Richard Williams, Notre Dame Sociology

Sociology 30902

Undergraduate Research Methods

Richard Williams, Instructor

Spring 2024 (In Progress)


Note: Students signed up for the class or thinking about doing so may want to know the following:


 

NOTE: There may be some revisions to this page, and to the readings packet and discussion questions, as the semester goes along. Any updates/changes will be available at least one week before we start covering the material.

NOTE: Adobe Acrobat reader is required for many of the online files.

Course Canvas Page - Spring 2024. We will use Canvas heavily this semester. I will use it to make announcements and you will use it to hand in all assignments. The most critical course links (including to this web page) can be found there. So, just go to Canvas if you forget or lose anything about the course.

Course Syllabus - Spring 2024 [DRAFT]

 Online Readings Packet with Discussion Questions (ND.Edu Netid is required for access)

Discussion Questions are included with the readings. These are questions we will be discussing in class.  Most of them are covered in the readings but we'll fill in gaps in class as necessary. Keeping these questions in mind as you go through the readings will help you to focus on some of the most critical points. This list will be updated regularly, at least a few days before we cover the material in class.  We will break down into small groups to go over many of these questions.  Similar questions will often appear on the exams, so being prepared to discuss these as we go along will be very beneficial to you.  I have used online readings for several years and they work well and let me do things that I can't do with Canvas modules. Canvas wilol provide the links you need to the readings.

 Notre Dame Cloud Storage. Almost every semester I seem to have a student whose computer crashes or who accidentally deletes the most current version of their paper or has some other problem. I've even had students who had to rewrite their papers from scratch. I therefore strongly encourage you to set up a Dropbox account (or something similar, e.g. Box, Google Drive) if you do not already have one. Dropbox gives you a minimum of 2GB of free online storage. I try to keep most of my current teaching and research work in Dropbox; that way it is backed up and I also have online access wherever I am. If you set up an account use your .edu email address because you can get more bonus storage that way.


Introduction

Online readings for the Introduction

Experimentation

Online readings and discussion questions for experimentation

Measurement: Reliability and Validity; Questions & Questionnaires; Sensitive Questions

Online readings and discussion questions for Measurement


Surveys

Online readings and discussion questions for Surveys

Content Analysis & Other Qualitative Methods

Online readings and discussion questions for Content Analysis

Observational Research

Online readings and discussion questions for Observational Research

Ethics

Online readings and discussion questions for Ethics