Research Methods

This course will provide content on the logic of inquiry and the necessity for an empirical approach to practice. The process of formulating appropriate research questions and hypotheses, techniques for testing relationships and patterns among variables, methods of data collection, methods to assess and improve the validity and reliability of data and measures, and the ethics of scientific inquiry will be addressed. The course covers advanced research skills, focusing on research design, design of data collection instruments, implementation of data collection plans, advanced statistical tools of data management and principals of research project writing and dissemination.

COURSE JUSTIFICATION/RATIONALE

To prepare students for scientific research and development of Thesis. The course provides content on the logic of inquiry and the necessity for an empirical approach to practice.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

By the end of this course, the student should be able to:

Illustrate a complex, open-ended scientific investigation in an active research environment from a variety of sources.

Examine the reporting skills by distilling the notebook record of work of the lengthy project into a complete formal report in word-processed form

Explain that the activities of formal research methods

Discuss the relationship between method and theory and to grasp their interrelatedness and commonalities.

 Discuss "science" and how to design a scientific study.

Explain how to read and analyze data and situate it in a larger theoretical frame of reference

Examine the social and political issues related to social research and its relation to public policy.

Discuss the issue of "ethics" in relation to research and to the use of "human subjects" in that research.

LEARNING OUTCOMES

A student completing the course is expected to:

Use research methods

Use statistical methods for research

Demonstrate the use of different writing skills for scholarly work