Vesalius College

Course objectives

Theoretical part of the course

In this course, the focus is on the design, execution, and presentation of research. The logic of inquiry and the methods available to the researcher are examined through the analysis of specific problems in social scientific analysis. Central concerns include research design, measurement (with special attention to reliability and validity), sampling schemes, data-analysis (including an approach to understand the similarities between bivariate  correlation and inferential statistics or significance tests), and reporting the results.

The major objectives of this course are that students have a broad insight in the different aspects of both qualitative and quantitative social research. An important skill to be developed during the semester is to make critical analyses of research questions and to use that analysis to set up appropriate methods to find answers to these questions. Special attention is given to writing own questionnaires and to survey research.

This course gives an overview of the whole process of social scientific research: formulating research questions, operationalize constructs to make them measurable (including multi-item measures like Likert, Thurstone, and Guttman scales), setting up methods for data collection, data-analysis (also on PC), deriving conclusions and writing research reports. Different methods (experimental designs, questionnaires, observation) and practical applications thereof are studied.

The textbook (selection of chapters, partly imposed, partly decided by class) serves as the backbone for the course, that is the main content . In class focus is on specific topics that may or may not be covered in full detail in the textbook, but which are found of special interest to the students. Where possible these topics are introduced or focused on starting from own (student) examples. Self study completes the course.

Several times class can be in a PC room, where students can have hands-on experience with research and data-analysis (e.g. with SPSS).

Practice

Students are required to carry out social research projects as independent researchers would do. Depending on the student’s interests distinct types of research methods can be covered. Some suggested areas of research are

• Differences in attitudes among different (sub)populations
• Response behavior in surveys : effects of situation and survey formats on response
• Subjective Quality of Life : contribution of life domains to overall happiness
• Customer satisfaction study: how is the perceived quality of services offered by some organization
• Group behavior
• ...
• Some previous topics

Topics must be approved by the teacher.

Students are expected to set up a comprehensive study, probably a survey or an experiment. Both quantitative and qualitative approaches are welcome and will be supported. Basic requirement, however, is a STRONG, systematic and reproducible methodology that must be explained and documented in detail in the paper.

Starting from a research question of their own choice, students will set up at least one study and go through the entire research process:

• formulate the research question
• develop consequent hypotheses
• operationalize the variables
• collect data
• analyze the data, (both descriptive and inferential statistics)
• write the research report.

Week-by-week interaction about the progress of the project is required (email or Pointcarré).

A report (research paper ) on the research project , in APA-style, is required for each project as well as an oral presentation of the results (one report per group, about 1000 words per student).

Key-words

Observation, Measurement, Scale, Validity, Reliability, Questionnaire, Sample, Experiment, Data analysis

Required textbook and course materials

	The following textbook (follow this link for extra materials, readings etc.) will be used (the entire book is considered core course matter): Gilbert, N. (Ed.) (2008). Researching Social Life (3rd edition). LA: Sage. ISBN: 978-1-4129-4662-9
	Another valuable source is 'the web center for social research methods' where you can find a nice on-line textbook (Trochim, William M. The Research Methods Knowledge Base, 2nd Edition. Internet WWW page) BUT although content wise this is a good resource, students tend not to like to "study from a PC screen" , also, it is difficult to get a good overview of the whole course with this.
	Additional texts may be handed out in class.

 

Class activities

• Lecture and discussion about a selection of chapters from the book (textbook chapters 2,8,9,10,11,16,17,18,19,24), focus on most crucial contents of these, completed with extra contents and materials of particular importance
• Presentation of selected chapters by students (chapters to be decided during first weeks of the semester)
• Hands on exercises
• Work on group projects

Reading Assignments and Papers

Reading assignments cover the textbook.

The chapters from the book will be discussed in class as follows:

• Either the professor or a small group of students prepare for teaching about a chapter
• A small appointed group of students  (2 or 3) prepare 1 specific chapter more thoroughly and
  • gives a short (15-minutes) presentation on their chapter (synthesis)
  • indicate the specific problems/difficulties in the chapter and ask questions to the professor in order to clarify
  • prepare 10 exam questions (5 short answer ; 5 multiple choice) (good questions may appear in the actual exam!)
• A short quiz can be organized

Papers

Short paper

A short paper is demanded in order to practice scientific reporting of research and prepare for the term paper. Topic of this paper is a replication study of the Asch experiment on impression formation

Term paper

Recommended size is about 3000 words, that is about 10 printed pages of some 300 words per page in APA style (or ASA style as documented in Ch 24 of the textbook) and some smaller papers are required for the course. Subjects and contents are discussed in class.

