Syllabus Soci604-401 Fall02

Soc/Demg 604 Beth J. Soldo, Ph.D.

Fall 2002 Office: 242 McNeil

Thurs 2-5PM Bsoldo@pop.upenn.edu

582 McNeil

SOC/DEMG 604-401 METHODOLOGY OF SOCIAL RESEARCH

SYLLABUS AND COURSE OUTLINE

Office Hours: I generally work in my office and am open to interruptions in the late afternoon or requests for appointments.

Overview: This is a course in the design, or logic, of social research, not the methods of data collection, per se. By background my comments and the readings I assign tip in the direction of what is often termed "quantitative" research. Nonetheless, the majority of the concepts and issues of concern to us in this course apply to "qualitative" research as well. At various points in the course, we will examine how the basics of collecting quantitative data can be applied to thinking about the collection of qualitative data. We also will examine how qualitative research can help us grapple with the problems of "meaning" and validity and how quantitative and qualitative methods of data collection can be integrated. The premise of the course is that the design of your research largely determines what can be learned from it and the credibility of your results. This is true no matter what research questions or hypotheses you pose or what type of data you collect.

The lecture each week will focus on one chapter of the textbook and several of the assigned articles. Generally I will assign one or more students to present the primary articles and lead discussion about them. Other readings may present examples of different research designs or different approaches to data collection. Each week we will begin the discussion of the week's readings with an e-mail exchange of critiques based on one or more of the assigned articles. By critique I mean the critical evaluation of a given reading or readings. Most of the research-based readings are exemplars; but some are very poor examples of how to approach a given aspect of research design. In your critiques begin with 2-3 line summaries of: (1) Background (why study this topic), (2) Methods, (3) Results, and (4) Conclusions, including the 3 key messages of the article. You will be expected to send e-mail comments on the readings for at least nine weeks during the semester (you pick the weeks you want to comment). All comments should be sent by 10AM on Thursday to the class listserve (SOCI604-401-02C@lists.upenn.edu).

The text is Paul S. Maxim, Quantitative Research Methods in the Social Sciences, Oxford University Press, 1999.

The readings are to be completed before the lecture to which they apply. A few of the readings are available on the web. These are marked WEB or JSTOR. You can obtain the web address by going through the Penn Library e-journal page, http://www.library.upenn.edu/webbin5/resources/ejspublic5.cgi/ej.html.

All other readings are available in the PSC Library on the fourth floor of McNeil.

During the semester, there will be a number of assignments. The course grade will depend on your comments in class, your e-mail critiques, class assignments, and a cap stone paper described on page 8 of this syllabus.

Sept. 5 - Introduction

Maxim, Chapter 1, especially pp.9-14. You can skim the rest depending on your interests.

Gerring, J. 2001. Social Science Methodology, Chapters 2 and 3 (pp. 19-64). Oxford University Press.

Stern, P.C. and L. Kalof.1996. Scientific and Nonscientific Statements of Fact. Chap 1 (pp. 7-16) in Evaluating Social Science Research, Cambridge: Oxford University Press.

Heller,R. 1992. The Newcastle Critical Appraisal Worksheet, Summary from the University of Pittsburgh SuperCourse: http://www.pitt.edu/~super1/lecture/lec3211/index.htm

Suggested Reading:

McGuire, W.J.1997. "Creative hypothesis generating in psychology: Some useful heuristics." Annual Review of Psychology. 48:1-30 WEB

Bryman, A. 1984. The debate about quantitative and qualitative research: a question of method or epistemology? British J. Sociology. 35:75-92

Sept. 13 - Elements of Research Design - Who are we studying?

Lieberson, S. 1985. Making it Count: The improvement of social research and theory. Chapter 3, pp44-62. Berkeley CA: University of California Press.

Arminger, G and G. Bohrnstedt. 1987. Making it count ever more: A review and critique of Lieberson's "Making it count". Chapter 12, pp. 363-372, In Sociological Methodology. Washington DC: ASA.

Geddes, B.1990. How the cases you choose affect the answers you get: selection bias in comparative politics. In J.A. Stimson (ed.) Political Analysis. Vol 2. 1990:131-150.

Sloan, J.H, A.L. Kellermann,, D.T.Reay, J.A. Ferris, et al. 1988.Handgun regulations, crime, assaults, and homicide. The New England Journal of Medicine. 319(19):1256-1262.

Weiss, R. S. 1984. "Panels and Samples" and "Recruiting Respondents" in Learning from Strangers. New York: The Free Press. Pp. 17-33.

Maxim, Chapter 6, pp. 129-137. Chapter 7, pp. 146-166.

Sept. 19 - Sample Designs

Spector, Paul E. Research Designs. Sage Quantitative Applications in the Social Sciences, No. 23. Newbury Park: Sage Publications.

Johnson, J. C. 1990. Selecting Ethnographic Informants. Sage. 1990.

