Research proposal not exceeding 3,000 words, excluding the reference list, to investigate the topic provided which will be used for my dissertation.
My proposal should emphasise how I intend to answer my research question and should be devoted to theoretical and methodological issues and should be structured using the following headings
The research problem with a short list of clear aims and objectives.

Theory Testing
Explain the perspective(s) that Iwill use to develop a theoretical framework to research and understand the problem (e.g. Rational Choice Theory or Routine Activities Theory) and why you consider them to be most appropriate.

Research methodology
Describe the methods I propose to use (e.g. documentary evidence, questionnaires, interviews) and why I consider them to be most suitable for gathering the necessary information to address my research problem.
Anticipated problems
I should be able to anticipate problems in conducting my research and also be able to offer solutions as to ways of overcoming them (e.g. how to gain access to an appropriate sample).
Additional Guidance
My proposal should provide a very clear understanding of the resources that will be required to conduct the research, were the proposal to be accepted and commissioned, for example.
I must ensure that my proposal provides a concise ?mini? literature review to demonstrate my critical understanding of the subject area and previous research on this topic.
Demonstrate my understanding of social science research methods by providing supporting evidence from the research methods published literature (for my methodology section). This is very important; you need to support and justify your chosen method and tools by referring to the literature regarding these.

Social Science Research Proposal

-Develop a research proposal for a Field research project:

Research proposal question: Within the Canadian Forces, how are small group military relationships on operational deployments in Kabul, Afghanistan?


*Roger Little wrote an article "Buddy Relations and Combat Performance" ... you could use this as well as theoretical works on small group dynamics/organization as a basis for a study on current small group military relationships - it would be an observational study.

For the proposal format there are some "guidelines". Address the following as you do it (each can be labeled as a section of the report):

? Purpose ...what is the research question being asked (what do you want to find out)? What are the key indicators and variables (these should be addressed in the next section)?

? Background. There are two parts to this section. The first is the theoretical context of the study and involves a small literature review of the topic from reputable journals, collections, writings, etc. The second is the "physical" context of the study (which I will do, but please write to it through research). This will be reviewing small group military relationships in Kabul, Afghanistan - just provide a brief description of a military unit, its make-up and role, (preferable military police unit).

? Research Approach: This is where the methodology is detailed (and detail is the relevant word) ... there should be sufficient information so that I could replicate the study without any difficulty. Since this is Field research ?provide the nature , type , timing (use current time/date), .frequency (Daily for a few weeks) and location (Kabul, Afghanistan) of the observations would need to be specified.

Research Article Summary

Instructions:
Find and summarize a research article relevant to some aspect of HR.

It is important to understand not only how elements of HR are impacting companies today, but how we can use research to better understand HR topics and their impacts. Using the same topic from your Current Event Summary, you should find a relevant article in a research journal or trade publication.

Write a short summary (~ 2 pages) explaining the key issue(s), integrating information from the textbook and/or class discussions. Explain the reasons why the article was written (what issue was it addressing), relevant methodology (how was the study conducted) and conclusions reached. Discuss possible short-term and long-term ramifications of the issue(s) and relevant implications for organizations and HR professionals.

Formatting:
Title of the article (centered) on the first line
Your name and page number will go in the header (right justified)
Use 12 point Times New Roman font and 1 margins, double-spaced

Include a reference to the article (Article Title, Journal Title, Year, etc.).

Where to find relevant articles:
A list of possible sources is presented on the following pages. Students may choose from that list or another relevant publication. The source must be either peer-reviewed or a professional HR-related publication (if your source isnt on the list, you should check with the instructor). The article should be from the year 2000 or newer.

IMPORTANT NOTE:
Papers that have been plagiarized will receive an automatic zero. Rearranging words or replacing every third word is not proper paraphrasing. A paper of this length should not have more than one small quote. Any quote that is used should have some obvious wow factor. See the sources below or contact the instructor or the Writing and Learning Center for further assistance.

