ISSUES IN SOCIAL RESEARCH
Sociology 6652 Spring 2007
Instructor
Professor Roslyn A. Mickelson Office Hours:
704.687.4075 Tues/Wed 2-3 p.m.
Fretwell 490N (or by appt.)
http://www.uncc.edu/rmicklsn/
Overview of the Course
Issues in Social Research is a course that explores the major approaches to research in
sociology (and the social science). We begin with the three epistemological paradigms —
positivist, interpretive, and critical — from which social research can be approached. We will
examine assumptions of each as well as the strengths and weaknesses of the three paradigms.
We then move to more practical aspects of social research design, data collection, analysis, and
reporting of results. The course will include a great deal of practical material. My objective is
for students to become familiar with how, when, and why certain research designs are used, when
to choose a specific quantitative or qualitative methodology in order to answer a given set of
questions or to test certain hypotheses, and how to understand and interpret the research
produced by other scholars. This is not a course in statistics. Descriptive and inferential
statistics will be discussed as components of research designs when they are appropriate
techniques of a particular methodology.
The final product in this course will be a thesis proposal. You will work on the proposal
throughout the semester, turning in initial portions of it as well as a rough draft. In practice, the
proposal you write in this class may or may not have much to do with your actual research
proposal. But—like riding a bicycle—once you acquire the skills, you will have them available
for you when you need them later. Some students have, in fact, used their class project as the
foundation for their actual proposal.
The course will be a combination of lectures and seminar discussions. A course
organized along these lines requires that students come to class having read the assignments for
the week. Such an arrangement permit a full exchange of ideas and the participation of everyone
in the class.
Texts:
1. Practical Research Planning and Design 2. Researching Society and Culture
Paul Leedy Clive Seale
3. Additional readings will be provided by the instructor.
Course Requirements
Because this class meets only once per week, it is especially important that you attend all the
classes and that you do all the reading before class so that the weekly lectures and readings
can compliment each other.
I will enforce the UNC-Charlotte Code of Student Academic Integrity. You are responsible
for knowing what is considered unethical behavior and/or violations of the code.
You are encouraged to use nonsexist, nonracist language in any oral or written work you
produce in the course.
You are welcome --yes, encouraged-- to disagree respectfully with the instructor and other
students.
On several occasions during the semester I will be absent from class for professional reasons.
I will make arrangements for a graduate assistant or another professor to cover the class in
my absence.
Grades: Your grade in this course will be based on weekly written summaries of readings,
course participation (attendance and discussion), various components of the thesis proposal, and
the final draft of the proposal. Details of each assignment follow:
1. You will have reading assignments each week. You are required to hand in at the
beginning of each class a summary and critique of that week's readings. It should be typed in 12-
point font and it should not exceed 2 double-spaced pages in length. This assignment is designed
to ensure you have processed the readings prior to class and that you will be able to participate in
the discussions. If you do them in a good-faith manner, you will receive full credit. (20%) Your
prose need not be brilliant; I want your critiques to both summarize and evaluate the readings.
2. You are expected to participate thoughtfully in the weekly discussions. I will call
upon a student at random to begin discussion of one portion of the readings. Other students will
be expected to respond to the opening summary by critiquing or adding to that summary. I Again,
I hope to be generous in this area tin order to encourage all students to partake enthusiastically in
this aspect of the course as well. Asking thoughtful questions counts as participation (20%).
3. Building blocks of the thesis proposal (20%)--this includes your satisfactory
completion of the various steps leading up to the rough draft: topic (5%), research questions/
hypotheses (5%), the research design (5%), and review of the literature (5%).
4. The rough draft (20%)
5. Final draft of the thesis proposal (20%)--this includes a satisfactory presentation of
your proposal to the class during our last class meeting.
