RESEARCH METHOD

Students will learn the fundamental concepts of social science, as well as methods relevant to chosen research topics. This course will deal with normative, empirical, qualitative, quantitative methodology in social science. Students will learn how to set hypotheses and to reject them. In this course, students will learn various schools of thought such as functionalism, structuralism, institutionalism, behaviorism, constructivism, and rational choice theory. Prerequisite: Probability & Statistics, Quantitative Methodology

The course has four goals. First, students will understand variety of research paradigms in the social science. Second, students will develop the skills of a social scientist. Students will be able to develope hypotheses, constructing research designs, testing hypotheses, communicating findings, and writing reports. Third, students will become intelligent users and consumers of a wide variety of investigatory techniques including quantitative and qualitative ones. We will explore the strengths and weaknesses of these methods in order to identify when and where each is most appropriate.Fourth, students could write their dissertations paper. Without any methodology, there is no research paper.

Class will be a set of lectures and seminars. At the first class of each week I will give a lecture. Depending on weeks, students who signed-up will be asked to present their summarization, understanding, and raising issues. Other students should participate in discussion actively. Previews before class are strongly recommended. Changes: QM is not a prerequisite for this course. Stat is recommended to take before RM though, it would be fine not to take Stat before RM because Stat is not related to necessary pre-knowledge of RM.

There will be two presentations; paradigm presentation and method presentation. Assignment in this syllabus means a presentation. So 2 presentations will be counted as 50%. Research paper should include a paradigm and a method at least.

The following weekly course schedule will be modified, depending on the number of students enrolled. Furthermore, the lecuture plan may be modified, depending on the students level. This course plan is tentative. It does not have any prerequisite course.