Other Helpful Websites:
http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/563/1/
http://www.uiw.edu/owc/Handouts/
https://www.gallaudet.edu/tip/english_works/writing.html
http://research.wou.edu/content.php?pid=64640&sid=477575
See this tutorial for more information on scholarly sources: http://www.wou.edu/provost/library/clip/tutorials/pop_schol.htm




Research-Oriented Journals
Academy of Management Journal
Academy of Management Review
Administrative Science Quarterly
American Behavioral Scientist
American Journal of Health Promotion
American Journal of Psychology
American Journal of Sociology
American Psychological Measurement
American Psychologist
American Sociological Review
Annual Review of Psychology
Applied Psychology: An International Review
British Journal of Industrial Relations
British Journal of Management
Business Ethics
Decision Sciences
Dispute Resolution Quarterly
Employee Responsibilities and Rights Journal
Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice
Ethics and Critical Thinking Journal
Human Organization
Human Relations

Human Resources Development Quarterly
Human Resource Development Review
Human Resource Management Journal
Human Resource Management Review
Human Resources Abstracts
Industrial and Labor Relations Review
Industrial Relations
Industrial Relations Journal
Industrial Relations Law Journal
International Journal of Entrepreneurial Behavior and Research
International Journal of Human Resource Management Education
International Journal of Management Reviews
International Journal of Selection and Assessment
International Journal of Training and Development
Journal of Abnormal Psychology
Journal of Applied Behavioral Science
Journal of Applied Business Research
Journal of Applied Psychology
Journal of Business
Journal of Business and Industrial Marketing
Journal of Business and Psychology
Journal of Business Communication
Journal of Business Ethics
Journal of Business Research
Journal of Business Strategy
Journal of Collective Negotiations
Journal of Communication
Journal of Comparative International Management
Journal of Compensation and Benefits
Journal of Counseling Psychology
Journal of Experimental Social Psychology
Journal of Human Resources
Journal of Industrial Relations
Journal of International Business Studies
Journal of International Management
Journal of Knowledge Management
Journal of Labor Economics
Journal of Labor Research
Journal of Leadership and Organizational Studies
Journal of Management
Journal of Management Development
Journal of Management Education


Journal of Management Studies
Journal of Managerial Psychology
Journal of Organizational Behavior
Journal of Organizational Change Management
Journal of Organizational Excellence
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
Journal of Quality and Participation
Journal of Social Issues
Journal of Workplace Learning
Journal of Workplace Rights
New Technology, Work, and Employment
Organization Behavior and Human Decision Processes
Personnel Psychology
Personnel Review
Psychological Bulletin
Psychological Review
Public Personnel Management
Quarterly Review of Distance Education
Social Forces
Social Science Research
Work and Occupations


Professional/Managerial Journals
Academy of Management Executive
Australian Journal of Management
Berkeley Journal of Employment and Labor Law
Business Horizons
California Management Review
Columbia Journal of World Business
Compensation and Benefits Review
Employment Relations Today
Global HR
Harvard Business Review
HR Magazine
Human Resource Development International
Human Resource Executive
Human Resource Management










Human Resource Management International Digest
Labor Law Journal
Management Research News
Monthly Labor Review
Occupational Health and Safety
Occupational Outlook Quarterly
Organizational Dynamics
Personnel Management
Psychology Today
Public Administration Review
SAM Advanced Management Journal
Sloan Management Review
Training
Training and Development

RESEARCH PAPER

This assignment requires you to review the current academic literature on one of the topics covered in class. The paper should be technical in nature, focusing on factual research results along with technical recommendations for management. The paper should not focus on problem identification or definitions, but on solutions and recommendations. This is not a review of individual articles but a review of the literature similar to the term papers written in other classes. The finished product looks like an article from the Academy of Management Review or the literature review section of a research article.

