Transcript Seminar on Research Methods: Introduction to

Quantitative Research Methods for Information
Systems and Management (Info 271B)
Introduction to Social Research
Administrative Stuff:
Coye Cheshire
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Office 305A
Office Hours Tues and Thurs 4-5:30pm
Course Website:
http://courses.ischool.berkeley.edu/i271b/s08/index.html
Course Design
Part lecture, part skills development
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Usually one major topic per week
Some time devoted to working with statistical
software packages (labs)
Two major course sections
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Research Methodology (weeks 1-5)
Quantitative Methods (weeks 6-15)
Course Readings
Bernard, Russell H. Social
Research Methods: Qualitative
and Quantitative Approaches.
Hamilton, Lawrence. Statistics
with STATA 9.
Statistical Software
All course examples will use STATA
You can purchase a STATA license ($95)
through the grad plan:
http://stata.com/order/new/edu/gradplans/gp-campus.html
Software and Computers
Bring your laptop to class if
applicable.
We will devote class time in many
sessions to working with
statistical software.
I encourage you to sit with
anyone who has a statistical
software package when we
begin to use it in class.
Course Assignments and Grading
Four “lab assigments” (40%)
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Always started in class, due following week
Some are individual assignments, others are group
assignments.
Final Exam (50%)
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Will cover major topics in class
Will allow you to use the dataset of your choice.
Challenging, but will be a take-home exam
Participation (10%)
Overall Course Goals
You will have good knowledge of common
research methods used in quantitative research
(surveys, experiments)
You will understand basic univariate statistics,
bivariate statistics, and linear regression
You will be able to use a general purpose
statistical package to conduct statistical
analyses
Course Topics
Part I: Research Methods
Defining and justifying research problems for quantitative
studies
Theory and Measurement
Sampling, Survey Data Collection, Questionnaires
Experimental design
Choosing methods to match research problems
Course Topics (continued)
Part II: Quantitative Methods
Working with structured data (recoding, error checking)
Univariate statistics
Probability and normal distributions
T-tests, Chi-Square, and Analysis of variance (ANOVA)
Linear Regression, Logistic Regression
Introduction to Social Research,
the Research Design Process and
Common Terminology
Definition of ‘Science’
“an objective, logical , and systematic
method of analysis of phenomena,
devised to permit the accumulation of
reliable knowledge” (Lastrucci 1963:6)
Complications with Observation
in Social Science
Rise of “Positivist” Social Science
 Experience is the
foundation of knowledge
 Quality of recorded
observation is the key to
knowledge
August Comte (1798-1857)
Logical Empiricism
Again, knowledge is based
on experience– but
metaphysical explanations
of phenomena are
incompatible with science.
We should only attempt to
answer “answerable”
questions.
Quantitative and Qualitative
Perspectives
"There's no such thing as
qualitative data. Everything is
either 1 or 0“
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Fred Kerlinger
"All research ultimately has
a qualitative grounding“
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Donald Campbell
For Thursday…
Catch up to reading in
Bernard (Chapters 1 and 2)
We will begin with an intro to
foundational concepts in
social research methods and
begin to look at the ‘structure’
of arguments.