Week 1

Portfolio

Thursday 1/21 Introductions to topic and course structure

MSSW 1.d.1 What topic would you focus on … are your motives

Week 2

Portfolio

Tuesday 1/26 Social Science as a Way of Knowing

Science as a style of thinking; illogical reasoning; over-generalization; selective (or inaccurate) observation, confirmation bias, resistance to change. Validity and generalizability

Read MSSW Ch. 1
Lazarsfeld, P. "What is Obvious?" (handout)

"What is obvious?" reflection.

Tuesday Lab Digitools I (SOC/ANTH)

Maintaining digital bibliographies using Zotero; citation formats; using Zotero with Word to format bibliographies.
Read MSSW Appendix A
View "Getting Started with Zotero"
Lab Guide

Portfolio setup
Zotero online library with 3 entries

Thursday 1/28 The Many Faces of Research

What is research? Descriptive research; evaluation research; explanatory research; exploratory research, etc.

Wikipedia, "Program Evaluation" ( + skim MSSW Ch.12, "Evaluation Research")
Wikipedia, "Exploratory Research"
Wikipedia "Needs Assessment"
Wikipedia "Cost Benefit Analysis"
Wikipedia "Political Feasibility Analysis"
Wikipedia "Organizational Analysis"

Lecture: What is Good Science?

Define the 16 key terms at the end of MSSW Chapter 1

Week 3

Portfolio

Tuesday 2/2 The Disciplines and their Epistemologies I

History
David Christian, TED Talk on Big History

Anthropology
Fischer, E. "Fieldwork And The Anthropological Method" (first 5:00)
View MIT SHASS "Doing Anthropology" (~8:00)
View IDEO: "The Ten Faces of Innovation: The Anthropologist" (~3:00)
View Walsh, M. : "Why Do Companies Need Anthropologists?" (~2:00)
Read Wikipedia. "Emic and Etic"

Tuesday Lab Digitools I (HIST/PPOL)

See 1/26 lab
(Same as week 2)

Thursday 2/4 The Disciplines and their Epistemologies II

Sociology
View Sociology Videos
Read Durkheim: Social Facts

Public Policy
Read Weimer 2002, “Enriching Public Discourse”
Read Behn 1985, “Policy Analysts, Clients, and Social Scientists”

MSSW 1.d.2
Think about a topic and write a short essay suggesting what your current impression is about what each discipline could add or would miss in studying it.

Week 4

Portfolio

Tuesday 2/9 Some Thinking Tools of Research

Lecture Notes
Concepts, operationalization, variables, units/levels of analysis

MSSW Ch.2, pp. 21-28 on question, theory, & strategy
MSSW, pp. 28-36 on units/levels of analysis
MSSW Ch. 4, pp. 65-67 on conceptualization
MSSW, pp. 69-75 on operationalization

Worksheet using conceptualization, operationalization, and measurement applied to Oakland case (or thesis topic)

NO LAB

Thursday 2/11 Conceptualization and Measurement

Scales, indices, levels of measurement, validity, accuracy, precision, reliability

MSSW Ch. 4, pp. 76-79 on levels of measurement
MSSW, pp. 80-84 on assessing measurement

Worksheet using conceptualization, operationalization, and measurement applied to Oakland case (or thesis topic)

Week 5

Portfolio

Tuesday 2/16 Establishing Causation

Causation, experimental design, threats to validity

Review MSSW Ch 2, pp. 28-36, "What is the design?"
MSSW Ch 6, pp. 111-115, "Causal Explanation”
MSSW, pp. 116-123, "Why Experiment?"
MSSW, pp. 123-130, "Threats to Validity"
MSSW, pp.130-132 “Protect their subjects”

Handout worksheet requiring some application of these ideas to Oakland case (or thesis topic)

NO LAB

Thursday 2/18 Sampling

Why sample, probability sampling, non-probability sampling

Statistics Learning Centre "Sampling: Simple Random, Convenience, systematic, cluster, stratified" (5:00)
MSSW, "Preparing to Sample," pp. 91-98
MSSW "Probability Sampling Methods," pp. 99-102
MSSW "Non-probability Sampling Methods," pp. 103-105
Blastland and Dilnot. Chapter 8, Sampling: Drinking from a Fire Hose. 111–131.

ALL: worksheet on sampling using Oakland census data

Module Evaluation 1 DUE MONDAY 2/22 BY 5:00pm

Week 6

Portfolio

Tuesday 2/23

Quantitative Methods I: Univariate Distributions

Frequency, distributions, percentiles, central tendency and dispersion

MSSW Ch. 8, pp. 167-181, Why, How, etc
MSSW, pp. 186-191, Secondary data and big data
MSSW, pp. 192-193, Ethical Issues

Worksheet: Oakland tract level data, frequencies, distribution, etc.(MSSW 8.d.1 modified)

Tuesday Lab (ALL STUDENTS)

Sampling + Univariate Statistics with Excel

Random number tables, sampling distributions, central limit theorem

Vernon, A. "Descriptive Statistics in Excel" (2:39)
Wardell, D. "Descriptive Stats in Excel 2010" (6:30)
O'Loughlin, E. "How To…Plot a Normal Frequency Distribution Histogram in Excel 2010" (6:40)