The paper should include a thorough literature review and a discussion of the practical implications of the information. The paper should be at least 15 pages long (double spaced, 1 margins, Times New Roman font, 12 pt.), excluding the title page, abstract and bibliography. At lease one third of the paper, a separate section, should be your interpretation of the information, practical implication, recommendations, and conclusion. You must also follow proper procedures for citing the work of others. You may want to use the American Psychological Association style manual for this purpose.

You must use only articles from academic journals (at least 7 articles) which includes: Personnel Psychology, Journal of Management, Academy of Management Review, Academy of Management Journal, and Journal of Applied Psychology. A partial list of academic and practitioner journals follows to the research assignment sheet. It is the students responsibility to insure that all reference materials meet the academic journal requirements. If you are not sure, ask.

You cannot use book reviews in the academic journals or information from an internet site. You may obtain the information over the internet but it must be from academic journals.

I will grade the papers on content, presentation (spelling, grammar, format, etc.), logic, and degree of original analysis.

I will not accept any paper that does not site at least seven academic articles, meet the page requirements, include a separate section with personal views and recommendations, or reflect graduate level work. I will not accept any paper that includes plagiarism or excessive quotes, representing more that 15% of the paper. You will receive a 0% for the paper. If you have any doubts contact me. You must have your articles for the literature review before the second weekend and have me review them.





Students are expected to be familiar with the professional literature in their fields of study. The professional journals are the most immediate and direct communication link between the researcher and the practicing manager.

A. Research-Orientated (Academic) Journals. These journals contain articles that report on original research. Normally these journals contain either sophisticated writing and quantitative verifications of the authors findings or conceptual models and literature reviews of previous research. You may use articles from these journals or any law review article. You may not use book reviews or information from the internet. You may use additional research oriented articles if you have them approved prior to the due date.

Academy of Management Journal
Academy of Management Review
Administrative Science Quarterly
American Behavioral Scientist
American Journal of Psychology
American Psychologist
American Sociological Review
Annual Review of Psychology
Applied Psychology: An International Review
Behavior Science Research
Behavioral Science
British Journal of Industrial Relations
Cognitive Studies
Croup and Organization Studies
Decision Science
Educational & Psychological Measurement
Employee Responsibility and Rights Journal
Human Organization
Human Performance
Human Relations
Human Resource Management Review
Human Resource Planning
Industrial & Labor Relations Review
Industrial Relations
Interfaces
Journal of Abnormal Psychology
Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis
Journal of Applied Behavioral Science
Journal of Applied Business Research
Journal of Applied Communication
Journal of Applied Psychology
Journal of Applied Psychology
Journal of Applied Social Psychology
Journal of Business
Journal of Business and Psychology
Journal of Business Communications
Journal of Business Research
Journal of Clinical Psychiatry
Journal of Communications
Journal of Counseling Psychology
Journal of Experimental Social Psychology
Journal of Industrial Relations
Journal of International Business Studies
Journal of Labor Economics
Journal of Law Economics and Organization
Journal of Management
Journal of Management Issues
Journal of Management Studies
Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology
Journal of Occupational Psychology
Journal of Organizational Behavior
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
Journal of Political Economics
Journal of Social Behavior and Personality
Journal of Social Issues
Journal of Social Psychology
Journal of Vocational Behavior
Labor History
Labor Law Journal
Labor Relations Yearbook
Labor Studies Journal
Management Science
Managerial Auditing Journal
New York Law Journal
Occupational Psychology
Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes
Personnel Psychology
Psychological Bulletin
Psychological Review
Psychology Monographs
Public Personnel Management
Social Forces
Social Science Research
Sociology Perspective
Sociometry
Work and Occupations

Management Oriented (Practitioner) Journals. These journals generally cover a wide range of subjects. Articles in these normally are aimed at the practitioner and are written to interpret, summarize, or discuss past, present and future research and administrative applications. Not all the articles in these journals are management-oriented. You CANNOT use these for your paper.