Late papers are downgraded.

What is expected from a good term paper?

• The paper should be like a scientific article in a scientific journal. For required style and format refer to chapter 24 in your textbook for details and this document!!.
• THE TERM-PAPER is a detailed report on an authentic study performed by the students. Special attention must be given to methodology, research design, feasibility, data-collection and data-analysis.
• A part of the term paper could report on the development of a new self-designed multiple item scale that aims at discriminating 2 identified groups of participants according to some variable (part of Method). The validity and reliability of the scale should be commented on, and (if possible) measured in a pilot study. Then this scale must be used for actual data-collection. A suitable (statistical) analysis of the obtained data should be carried out and be presented and reported.
• Topics for the term paper need be approved by the professor. The methodological content is the most important in any paper for this course.
• The length of the paper is of lesser importance, about 10 pages is considered reasonable. The literature part may be brief but must be relevant, and references must be in correct format.
• Most important is that the paper gives proof of a good understanding of the course and that it reports on small scale, but methodologically sound research.

 

 Just hand in the term paper or is there more to be done?

Peer reviews

• Each student must write at least one  review on a project (proposal) or draft paper from an other group in class. Reviews must be handed in via the dropbox in Pointcarré and be announced via e-mail to the recipient group and the professor.

Peer evaluation

• Each group member hands in a reflection report on the group performance, including a peer evaluation  form, either in group (1 form for the whole group) or individually (1 form per student), depending on the preferences of the group members.
• Papers etc. can be handed in by email or via the dropbox but an email notification must be sent to the professor.

Presentation

• A clear 10-15min presentation of the term paper is expected from each group. As for the paper, the following must be covered in the presentation
  • Research question
  • Findings in literature (brief BUT with AT LEAST 1 reference to a scientific journal article)
  • Hypotheses
  • Design of the study
  • Prospect on feasability, eg. motivate the number of participants that are included in the study
  • Method (including a critical motivation of the kind of questionnaire/method + data-analysis that was used)
  • Results (statistical analysis + interpretation)
  • Conclusion, critical analysis and suggestions for future research on this topic

  Evaluation and grading

Exams

• Both the Midterm and the Final exam consist of short answer and multiple-choice questions.
• Exams cover topics discussed in class PLUS specific chapters from the textbook (chapters to be fixed in class) .
• If a student meets all requirements for the course, the final grade is computed according to the scheme below. Abscence of one or more of the required items (papers, exam, etc.)  will result in downgrading for the whole course.

SOC203 E grading

first paper 5 % chapter presentation 5 % term paper 40% midterm exam 25% final exam 25%

 

Class hours

Weekly on Tuesday 8.30 - 11.30 (room D2.14)

 

Office hours

Thursday 10.00 - 12.00 in office 3C257b. Please, when absent check room 3C223 (secretary)

OR RATHER make an appointment

Contact

Office	Home
Prof. Dr. P. Theuns AROR-Room 3C257b Vrije Universiteit Brussel Pleinlaan 2 1050 Brussel 02 629 20 56 (VUB) 02 629 24 04 (Secr) 02 629 39 48 (Fax)	Prof. Dr. P. Theuns   Kampelaarstraat 10 1910 Kampenhout    urgent: 0474 924688

