all students registered in the course. It is also the best way for me to make announcements to everyone outside the actual class situation The list of persons who are on the Crim 220 mail list is updated weekly on the basis of the registrar's list of students enrolled in the class. However, the only email addresses that the system contains and 4
recognizes are the email addresses each of you has been assigned by SFU Computing Services. If that is the email address you normally use, no problem. However, if you use a server other than SFU (e.g., Shaw, Telus), or prefer an email address that is based on another server (e.g., Hotmail, Gmail), then you will need to arrange for your SFU email to be forwarded to the email address of your choice. ExceptionalandUnanticipatedCircumstances
Because I give you all the complete course schedule on Day 1, I consider that all of you have been given sufficient warning to be able to meet the various requirements as listed. I am loathe to make exceptions, and will not make any “private” deals with any individual student. And yet, sometimes s**t happens, i.e., something that none of us could have anticipated, is beyond anyone's control, and precludes some person's ability to follow the course schedule as written. By this, I don't mean the "run of the mill" obstacles that all of us have to deal with — a summer cold in July; a family wedding in June on the weekend that you hoped to be able to complete an assignment; too many things all due at the same time in August — but those rare extreme circumstances that come completely out of left field, hit like a brick, and leave you completely unable to live up to your responsibilities to the course. In those rare circumstances, I am prepared to make exceptions for any student, as long as they meet the criteria of being "unanticipated" and "exceptional" circumstances. In the event this happens to you, you must (a) inform me at the earliest possible opportunity what has happened; (b) provide appropriate and detailed documentation, at the earliest possible opportunity, that makes it clear the event meets the criteria and clearly precluded your ability to act in accordance with the class schedule; and (c) take steps to rectify the omission as soon as possible. EvaluationSummary
Requirement Mid‐Term Exam Term Research Project Survey Contributions Final Exam TOTAL Due Date 23 June 11 Aug 18 Aug. Value 25% 40% 10% 25% 100%