COURSE OUTLINE
Week 1 Jan 9 INTRODUCTIONS
Week 2 Jan. 16 EPISTEMOLOGICAL ISSUES IN SOCIAL SCIENCE
Readings: "Introduction"; Leedy, Ch. 1 "What is
Research?" Seale Ch. 1 “ Introduction”, Ch. 2: “Selected Issues in
the Philosophy of Social Science”
Week 3 Jan. 23 PARADIGMS OF SOCIAL SCIENCE
Readings: Leedy, Ch. 2, "Tools of Research", Ch. 3 "The
Problem: The Heart of the Research"; Seale Ch. 3, “Politics,
Identities, and Research; Ch. 4, “Developments in Social Theory”
Ch. 29 “Reading and writing research”
Week 4 Jan. 30 RESEARCH PLANNING AND DESIGN
Readings: Leedy, Ch. 4 "Review of the Related Research,
Ch. 5 "Planning Your Research Design" ; Seale 5 “Research and
social theory”; Ch. 22, “Combining qualitative and quantitative
methodologies”; Ch. 12 “Doing a Literature Review”
Thesis Topic and Initial Research Bibliography Due
Week 5 Feb. 6 THE RESEARCH PROPOSAL PROCESS
Readings: Leedy, Ch. 6 "Writing the Research Proposal"
Ch. 12, "Technical Details...."; Seale Ch. 11 Research Design and
proposals”
Week 6 Feb. 13 QUALITATIVE RESEARCH
Readings: Leedy, Ch. 7 "Common Qualitative Research Designs.”
Seale, Ch. 9 “A history of qualitative methods, Ch. 14, “Qualitative
Interviewing; Ch. 17 “Doing ethnography”
Thesis Research Questions/Hypotheses Due
Week 7 Feb. 20 HISTORICAL, ARCHIVAL, & MEDIA RESEARCH
Readings: Leedy, Ch. 8 "Historical Research; Seale,
Ch.19 “Doing historical and archival research” Ch. 20, “Using visual
materials”, Ch. 21 “Using the Internet” Ch. 26:Using data archives
for secondary analysis.”
Week 8 Feb. 27 EXPERIMENTAL AND QUASI-EXPERIMENTAL
RESEARCH
Readings: Leedy, Ch. 10 " The Experimental Study";
Webster, “Experiments in Social Sciences” (available from
instructor)
Week 9 March 6 Spring Break
Week 10 March 13 SURVEY RESEARCH
Readings: Leedy, Ch. 9 "Non Experimental Research";
Seale, Ch. 8 “History of social statistics and the social survey”
Week 11 March 20 SAMPLING, QUESTIONNAIRE DESIGN, AND MEASUREMENT
ISSUES
Readings: Seale, 13 “Doing social surveys”; Your selection of an
article based on a survey (choose one from your lit review)
Week 12 March 27 META-ANALYSES, FOCUS GROUPS, and CASE STUDIES
Readings: Seale, Ch. 15 , “Using Focus Groups”; Sirin
“Socioeconomic Status and Achievement: A Meta-Analytic Review
of the Research” Review of Educational Research [available from the
instructor]
Review of the Literature Due
Week 13 April 3 QUANTITATIVE DATA ANALYSIS
Readings: Leedy, Ch. 11 "Statistical Techniques for Analyzing
Quantitative Data"; Seale, Ch. 24,”Statistical Reasoning: from one to
two variables”, Ch. 25, “Statistical Reasoning: causal arguments
and multivariate analysis.
Week 14 April 10 QUALITATIVE DATA ANALYSIS
Readings: Seale, Ch. 18,”Generating Grounded Theory” Ch. 23,
“Coding and Analyzing data:
Thesis Research Design Due
Week 15 April 17 RESEARCH ETHICS, VALIDITY, AND RELIABILITY
Readings: Seale,. Ch. 7,”Validity, reliability, and the quality of
research”, Ch. 10, “Ethics and social research”
Rough Draft of Thesis Proposal Due
Week 16 April 24 EVALUATION RESEARCH
Readings: TBA
Week 17 May 1 PRESENTATIONS OF PROPOSALS
Week 18 May 8 PRESENTATIONS OF PROPOSALS
Final Draft of Thesis Proposal Due