Academy of Management Executive
Administrative Management
Advanced Management Journal
American Medical News
American Business Review
American Economic Review
Arbitration Journal
Australian Journal of Management
Business
Business and Social Review
Business Horizons
Business Monthly
Business Quarterly
California Management Review
Canadian Manager Columbia Journal of World Business
Chicago Daily Law Bulletin
Compensation and Benefits Review
Construction Management and Economics
Cornell Hotel and Restaurant Administration Quarterly
Corporate Counsel's Quarterly
Directors and Boards
Employee Benefits Journal
Employee Development Bulletin
Employee Relations Law Journal
Employment Decisions Practices
Employment Relations Today
Enterpreneurship Theory and Practice
Federal Times
Forbes
Fortune
Harvard Business Review
Health Care Management Review
Hospital & Health Services Administration
HR Magazine
Human Behavior
Human Resource Executive
Human Resource Management
Human Resources Management International Digest
INC.
Industry Week
International Management
IRS Employment Review
Journal of American Academy of Business
Journal of Business Strategy
Journal of Pension Planning
Long-Range Planning
Manage
Management Consulting
Management Decision
Management Planning
Management Review
Management Solutions
Management Today
Management World
Managers Magazine
Michigan State University Business Topics
Monthly Labor Review
Nations Business
National Productivity Review
Organizational Dynamics
Pension World
Personnel
Personnel Journal
Personnel Management
Psychology Today
Public Administration Review
Public Opinion Quarterly
Research Management
SAM Advanced Management Journal
Security Management
Sloan Management Review
Supervision
Supervisory Management
The Los Angeles Daily Journal
The Tax Advisor
Training
Training and Development Journal
Working Women




