Researching Social Life I SC101

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Researching Social Life ISC101

• Introduction

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Who am I?

• Dr Nick Allum
• Room 6.332
• My research is mainly on public attitudes to
  science and technology especially GM food,
  cloning, genetics. Also survey methods.
• I dont have an office hour. Make an appointment
  by email to see me. (Im not in every day)

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What is this module about?

• Introduces students to the research methods used
  by sociologists
• The course aims to help students develop skills
  in the critical evaluation of social research and
  to enable them to understand the principles of
  social scientific investigation and inference
  necessary for carrying out original research

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What will you learn to do?

• Evaluate the strengths and limitations of
  different approaches to sociological research
• Understand the connections between theory and
  research
• Understand the logic of scientific inference
• Apply critical perspectives to sociological
  research
• You will also learn some specific techniques
  hands on, for data collection and analysis.

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Structure of the module

• 50 minute lecture and a one hour class each week
  in Autumn and Spring
• Autumn term
• Lectures given by Nick Allum
• Classes by Paul Stoneman and Aaron Reeves
• Spring term
• Lectures given by Hazel Pettifor
• Classes by Hazel Pettifor and Katya Brooks

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Autumn schedule
13 October Introduction how the course works
- aims, objectives and expectations 20
October What is social research? 27
October Research designs 3 November Qualitati
ve and quantitative research 10
November What is a survey? 17
November Questionnaire design I 24
November Questionnaire design II 1
December Fundamentals of quantitative data
analysis 8 December Describing quantitative
data 15 December Summarising quantitative data
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Spring schedule

• Details later this term....
• Focusing on qualitative methods

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Lectures and classes

• Lectures
• Youre mad if you dont attend. (You have paid
  for them!)
• Use them as a roadmap, a guide to your own
  study.
• Lecture slides available on the CMR
• Classes
• You MUST attend on pain of death. They rely on
  group discussion
• You should stay in the class you have been
  allocated unless you find that you have a
  timetable clash. DO NOT SWITCH WITHOUT ASKING
  ALEXA in the main office

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Support

• Support to individual students outside of classes
• Class tutors each have a weekly office hour
• To see me, make an appointment via email (I dont
  have a specific office hour).
• Student Resource Centre (Rowena Macauley)
• If you are having difficulties PLEASE let us
  know. We are here to help

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Reading

• Alan Bryman (2008) Social Research Methods (Third
  Edition), Oxford Oxford University Press.
• Gilbert, Nigel (ed). (2008) Researching Social
  Life (Third Edition). London Sage
• Buy one of the above
• Field, A. (2009). Discovering statistics using
  SPSS. (3rd ed.). London Sage
• Buy this one

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Assessment

• An exercise to be submitted in week 10 (22)
• This will be available on CMR soon
• An exercise handed in week 30 (22)
• Your class teacher will organise this next year
• Participation and attendance (6)
• An examination in the summer term (50)
• 3 hours

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Any questions?