Fall 2012
Under construction. The page may be modified a bit as the semester progresses. Students will need to refer to it regularly for the online readings and discussion questions.
NOTE: The following special types of files are sometimes used on this web page. If you aren't using one of the campus networked machines, you may need to download and install the free Adobe Acrobat Reader, available for both Windows and Apple machines.
Pdf files. Require Adobe Acrobat. Online Readings Packet with Discussion Questions (ND.Edu Netid is required for access)
Introduction
Online readings for the Introduction
Experimentation
Online readings and discussion questions for experimentation
Additional hints and tips for project 1.
Measurement: Reliability and Validity; Questions & Questionnaires; Sensitive Questions
Online readings and discussion questions for Measurement
Surveys I - Basics of Survey Research; Sampling
Online readings and discussion questions for Surveys I
Surveys II - Survey Administration; Alternative types of Surveys
Online readings and discussion questions for Surveys II
Some Useful Links for the 2nd project
For your convenience, I have listed some of the links I think you will find most useful; but feel free to browse around the Census web pages, as there is lots of information and lots of different ways of doing things.
The Census Bureau's American Factfinder provides handy access to information from the Decennial Census, the annual American Community Survey, as well as other sources. The address search on the right hand side will be especially helpful to you as you work in the second project. You can get maps of the areas you want to study as well as make detailed demographic comparisons of different areas. State and County Quick Facts (which also includes towns of 5,000 and above) highlights many major statistics, although perhaps not enough for your projects. You can also find out more at the Census 2010 Home Page and the American Community Survey Home Page. If you want to go further into the past, you can check out the Census 2000 Gateway and Census 1990.
Options for Foreign Students. Foreign students are welcome to choose the neighborhood they live in now or lived in in the past for Project 2. However, they are also welcome to compare, say, their country with the US, or some other country, or the entire world. You could, for example, compare countries on literacy rates, educational attainment, women in the labor force and other gender-related variables, birth rates, population growth, use of contraception, health and mortality, income... Actually, there are a lot of interesting variables in international data sets that you don't find in the US Census.There are many good sources of easy to use international data. Some suggestions:
http://www.prb.org/DataFinder.aspx (Just pick the country or countries you want. If you choose the customize option, you could, for example, get side by side comparisons of the US and your country. Even more easy is to just compare, say, your country with the rest of the world).
http://www.prb.org/pdf10/10wpds_eng.pdf (lots and lots of side by side comparisons of countries -- especially nice since things are measured more or less the same way for each country)
http://data.un.org/ (Again, you can search for the countries you want).
Content AnalysisOnline 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
Semester in Review
Online readings and discussion questions for Semester in Review