Digital version of class work

Thursday 2/25

Quantitative Methods II: Relationships Between Variables

Tables and covariation, table percentaging, bivariate statistics

MSSW Ch.8, pp. 181-185

HIST: Preliminary research plan (due in class 2/25)
ALL: Worksheet on tables

Week 7

Portfolio

Tuesday 3/1 Quantitative Methods III:Controlling for Another Variable

  • MSSW, 185-186
  • Hedstrom, Peter. 2005. "Dissecting the Social"

Worksheet on Table Elaboration

Tuesday Lab (ALL) Pivot Tables: Most Useful Tool in the World

  • TBA
  • Lab writeup

Thursday 3/3 Quantitative Methods IV: Statistics for Assessing Relationships

  • TBA
  • HIST: Annotated Bibliography of Secondary Sources (due in class 3/3)

Week 8

Portfolio

Tuesday 3/8 Spare

This session deliberately left open to allow for flexibility as needed.

TBA

Tuesday Lab (ALL) Bivariate Statistics with Excel

TBA

Lab Writeup

Thursday 3/10 Regression for Beginners

TBA

HIST: Annotated Bibliography of Primary Sources (due in class 3/10)

Module Evaluation 2 DUE MONDAY 3/14 BY 5:00pm

Week 9

Portfolio

Tuesday 3/15 The Raw Materials of History

TBA

TBA

Tuesday Lab (ALL) How to do an Audio/Video Interview

TBA

TBA

Thursday 3/17 Oral History

TBA

TBA

SPRING BREAK

Week 10

Portfolio

Tuesday 3/29 Qualitative Methods I

Read MSSW Ch.9, Qualitative Methods

TBA

Tuesday Lab (ALL) How to Give a Lighting Talk

Workshop in creating slides and narrative and delivering a hyper-brief talk on one's work.

  • Chris Anderson. 2013. "How to Give a Killer Presentation," Harvard Business Review

TBA

Thursday 3/31 Qualitative Methods

Continue discussion of MSSW Ch.9

TBA

Note: The class will divide in weeks 11-12.

Week 11 (PPOL)

Portfolio

Tuesday 4/5 Discounting

Schutt Chapter 12
Ryan "Discounting 101"
Stokey & Zeckhauser Ch. 10, "The Valuation of Future Consequences: Discounting," pp. 159-165
Roberts 2012, “Discount Rates: A Boring Thing You Should Know About (with otters).”

PPOL: Discounting math prereq worksheet

Tuesday Lab (PPOL ONLY) Discounting Lab

Discounting calculations with Excel.

TBA

PPOL: Lab writeup

Thursday 4/7 Discounting

Rossi 1999 Ch.11

PPOL: Discounting Problemset

Week 12 (PPOL)

Portfolio

Tuesday 4/12 Cost Benefit Analysis I

Stokey and Zeckhauser. 1978. Chapter 9, Project Evaluation: Benefit-Cost Analysis. 134–158

PPOL: CBA Problemset

Tuesday Lab (required for PPOL, optional for others)

Cost Benefit Lab

Doing cost-benefit with Excel

TBA

PPOL: Lab writeup

Tuesday 4/14 Cost Benefit Analysis II

Read MSSW 12 (Evaluation Research)

PPOL: CBA Problemset

Week 11 (HIST/SOCA)

Portfolio

Tuesday 4/5 Qualitative Methods III: Data Analysis Techniques

Read MSSW Ch. 10

TBA

Tuesday Lab (HIST AND SOC/ANTH)

Conducting Interviews, Transcribing, Coding

No assigned reading

TBA

Thursday 4/7 Qualitative Methods IV: Alternative Data Analysis

Continued discussion of MSSW Ch. 10

TBA

Week 12 (HIST/SOCA)

Portfolio

Tuesday 4/12 Qualitative Data and Ethics

Read MSSW 3 (Ethics)
Read: “Puff The Magic Sociologist: Sudhir Venkatesh, Gang Leader For A Day, A Rogue Sociologist Takes To The Streets” by Claire Potter.
Listen to: “Professor Turns ‘Gang Leader for a Day’” on NPR.

Identify two ethnographic studies related to your topic. Include them in your Zotero bibliography.

Tuesday Lab (OPTION TO JOIN PPOL STUDENTS)

TBA

Thursday 4/14 Communicating Your Research

Read: “The Trials of Alice Goffman” by Gideon Lewis-Kraus
Read: MSSW 13 (Proposing and Reporting)

PPOL & SOC/ANTH: Module Eval 3 DUE MONDAY 4/18 BY 5:00pm
HIST: Proposal First Drafts DUE MONDAY 4/18 BY 5:00 pm

Week 13 and 14

Portfolio

No class meetings.
Students meet individually or in small groups with their section instructors.

SATURDAY 4/30 SOCIAL SCIENCE RESEARCH CONFERENCE

Presentations of individual or group research proposals

Week 15

Portfolio

Tuesday 5/3 Collective Wrap-up and Debrief

Final paper proposal due by 5/3 2:30