Sociology 303 – Research Methods
Fall 2014
GENERAL INFORMATION ABOUT THE CLASS
LECTURE MEETING TIMES IN SH 306 :
Monday and Wednesday: 2:00-2:50 PM
ONLINE MEETING TIMES
Friday: 2:00-2:50 PM
OFFICE HOURS IN SH 266 :
Monday and Wednesday: 11:00 AM-11:50 AM,
and 1:00-1:50 PM, or
by appointment
INFORMATION ABOUT YOUR PROFESSOR
Dr. Sandrine Zerbib
Associate Professor of Sociology
St. Cloud State University
Department of Sociology and Anthropology
266 Stewart Hall
720 Fourth Avenue South
St Cloud, MN 56301-4498
Office: (320) 308-3046
Fax: (320) 308-1694
E-mail: sazerbib@stcloudstate.edu <mailto:sazerbib@stcloudstate.edu>
Skype username: sazerbib
READING MATERIAL
Earl Babbie. 2014. The Basics of Social Research. 6th edition. Cengage Learning. ISBN- 9781-2855-8480-5. Optional bundle with SPSS: ISBN- 978-1-3055-9148-6
Your text will be accessible online but you will get a 3-hole pressed printed copy for you to put in
a binder. You will also need you access code to enroll into Aplia, which is the web-based
resource for homework and quizzes (See information attached to this syllabus).
Important: You will need to use SPSS for this class. This statistical software program is
available campus-wide. Purchasing the student version of SPSS with your text is only optional.
COURSE DESCRIPTION
This course is designed to prepare you to do social research. You will learn to link research
questions and methods to design a research that can answer particular questions. There are many
ways you can research a particular topic and this course will expose you to diverse traditional
and less traditional ways of doing research. To do well in this class you will need to both
understand and integrate research methods knowledge and do some on hand collection and
analysis of data. This course, in addition to statistics and probability courses and other basic
sociology courses such as sociological theory, should prepare you to design your own research
from first steps to last – from choosing a research topic to writing a research report. In addition,
students will learn how to use computer hardware and software to conduct online library
searches, to conduct web searches, to enter information into databases, and to analyze statistical
and narrative data.
STUDENT LEARNING GOALS (SLO):
You will learn:
1. Paradigms and theories of social research;
2. Ethical and political aspects of doing social research in the context of social action;
3. Research design and qualitative and quantitative methods of conducting research;
4. Reporting results from quantitative and qualitative data analysis.
Some of the main SLO are:
1) Successfully complete one research report or design;
2) Be able to identify and describe major patterns in statistical and narrative data;
3) Understand how to use computer hardware and software to conduct online library
searches, to conduct web searches, to enter information into databases, and to analyze
statistical and narrative data;
4) Use the ethical standards of the discipline, as outlined in the ethics codes of the American
Sociological Association and the Association for Applied and Clinical Sociology;
5) Comply with the code of ethics of the Association for Applied and Clinical Sociology
and/or other relevant professional association.
6) Compare and contrast the types of methodological approaches that are particularly relevant
to sociological practice.
7) Be familiar with research methods and their relationship to sociology, such that you will:
1) be able to describe, compare, and critique a wide range of research methods
2) be able to articulate and critically assess research questions by scholars.
WHAT TO DO AND WHAT NOT TO DO:
1. Check D2L and your school emails at least once a day in order to keep updated on
this class. However, all deadlines are available on D2L in the calendar.
2. Tardiness and disruption are not acceptable during lecture. Please make a note of it
and respect your instructor and fellow students. It is in your best interest to be on
time and to take notes for the entire lecture. If you are late, you may also miss
important information that is often given during the first 5 minutes of class or the
opportunity to take a quiz.
3. Cell phones, pagers, and other electronic devices that have alarms are not allowed
while in class. It is disruptive and unacceptable. Make sure you turn everything
silent or off BEFORE coming to class. ABSOLUTELY NO text messaging during
class will be allowed.
4. Since our class meets in a computer lab, you will have access to a computer during
lecture. However, you need to observe proper decorum. Your use of the computer
must be entirely related to the class itself, not anything else. While in class you
should NOT be reading personal emails, checking your Facebook account,
surfing the Internet, etc. Though I understand it is tempting to start doing other
things unrelated to class, you need to respect the setting of the class and be as
involved with the class as your fellow classmates and your professor. It is basically
about respecting your professor, respecting your classmates and respecting yourself
as you chose to make an investment in higher education.