 Contact preferably by Email peter.theuns@vub.ac.be

Course outline (tentative) Below is a tentative calendar for the course. Although during class hours some topics may get more ore less attention and time than scheduled (depending on student's input and interests). The book will not be followed in a linear way, students should browse through the entire book in the beginning of the semester, later-on different parts of the book will be covered more and more thoroughly in class, and in personal (paper) work. These contents will be very helpful to support your understanding of the classes. The links below refer to the electronic textbook mentioned above. Although the provided content is of excellent quality, it cannot fully replace a printed book. Week Required reading / Chapter presentations Class Research project & papers 1 26/8 Get connected to PointCarré http://pointcarre.vub.ac.be ASAP (No VUB account?? go here: http://www.vub.ac.be/tools/pam/) Introduction Introduction on the PointCarré-environment Experiment (demo on impression formation) General introduction to research methodology Variables in research (independent & dependent) Measurement Internal validity (3rd variables) Types of research (Descriptive research <> Experiments) Writing a Research Report in APA-style Key elements of a paper Formatting (Limit methods part to 4-6 pages) Sample paper (If possible paste figures and tables in your text, rather than in appendix) Assignment: Short Paper : "Impression formation" - Replication study (original paper: Asch, S. E. (1946). Forming impression of personality. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 41, 258-290 , brief info) 2 2/9 Book 1) Conceptualizing social life 2) Research, Theory and Method 24) Writing about Social Research Inferential statistics: the z-test to compare 2 proportions   3 9/9   Due date paper 1  (hand in peer-reviewed paper)   Measurement Levels of measurement Construct validity Reliability and Validity Types of reliability Measurement error Reliability <> Validity Convergent and discriminant validity Multi Trait Multi Method Matrix Prepare PEER REVIEW for 1 colleague's paper 4 16/9 Book 3) Formulating and Refining a Research Question 10) Questionnaires   Conceptualizing research Research question and hypotheses Survey research Types of surveys Selecting a survey method Types of questions Asking questions Question wording Question placement Plus & minus of surveys + Student chapter presentation Choose your group / research topic Prepare project proposal Send e-mail with group names and research proposal   5 23/9 Book 11) Measuring Attitudes 8) Ethics of social research 16) The Internet and research methods     Feedback on first papers Scaling Likert Guttman Thurstone (critical note! Sample items on AIDS are a-typical for Thurstone items) Ethics in research How to make websurveys with OSUCRE + Student chapter presentation 6 30/9 Book 9) Designing samples 6) Participatory Approaches to Social Research Review chapters for exam Prepare questions   Sampling methods External validity Sampling terminology Statistical terms in sampling Probability sampling Non probability sampling Probability sampling Virtual experimenting with sampling   7 7/10 MIDTERM exam (Book chapters 3-8-9-10-11-24) (read ch1-2 as introduction)   Literature search 8 14/10 Paper 2 on "discriminating 2 groups with a self-constructed multiple item (Likert) scale" (free paper / pilot study for term paper) Book (reading assignment for everybody) 17) Coding and managing data 18) Analysing survey data   Correlation and hypothesis testing Lambda, Correlations, t-test (Data analysis with SPSS ?) Virtual experimenting with sampling Threats to internal validity Single group threats Regression to the mean Multi-group threats Social interaction threats Method 9 21/10   Book 12) Focus groups 14) Ethnography Qualitative research Qualitative <> Quantitative research Qualitative data Unobtrusive methods + Student chapter presentation Data collection 10 28/10  HOLIDAY     11 4/11 Work on termpaper project Research designs Experimental design, variables in experiments (dependent, independent, extraneous) True experiments 2 group experimental designs Quasi experiments Random selection <> Random assignment Probabilistic equivalence + Student chapter presentation   Practical work in class 12 11/11 Work on termpaper project Practical work in class 13 18/11 Work on termpaper project Practical work in class 14 23/11 DEADLINE TERMPAPER =  28/11 Prepare questions Hand in paper + Presentation 15 2/12 CLASS!!  with short paper presentations and questions Presentations   16 9/12 FINAL EXAM (Book chapters 12-14-16-17-18)

Slides (subject to changes)

Basic
	Basic_slides
Extra slides on specific topics
	Classification of research
	Time in Research
	Asch impression formation
	Experimental designs
	Experimental disign examples
	Validity and Reliability
	Wording questions
	Thurstone scale versus Guttman scale
	Sampling
	Correlation methods
Guidelines for writing scientific reports
	APA-style
All slides printer friendly

 

Documents (subject to changes)

 Exercises, assignments etc...

First Paper	Asch: Impression formation Literature: Original article (Asch, S. E. (1946). Forming impression of personality. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 41(3), pp. 258-290) Slides
Peer reviews Paper proposals (old examples)	1) Check if your own address is correct in the file 2) Send your group's proposal (corrected part from the file you can find here left AND your questionnaire or experimental design) to all reviewers (if impossible, eg. because of missing email: try to find it, if this is impossible contact teacher). Reviewers are themselves responsible to provide their own address to the group they're doing the review for. 3) Reviewers comment on the paper proposal AND the questionnaire or design they receive. 4) A very tight schedule was agreed on in class: Proposals must be sent to reviewers BEFORE ...; Reviews must be sent back to the groups BEFORE ...
Contribute Multiple Choice Questions	Here you can contribute to make multiple choice questions that can become part of the exams (if at least 10 good questions are received per chapter in the book). Prepare questions with 5 response alternatives.

Updated: 30 November 2008