Biernacki, P. and D. Waldorf. 1981. Snowball sampling: problems and techniques of chain referral sampling. Sociological Methods and Research. 10(1981):141-163.

Sept. 26 - Alternative Models and Sample Sizes

Maxim, Chapter 4 - you can skim most of this. However, pay attention to the discussion of power calculations (pp. 89-101).

Maxim, Chapter 5. "Sampling: Basic Statistics," pp. 104-129.

M.D. Malison, P. Sekeito, P.L. Henderson, et al. "Estimating health service utilization, immunization coverage, and childhood mortality: a new approach." Bulletin of the World Health Organization, 65(3): 325-330. 1987.

Lieberson, Stanley. Small N's and big conclusions: an examination of the reasoning in comparative studies based on a small number of cases. Social Forces. 70(2):307-320. 1991.

Bollen, Kenneth A., Entwisle, Barbara, Alderson, Arthur S. Macrocomparative research methods. Annual Rev. Soc. 19(1993):321-51. JSTOR

Suggested Reading:

Kish, Leslie. 1957. Confidence intervals for clustered samples. American Sociological Review. 22:154-165. JSTOR

Oct. 3 - Experimental and Nonexperimental Research Designs

Maxim, Chapter 8 - "Experimental Designs"

Winship,C. and S.L. Morgan. 1999. The estimation of causal effects from observational data. Pp.659-707 in Annual Review of Sociology. WEB

Weiss, R. S. 1994. The demonstration of Causation in Learning from Strangers. New York: The Free Press. Pp. 179-181.

Leon, F.R. and A. Cuesta. 1993. The need for Quasi-experimental methodology to Evaluate Pricing Effects. Studies in Family Planning 6: 375-381.

Berggren, W, Ewbank, D, and Berggren, G. "Reduction of Mortality in Rural Haiti through a Primary-Health-Care Program", New England Journal of Medicine, 304:1324-1330. 1981.

Suggested Reading:

Ewbank, Douglas. Methodological Issues in Evaluating the Effectiveness of Programs Designed to Change Health-Related Behavior. Paper written for a meeting at the National Academy of Sciences on Behavioral and Social Factors in Disease Prevention, June, 1993.

Oct. 10 - Experimental Designs, cont.

Smith, H.L. 1990. Specification problems in experimental and nonexperimental social research. Pp. 59-91 in Sociological Methodology.

Sherman, L.W., Smith, D.A., Schmidt, J.D., and Rogan, D.P. 1992. Crime, Punishment, and Stake in Conformity: Legal and Informal Control of Domestic Violence. Am. Soc. Rev., 57(5): 680-690. JSTOR

Heer, D. M. and D. O. Smith. 1968. Mortality level, desired family size, and population increase. Demography. 5(1):104-121. JSTOR

van de Walle, E. and J.V. Muhsam. 1995. Fatal secrets and the French fertility transition. Population and Development Review, 21(2):261-280. JSTOR

Oct. 17 - Measurement and Prescriptive Research

Maxim, Chapter 9, "Measurement Theory," pp. 201-232.

Bosk, C. "Invitation to ethnography." In All God's Mistakes. U. of Chicago Press.

Schein, Edgar H. The Clinical Perspective in Fieldwork Sage Qualitative Research Methods Series, no. 5, Sage Publications: Newbury Park, CA. Pp. 11-55. (Note: you can skim pp. 11-20 very quickly.)

Oct. 25 - Ethics and Institutional Review Boards

Coughlin and Beauchamp, Chapters 1-3 (pp. 1-75).

Singer, E., D.R. Von Thurn, and E.R.. Miller. 1995.Confidentiality Assurances and Response. Public Opinion Quarterly, 59:66-77. JSTOR

ASA Code of Ethics (2), Intro, Preamble, Sections 1,2,11,12,13. The document is available on-line at: http://www.asanet.org/members/ecoderev.html#top

Hunt, M. Profiles of Social Research: The Scientific Study of Human Interactions New York: Russell Sage Foundation. 1985. Chapter 4: "One thing at a time" ( Pp. 155-199)

GAO. Record Linkage and Privacy, Chapt. 2, "Generating New Information." pp32-53.

Botkin, J.R. 2001. Protecting the privacy of family members in survey and pedigree research. JAMA. 285(2): 207-212.

Oct 31. Data Collection Methods

Maxim, Chapter 12, "Data Collection Methods and Measurement Errors," pp. 279-300.

Laumann, Edward O., Gagnon, John H., Michael, Robert T., Michaels, Stuart. The Social Organization of Sexuality: Sexual Practices in the United States. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 1994. Chapter 8: "Homosexuality." Pp. 283-301.