5. Raise your hand and ask questions. Other students also often benefit from your
questions especially if they help clarifying material from the lecture. Be proactive in
your own learning! Your participation in class, though it is not part of your grading,
matters in case you are borderline.
6. There are certain rules to respect during tests. Cheating will not be tolerated. No
forms of communication with your fellow classmates are allowed during tests. You
may also be asked to take your hat off during tests. Do what you need to do to
prepare for tests before hand and you can leave the classroom as soon as you are done
with your test.
7. You are responsible for proper decorum in this class. Failing to respect your
instructor or other students by being disruptive, distractive or demeaning will not be
tolerated. Learning is only effective in a safe environment! Cheating and other
dishonest conducts are not allowed in this school. Please visit St Cloud State
University student handbook on policies on dishonest conduct
at http://www.stcloudstate.edu/studenthandbook/code/default.asp and get informed. I
take these policies very seriously and will not hesitate giving a failing grade for the
course to any student who demonstrates any of the misconducts listed on this website.
8. Make sure you come prepared to class by having read the material assigned for the
week prior to coming to class. Check the suggested deadline on Aplia for reading
each chapter. There will be weekly assignments during the semester. Make sure you
keep up with the readings assigned on each day of class.
9. There is absolutely NO make up for any quiz or exam. If you missed the deadline
for submitting a small assignment or a research assignment, submit your assignment
in the “Late Submission with Penalty” dropbox. You will lose 10% of the total score
per day late. That means that if you miss a day, your highest POSSIBLE score is
9/10 or 90/100. See section “How to submit my assignments?”
10. Group work is highly encouraged in this class. Learning how to work well in a team
is important in doing research but more important, it is a key quality you need to
acquire for your future career. Early in the semester you will have opportunities to
work in small group. You have to contribute equally to each other member of your
research team. If you don’t, they have the right to exclude you from their group. If
you see any problem in the functioning of your group, you need to communicate it
with me as soon as possible. If you are excluded from your group, you have the
option to submit assignments individually.
11. Virtual class on Fridays. On Fridays, we will NOT meet in our classroom. Instead,
you will meet online via D2L either to work on individual/group assignments, discuss
the answers to research methods problems, do some applied research methods
projects, etc. Unless otherwise specified, you MUST be logged onto D2L during the
entire class time on Fridays from 2:00 PM to 2:50 PM. Your assignments will be
available prior to our meeting time but may not always be visible to you until class
time.
CLASS REQUIREMENT
Weekly homework and quizzes (10%)
This semester, you will use a platform called Aplia in addition to your text. To get set up follow
the instructions provided at the end of this syllabus as well as on our D2L class site. After
enrolling yourself, you will have access to various quizzes and exercises that will help you digest
the material of each chapter from your text. You will have weekly assignments with Aplia
typically due by 11 PM on Sundays and they will ALL be mandatory. You will be given three
chances to complete each set and the average score between those three trials will be recorded on
the D2L grade sheet for each problem set.
Pay, however, attention to deadlines! No credit will be provided after the due date.
In addition, to help you, there will be suggested deadline for having read each particular chapter
from your text. Make sure you follow them in order to always be prepared for assignments on
Aplia and in class.
Important: one of your lowest problem-set scores will be dropped from the final grade.
However, there is no make-up for any assignment missed.
Midterm (10%) and Final Exam (25%)
The final exam is cumulative and will be designed as a combination of multiple-choice and
True/False questions. All questions will be addressing the material covered in class, from the
textbook or additional material covered in the class. A study guide will be posted on the class
website beforehand.
Class Small Assignments (5%)
You will have the opportunity to work in small groups and submit your answers to each of those
assignments as a group online using the D2L dropbox menu. Those small assignments will
typically be completed in class and then due on D2L at the end of the week. Those assignments
are meant to help you apply your knowledge of research methods. Some of those assignments
may have to be done using chat on D2L and then submitted online but most will be done in class.
You always have the right to submit your answers individually. A dropbox with a deadline will
be set for your submission. No make-up assignments are allowed. It is particularly important
that you do not miss class since you will lose the opportunity to do those assignments. Those
assignments are also meant to help you with the more challenging larger research assignments.
Important: one of your lowest class assignment score will be dropped from the final grade.
Again, there is no make-up for any assignment missed.