Plagiarism:
A Brief Overview





Kirsten Fleming



Associate Professor
of Mathematics


August, 1998








CENTRAL MICHIGAN UNIVERSITY

Plagiarism: A Brief Overview

Plagiarism is the intentional orunintentional use of the work of another without proper acknowledgment.
You may be aware that reproducing the published words of another without acknowledging the source of the words is plagiarism; however, you might be unaware of the scope of the concept of plagiarism. The term plagiarism applies not only to the published word, but also to unpublished materials, the spoken word, opinions, theories, pictures, graphs, and statistics. In fact, plagiarism might occur at any time when the material of another is being used, regardless of the source or format of the material. An example of a situation in which unintentional plagiarism can easily occur is when students work together, formally or informally, on a class assignment. If you do collaborative work with other students and then use their ideas or material in the work you submit, you must credit the work of the other students. If you do not properly acknowledge that you have incorporated the work of other students into your materials, you are guilty of plagiarism.
In addition, you might not appreciate that plagiarism is not limited to copying verbatim from a source but also occurs when you paraphrase the work of another.
The sole exception to the rule that all materials being used must be properly acknowledged is if the material being used is common knowledge. Information and ideas that appear in many places or that are readily available to anyone would be regarded as common knowledge. You may not know what is common knowledge in your discipline. When in doubt, err on the side of citing your source.
The appropriate method of acknowledging source materials varies from discipline to discipline and from instructor to instructor. References to source materials might be given in footnotes, endnotes, a bibliography together with pointers in the text indicating where and which bibliographical item was used, or possibly in the body of your text. You should talk to your instructors about their requirements for properly acknowledging sources.
Types of Plagiarism
If you use a sentence (or sentences), a phrase (or phrases) or possibly even a single word (if the word is unique or newly coined) lifted directly from a source, you must enclose the sentence (phrase or word) in quotation marks and you must cite the source of the material. Otherwise you are committing plagiarism. In general, direct quotes should be used sparingly and only when the wording of the source material is particularly effective or salient. Quotations should not be used as a mechanism for avoiding the often challenging task of expressing ideas in your own words.
Although not word-for-word copying, the reproduction of source material in which the basic structure is unchanged but in which you substitute synonyms for certain words or in which the structure is rearranged is considered plagiarism, even if you cite the source. Use your own words; avoid paraphrasing. Not only will this assure you avoid this form of plagiarizing, but it will also allow you to demonstrate that you truly understand the concepts you are discussing.
Although many students recognize and carefully avoid the forms of plagiarism just described, they are sometimes unaware that using the ideas, opinions, findings, or theories of another is also plagiarism unless the source is given credit. Therefore, it is imperative that you credit your source whenever you use the ideas, opinions, findings, or theories of another, even when you are expressing them in your own words.
To repeat: any use of words taken directly from the source should be placed in quotation marks and you should cite the source. Avoid paraphrasing or using slight variations in the language. Even if you are not using direct quotes, you must cite the source when you are using ideas and information contained in the source material unless the ideas are common knowledge.
In order to help you understand what constitutes plagiarism, consider the following text written by Fleming in 1998:
An attribute of high-quality education is, most certainly, the quantity of knowledge conveyed to, and learned by, a student. In addition to possessing a good knowledge base, a student who has been fully educated should be able to: communicate effectively; apply critical thinking skills; and adapt to unanticipated circumstances.
Now consider four excerpts from (fictitious) student papers where the above original text was used as a source. Each excerpt is followed by a discussion of whether, and how, the excerpt exhibits plagiarism.
Excerpt 1: A characteristic of a good education is, most certainly, the amount of information conveyed to, and assimilated by, a student. As well as having a broad knowledge base, a student who has been completely educated should be able to: speak well; use critical thinking skills; and adapt to unforeseen circumstances (Fleming, 1998).
Comment: Even though the source is cited, this is quite clearly plagiarism. A number of words have been replaced by synonyms but the underlying structure of the original statement is unchanged. In addition, the sense of the original statement is not fully preserved the ability to communicate effectively is not the same as the ability to speak well.
Excerpt 2: A student who has been fully educated should be able to: apply critical thinking skills; communicate effectively; and adapt to unanticipated circumstances. Although an attribute of high-quality education is, most certainly, the quantity of knowledge conveyed to, and learned by, a student, the possession of a good knowledge base does not constitute a complete education (Fleming, 1998).
Comment: Again the source is cited, but this is still plagiarism. The original statement has simply been rearranged but still consists of the original authors words.
Excerpt 3: There are many different ideas of what makes a high-quality education. Most people believe that an important attribute of a high-quality education is the quantity of knowledge conveyed to, and learned by, a student. However, it is also believed that the tangible skills and knowledge gained from education do not constitute a complete education. A complete education must also give a student the ability to communicate effectively; apply critical thinking skills; and adapt to unanticipated circumstances.
Comment: This is still plagiarism. The ideas being conveyed in this version are unattributed. Even if the ideas were properly credited, this would still be plagiarism since the text borrows phrases from the original. The borrowed phrases should be placed in quotation marks or, preferably, where possible the ideas should be expressed in words other than the original authors.
Excerpt 4: There are many different ideas of what makes a high-quality education. An important part of a good education is that a student gain a significant body of knowledge and also that the student master the tangible skills appropriate to their discipline. However, it is also believed that the tangible skills and knowledge gained from education do not constitute a complete education. Fleming (1998) believes that a complete education must also give a student the ability to: communicate effectively; apply critical thinking skills; and adapt to unanticipated circumstances (p. 2). A student should also leave college with the ability to work successfully with other people as well as independently.
Comment: This is not plagiarism. The ideas being conveyed in this text are attributed and the phrases lifted from the original text are enclosed in quotation marks.
Avoiding Plagiarism
When using source materials in your work, you should:
Express the ideas, facts, etc. in your own words.
Ensure that the information being conveyed accurately reflects the original material.
Place the spoken or written words of another person in quotation marks.
Cite the source material using the format appropriate to your discipline. If you are unsure as to whether a source should be cited, then err on the side of including a citation.
Recommended References
You might want to consult the following books for further information on avoiding plagirism and for in depth advice on scholarly writing.
Chicago Manual of Style (14th ed.). (1993). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Crews, F. (1991). The Random House Handbook (6th ed.). New York: McGraw Hill.
Gibaldi, J. (1998). MLA Style Manual & Guide to Scholarly Publishing (2nd ed.). New York: Modern Language Association of America.
Hacker, D. (1994). The Bedford Handbook for Writers (4th student ed.). Boston: Bedford Books.
Turabian, K. L., Grossman, J., & Bennett, A. (1996). A Manual for Writers of Term Papers, Theses, and Dissertations (6th ed.). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