Suchman, L, Jordan, B. Interactional troubles in face-to-face survey interviews. J Am Stat. Assn., 85, 1990: 232-241 plus comments by R Hahn and MG Kovar and P Royston. JSTOR

Willms, D.G., Best, J.A., Taylor, D.W., et al. A systematic approach for using qualitative methods in primary prevention research. Medical Anthropology Quarterly, 4(4), 1990: 391-409.

Nov. 7 - Questionnaire Design - Overview

Krosnick, J.A. 1999. "Survey research." Annual Review of Psychology, 50:537-567. WEB

Maynard, D.W. and N.C. Schaeffer. 2002. Standardization and its discontents. Chapter 1, pp.3-45 in Maynard, D.W., J.H.Houtkoop, N.C. Schaeffer, and J. Van der Zouwen (eds.), Standardization and Tacit Knowledge. NY: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Presser, S. and J.Blair. 1994. Survey pretesting: do different methods produce different results? Sociological Methodology, 24: 73-104.

Knodel, J. 1994. Conducting comparative focus-group research: cautionary comments from a coordinator. Health Trans. Rev. 4(1):99-104. Available from http://www-nceph.anu.edu.au/htc/pdfs/Forum4_1.pdf as part of a full forum on focus groups.

Means, B, K. Habina, G.E. Swan, and L. Jack. 1992. Cognitive research on response error in survey questions on smoking. National Center for Health Statistics. Vital Health Statistics 6(5):1-37.

Bernard, H. R. Research Methods in Cultural Anthropology. Chapter 10 (Structured interviewing).

Suggested Reading:

Willms, Dennis G. A new stage, a new life: individual success in quitting smoking. Social Science and Medicine. 33(12):1365-1371. 1991.

Morgan, D.L 1992. Designing focus group research. In M. Stewart, et al. (eds.) Tools for Primary Care Research. Newbury Park, CA, Sage Publications. 1992: 177-193.

Converse, J.M, AND S. Presser. 1986. Survey Questions: Handcrafting The Standardized Questionnaire. Sage series in Quantitative Applications in the Social Sciences, no. 7. Beverly Hills: Sage Publications.

Bernard, H. R. Research Methods in Cultural Anthropology. Chapters 7 (Participant observation), 8 (Taking and managing field notes) and 9 (Unstructured and semistructured interviewing). Newbury Park, Cal.: Sage Publications. 1988. Pp 145-224.

Nov. 14 - Validity and Reliability

Maxim, Chapter 10, "Classical Test Theory," pp. 233-250.

Kalter, H.D., Gray, R.H., Black, R. E., and G. Socorro. 1990. A. Validation of postmortem interviews to ascertain selected causes of death in children. Int J Epidemiology. 19(2):380-386.

Hermalin, A. I. and X.Liu. 1990. Gauging the validity of response on family size preferences in China. Population and Development Review 16:337-355.

Yoder, P. Stanley. 1995. Examining ethnomedical diagnoses and treatment choices for diarrheal disorders in Lubumbashi Swahili. Medical Anthropology. 16:211-247.

Stone, L. and J. G. Campbell. 1984. The use and misuse of surveys in international development: an experiment from Nepal. Human Organization. 43(1):27-37.

Bosk, C.1989. The fieldworker and the surgeon. In Carolyn D. Smith and William Kornblum (editors). In the Field: Readings on the Field Research Experience. New York: Praeger. Pp. 135-144.

Scoones, I. 1995. Investigating difference: applications of wealth ranking and household survey approaches among farming households in southern Zimbabwe. Development and Change. 26:67-88.

Ziebland, S, Fitzpatrick, R, and Jenkinson, C. 1993. Tacit models of disability underlying health status instruments. Soc. Sci. Med., 37 (1): 69-75.

Nov 21 - Non-Response and Sample Biases

Maxim, Chapter 13, "Missing Data," pp. 301-330.

Allison, P. 2001. Chapters 1-4, pp.1-26 in Missing Data. Sage University Papers Series on Quanitiative Applications in the Social Sciences, 07-136. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Dillman, D.,J.L. Eltinge, R.M. Groves, and R.J. Little. 2002. Survey Non Response in Design, Data Collection, and Analysis. Pp. 3-26 in R. Groves, D.A. Dillman, J.L. Eltinge, and R.J.Little (eds.), Survey Nonresponse. NY: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Johnson, T.P., and D. O'Rourke, J. Burris, and L. Owens. 2002. Culture and Survey Nonresponse. Pp. 55-70 in R. Groves, D.A. Dillman, J.L. Eltinge, and R.J.Little (eds.), Survey Nonresponse. NY: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Klesges, R.C., J.E. Williamson, G.W. Somes, G. W. Talcott, H.A. Lando, and C.K. Haddock. 1999. A population comparison of participants and nonparticipants in a health survey. Am. J. Pub. Health. 89(8):1228-1231. Available on-line - available from both Ovid and ABI/Inform from e-journals page. The latter is better.