Research assignments (50% TOTAL)
You will have several research assignments to submit for this class. Each assignment will be
part of practicing doing research. Because your research is intended to serve solely an
educational purpose and involves minimal risks to human subjects, you will not be required
to get approval from the Institutional Review Board (IRB) (See link for additional
information http://www.stcloudstate.edu/osp/irb/studentresearch.asp) (we will cover ethics
and research early this semester and all through this semester)
Some assignments will be submitted by groups while others will be individually submitted.
You will have access to guidelines for completing each of these assignments on D2L.
This semester you will submit the following assignments:
1. IRB training (5%): Because ethical issues are a serious aspect of social research, you
will need to pass the IRB training for Undergraduate Students Research (see
http://www.stcloudstate.edu/irb/training/default.asp) (individual assignment)
2. Telephone survey interviewing (10%): 4 SHIFTS of phone interviewing for SCSU
statewide survey (10 hours) (individual assignment) To make sure you are ready for
telephone interviewing you will participate in a mandatory training set up during class
time. You will then sign up for shifts that work with your schedule. Each shift is worth
25% of your survey assignment grade. It is your responsibility to notify me in advance if
a problem occurs and prevents you from completing a shift.
3. Qualitative interview transcript (10%): 1 in-depth interview transcript (individual
submission). Together we will work on an interview schedule (template) and you will
conduct, record, and transcribe your own interview.
4. Quantitative data reporting in writing 1 (10%): 1 final analysis report (PowerPoint
presentation) based on quantitative (you will be encouraged to submit this assignment as
a small group but have the option to submit individually). For this assignment, you will
learn first how to use the SPSS software program, and then use the data you and others
collected via the telephone survey interviewing for the analysis.
5. Qualitative data reporting in writing 2 (10%): 1 final analysis report on qualitative
data (you will be encouraged to submit this assignment as a small group but have the
option to submit individually). For your qualitative analysis, you will use your own
interview transcript as well as other classmates’ that I will make accessible to the entire
class.
6. Oral presentation in class (5%): You will be presenting your findings (both quantitative
and qualitative) to an audience (TBA).
We will go over each of those assignments’ guidelines in class. If you miss class, it is your
responsibility to catch up with what was covered in class.
You will have the opportunity to submit drafts of the quantitative and qualitative portions of your
final report. Submit drafts in the dropbox early enough for me to provide you with some
feedback and email me to let me know you have submitted your draft and let me know if you
need some feedback.
Guidelines for each of the assignments listed above will be made available via D2L under the
"research assignment" folder in the "content" menu.
IMPORTANT NOTE ABOUT THE SURVEY CALLING
You will need to be an active participant as researcher in the SCSU Minnesota Statewide
survey. This is a great opportunity to gain experience in collecting real survey data and then
analyzing it. You will need to complete a total of 4 shifts of telephone interviewing in the
lab located in SH 101. Each shift typically starts at 4:30 pm or at 7 pm and lasts 2 hours and
30 minutes. You will first need to sign up for a training that will be set during our class time
and will be located at the SCSU survey lab (SH 101). You will then need to sign up for 4
shifts as soon as the SCSU survey center has all of the shifts planned. If you have any
problems with being able to complete this assignment, please talk to me as soon as possible
so that we can find a solution for you.
HOW DO I SUBMIT MY ASSIGNMENTS?
You should submit each written research assignment online using the drop box tool from D2L.
You can submit an assignment early without being penalized. If you do submit a late assignment
you will receive a 10% penalty for each day late. No late assignment will be accepted past 5
days late.
IMPORTANT NOTE : It is your responsibility to learn how to use D2L in order to access
material I will post on D2L, to participate in online discussions and to submit required
assignments. Always make sure that you submit the proper file, using a Rich Text Format (.rtf)
or Word document format (.doc). If you are using another software program than MS Word,
make sure you save your document as RTF before you submit it through D2L. Students who do
not submit assignments using the appropriate format will receive a grade penalty.
