Survey of Research Methods in Social and Behavioral Science

3 credits

Required for all Doctoral Students The course surveys research methods in the social and behavioral sciences, including theoretical and conceptual approaches to research problem formulation; research design, including experimental, comparative, and survey; sampling; statistical methods; and methods of observation and common techniques of data analysis. The course provides a framework for evaluating social science research codifying methods for gathering scientific evidence, explicating criteria by which to evaluate scientific evidence, and developing techniques for evaluating scientific evidence in the published literature. These tools will be applied to a group of case examples of research in social and behavioral science.