A Final Caution
Claiming Ive always written papers this way and no one ever told me it was wrong is no defense for plagiarism. Perhaps you have been lucky until now. The only way to ensure you do not get caught plagiarizing is to avoid it. The penalties are very severe.
Sources
In preparing this document, the following web pages were used
http://www.hamilton.edu/academics/resource/wc/AvoidingPlagiarism.html
http://www.indiana.edu/~wts/wts/plagiarism.html
http://nlu.nl.edu/ace/Guidelines.html
http://sja.ucdavis.edu/SJA/plagiarism.html

Social science research paper:
issue:The production of genetically modified crops has attracted both positive and negative responses from scientists and the general public.Write an essay which outlines both viewpoints and the assess the potential of GM crops as sourse of food

Structure:Introduction: this essay will focus on the advantage and disadvantage of GM,Can we use GM crops as a souce of food and whether GM crops can be our source of food in the further


Main body: Definition of GM food, Scientists "cut and paste" a gene from another organism into a plant's DNA to give it a new characteristic.

The reason why scientists want to develop the GM food
Ever-growing population
Water crisis



Positive responses:(5relevant eg.)
Scientists: 1. The Botanical and Rotational Implications of Genetically Modified Herbicide Tolerance (Bright) Link project, the project concluded that the GM varieties used in this way did not deplete the soil of weed seeds needed by many birds and other wildlife.
2. general public-supermarkets? warned-why?



General public: (relevant eg.5)
1. One major advantage of GM food is that crops genetically engineered to resist weeds and bugs enable farmers to decrease pesticide and herbicide use.

2. Supporters of GM say there is no evidence that modified crops cause illness in humans.



Negative responses:
Critics say the modified crops could "escape" and cross with wild plants, with unknown consequences.
They also argue that more chemicals are used on some GM fields which may have a negative impact on wildlife.
And while no study has found GM food to be harmful to humans, opponents say it is too soon to be sure.




Scientists:



General public:






GM crops as a source of food: good

Bad



Conclusion: GM foods are Controversy

Part Two of Written Assignment #1 (Order # A2087106)

Written Assignment 2

Review the suggestions for writing a research proposal given on the Social Science Research Council Web site:

http://www.ssrc.org/fellowships/art_of_writing_proposals.page

Using the potential research project you identified for Written Assignment 1, consider how you would prepare a proposal to do the research. Be sure to:

Include the necessary sections of a proposal.


Describe why the research is important.


Consider and describe the sampling plan you would use.


Think about the literature review. What key words would you use to search?


Discuss how the results would be used.


Include a bibliography.
There are faxes for this order.

Customer is requesting that (wizzy) completes this order.

The Scientific Method-Theory, Methodology, & Human Development
*Not a research paper or project*

The task asks for you to justify a research question, also known as a substantive question, of your own choosing and three research problems, which are methodological. Then the task asks you to summarize the scientific method as used in the natural sciences, and then repeat that summary but for the social sciences using your research topic as the example. Analyze a selected topic from a social scientific perspective by doing the following:

A1: SUBSTANTIVE QUESTION Paragraph 1

Explain the significance of a suitable question, which you have formulated, for social analysis.
Choices for topics: human psychological development, personality, social interaction, social identity, social classes, or the psychology of group behavior.
Take things that we assume are true and prove you are right or wrong.
It must be a question that can be examined methodically and systemically and does not have an immediate evident answer.