GRADING SCALE
A
AB+
B
BC+
C
CD+
D
DF
93%-100%
90-92
87-89
83-86
80-82
77-79
73-76
70-72
67-69
63-66
60-62
< 60
APLIA COURSE SCHEDULE
Week 1 - August 25, 2014
Mon, 8/25
11:00 PM
Practice
Rounding Numbers in Aplia
Tue, 8/26
11:00 PM
Practice
Introduction to Using Aplia Assignments
Wed, 8/27
2:00 PM
Reading
Chapter 1: Human Inquiry and Science - Online Chapter
Sun, 8/31
11:00 PM
Problem Set Graded
Human Inquiry and Science
Not Started
Week 2 - September 1, 2014
Tue, 9/2
12:00 AM
Reading
Chapter 3: The Ethics and Politics of Social Research - Online Chapter
Sun, 9/7
11:00 PM
Problem Set Graded
The Ethics and Politics of Social Research
Week 3 - September 8, 2014
Mon, 9/8
2:00 PM
Reading
Chapter 4: Research Design - Online Chapter
Sun, 9/14
11:00 PM
Problem Set Graded
Research Design
Week 4 - September 15, 2014
Mon, 9/15
2:00 PM
Reading
Chapter 5: Conceptualization, Operationalization, and Measurement - Online Chapter
Sun, 9/21
11:00 PM
Problem Set Graded
Conceptualization, Operationalization, and Measurement
Week 5 - September 22, 2014
Mon, 9/22
2:00 PM
Reading
Chapter 10: Qualitative Field Research - Online Chapter
Sun, 9/28
11:00 PM
Problem Set Graded
Qualitative Field Research
Week 6 - September 29, 2014
Mon, 9/29
2:00 PM
Reading
Chapter 7: The Logic of Sampling - Online Chapter
Sun, 10/5
11:00 PM
Problem Set Graded
The Logic of Sampling
Week 7 - October 6, 2014
Mon, 10/6
2:00 PM
Reading
Chapter 2: Paradigms, Theory, and Research - Online Chapter
Sun, 10/12
11:00 PM
Problem Set Graded
Paradigms, Theory, and Social Research
Week 8 - October 13, 2014
Mon, 10/13
2:00 PM
Reading
Chapter 13: Qualitative Data Analysis - Online Chapter
Sun, 10/19
11:00 PM
Problem Set Graded
Qualitative Data Analysis
Week 9 - October 20, 2014
Mon, 10/20
2:00 PM
Reading
Chapter 9: Survey Research - Online Chapter
Sun, 10/26
11:00 PM
Problem Set Graded
Survey Research
Week 10 - October 27, 2014
Mon, 10/27
2:00 PM
Reading
Chapter 14: Quantitative Data Analysis - Online Chapter
Sun, 11/2
11:00 PM
Problem Set Graded
Quantitative Data Analysis
Week 11 - November 3, 2014
Mon, 11/3
2:00 PM
Reading
Chapter 6: Indexes, Scales, and Typologies - Online Chapter
Sun, 11/9
11:00 PM
Problem Set Graded
Indexes, Scales, and Typologies
Week 12 - November 10, 2014
Mon, 11/10
2:00 PM
Reading
Chapter 8: Experiments - Online Chapter
Sun, 11/16
11:00 PM
Problem Set Graded
Experiments
Week 13 - November 17, 2014
Mon, 11/17
2:00 PM
Reading
Chapter 11: Unobtrusive Research - Online Chapter
Sun, 11/23
11:00 PM
Problem Set Graded
Unobtrusive Research
Week 14 - November 24, 2014
Mon, 11/24
2:00 PM
Reading
Chapter 15: Reading and Writing Social Research - Online Chapter
Sun, 11/30
11:00 PM
Problem Set Graded
Reading and Writing Social Research
Week 15 - December 1, 2014
Mon, 12/1
12:00 PM
Reading
Chapter 12: Evaluation Research - Online Chapter
Sun, 12/7
11:00 PM
Problem Set Graded
Evaluation Research
Week 16 - December 8, 2014
No readings scheduled. Presentations and reviews
How to access your Aplia course
SOC 303 - Fall 2014
Instructor: Sandrine Zerbib
Start Date: 08/25/2014
Course Key: FKM8-ZP7T-P447
Registration
Aplia is part of CengageBrain, which allows you to sign in to a single site to access your
Cengage materials and courses.
1. Connect to http://login.cengagebrain.com/
2. If you already have an account, sign in. From your Dashboard, enter your course key
(FKM8-ZP7T-P447) in the box provided, and click the Register button.
If you don't have an account, click the Create a New Account button, and enter your
course key when prompted: FKM8-ZP7T-P447. Continue to follow the on-screen
instructions.
Payment
Online: After registering, you can buy access to Aplia from myhome.cengagebrain.com.
Bookstore: Purchase access to Aplia from your bookstore. Check with the bookstore to find out
what they offer for your course.
If you choose to pay later, you can use Aplia without paying until 11:59 PM on 09/14/2014.
After paying, you will have the option to purchase a physical book at a discounted price.
For more information on registering for Aplia, please visit http://www.cengagebrain.com/aplia/.