How to Phrase the Question:
*Do not use WHY questions*
Start question with, How does..? OR Suggest an answer and a question put together, (i.e. Is it true that ...because..?
Narrow question to be more specific: Cause (independent variable) Effect (dependent variable or outcome)

A2: THREE METHODOLOGICAL QUESTIONS Paragraphs 2, 3, 4

Analyze and discuss THREE specific research method problems (i.e., subordinate questions) that will help answer the social scientific question that you have formulated.

a. Explain the social scientific analysis required for each of the three research problems.

*Please refer to attached JPEG document: Pg. 16, Table 1 Common Methods of Social Science Research, to choose your three research methods.*

EXAMPLES OF POSSIBLE QUESTIONS
What methods (e.g., interviews, opinion polls, etc.,) should be used to gather data on..? Where will the data come from? What research design to use?

For example, Question: What research design to use?
Answer: Sample survey. Then explain what a sample survey is, and how it applies to the specific research question.

Try suggesting answers and discuss the relative merits or demerits of each, such as describing who you would like in your sample and why, or why you prefer one design (experiment, survey, etc.) over another, or how you might go about measuring the dependent variable.

A3: THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD IN THE NATURAL SCIENCES Paragraphs 5, 6, 7

Consider the extent to which your chosen topic question can be examined by the application of the scientific method by doing the following:

a. Discuss and summarize the scientific method as understood in the natural or physical sciences.

*Please refer to attached JPEG documents for information:
pp 5-9 The Scientific Method*

1. Choose a topic: Here use a natural science example simply to illustrate all the individual steps in the method. A good place to get an idea of questions for natural science is: www.sciencedaily.com
e.g. Biology with cells or Chemistry with chemicals.

b. Compare the research methods required for your formulated question (from part A2a) to the scientific method as understood in the natural or physical sciences (from part A3a).

1. Repeat the same summary of the scientific method, but apply to your chosen topic as the illustration.

c. Discuss whether a social science perspective must rely on the scientific method in the same way that natural or physical science would.

1. Highlight the differences between application of the method between the social and natural sciences, e.g. The primary difference is the subject of study, people versus cells or chemical and so forth, and specific methods used.

CONCLUSION: Paragraph 8

Should include a well-reasoned response to the following question: To what extent does a social scientific perspective rely on methods drawn from the physical and natural sciences?

REFERENCES:

Perry, J. A. and Perry, E. K. (2009). Contemporary society: An introduction to social

science (12th ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson Custom Publishing

www.sciencedaily.com
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Written Assignment 1

Consider a possible social science research project you might like to conduct. Describe the project and develop a plan for how you would address the ethical considerations of your subjects. Your description and plan should be at least two pages (typed, double-spaced) and include citations and references using APA style guidelines. Include an "informed consent" form as an attachment to your assignment. (An informed consent outline, in rich-text format, follows below.)

Informed Consent Outline (rich-text format)
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Family relationships

How have social scientists studied this particular behavior in the past? Explain and provide examples.
For example, if you choose abusive relationships, would they study by report, observation, lab findings, or field study?
How accurate do you think are the conclusions they have reached? Fully explain your rationale.
How does any personal experience, direct or indirect, coincide with conclusions made through social science research? Explain.
If you could study the same behavior, how might you do it differently?
How would your method ensure a higher level of accuracy? Explain.

Discuss whether you believe that criminology can be studied scientifically like the hard sciences? What are some of the limitations of social science research in comparison to the hard sciences such as medical research, chemistry, etc.

Unit Two Library Internet Research Assignment
Annotated Bibliography
(due at the end of week three)

Find five research quality* library Internet resources as detailed below dealing with the social sciences.

Detailed explanation of library Internet research resources

Please put all five Internet resources in one document and submit as one assignment. Number your resources 1-5.

*A research quality resource would be one that would be good enough to use in a research paper. Referring to the reading material on writing a summary in chapter one of Writing and Reading Across the Curriculum should help you here.

Unit Overview
An exploration of the social sciences

Unit two will build a framework of understanding for the social sciences. Some scholars feel that perhaps there has never been an invention that changed society as much as the Gutenberg printing press. Many feel that it changed thinking itself and led to the modern age of technology that we have today.

*******************************************

Unit Objectives
After completing this unit, students will be able to:

Have a thorough understanding of the Gutenberg printing press and its impacts on society.
Define and understand what the social sciences are.
Understand what critical thinking means and begin to apply it to your evaluation of topics and writing.
Understand and define the traits and characteristics of a successful interdisciplinarian.
*******************************************

Required Text Book Readings
Please read chapters three and four of Becoming Interdisciplinary.

Read chapter four of Writing and Reading Across the Curriculum - Make sure you have a thorough understanding of synthesis. Synthesizing information is very important in interdisciplinary inquiry.

Read pages 778-779 of Writing and Reading Across the Curriculum on APA documentation basics.

*******************************************

What do we mean by the social sciences?
Social science is the study of society and social behavior. The social sciences deal with the patterns and interrelationships of human behavior. Obviously, many animals are social, such as bees and wolves; however, the study of the social behavior of non-humans is usually classified as natural science.

We must remember that the different disciplines often overlap and this is particularly the case with the social sciences. Primatology (the study of primates, such as apes and monkeys), for example, often becomes part of anthropology (the study of simpler human cultures.) Oftentimes, as your Liberal Studies courses will prove, the combination of disciplines and methodologies reveals more than utilizing a single discipline and its methodologies.

Social science can use a combination of humanities and natural science methods to evaluate issues. In anthropology, there are cultural anthropologists who study the behaviors of simpler cultures. A cultural anthropologist might take up residence in a community of hunters and gatherers in the Amazon and study their values and patterns of marriage, inheritance, and means of survival. A physical anthropologist, on the other hand, would use hard science methods to study the physical characteristics of living or dead people. A forensic anthropologist would be a physical anthropologist who specializes in studying bones and other remains for identification and other legal purposes. An archaeologist is an anthropologist who uses exacting scientific methods, such as carbon-14 dating and pollen analysis, to study the artifacts of past cultures in order to understand their history and social characteristics.

Similarly, although history is usually viewed as one of the traditional humanities, many historians think of themselves as social scientists. The historian who gathers records and recollections of past events in order to interpret them is using the methodology of the humanities. However, the historian who uses a statistical analysis of property ownership during the reign of Henry VIII or analyzes birth rates in colonial Massachusetts, is engaged in methodologies normal to the natural scientist.

In summary, what characterizes the social sciences is the subject of human behavior on a social level. The social sciences often combine the techniques common to the humanities with those common to the natural sciences.

What subjects make up the social sciences?
The subjects normally included in (but not limited to) the social sciences are sociology, psychology, anthropology, history, economics, ethnology, political science, religious studies, gender studies, economics, education, and law.

*******************************************

Why might some scholars feel that the scientific method doesn't apply very well to the social sciences?
One of the main reasons is that in the scientific method you have a puzzle solving component which includes both scientific predictability and scientific falsification through experimentation guided by a strict set of rules. Yet academic pursuits like psychoanalysis, sociology, and even economics have difficulty in making precise predictions at all, let alone ones that provide for clear confirmation or unambiguous refutation.

Other scholars disagree. They feel that even though social science research doesn't produce the precise results of the natural sciences, it does produce research results that can identify trends and changes. Some scholars also feel that the function of research is different in the social sciences. This research describes behavior and therefore, outcomes are measured and monitored differently.

Here is an article that explores this important issue with the social sciences:

Are the Social Sciences Scientific?
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Critical Thinking Zone - Social sciences food for thought
One of the primary goals of the College of Liberal Studies is to improve your critical thinking skills as you work your way through these courses and the program. Finely tuned critical thinking skills can be a plus in any walk of life, at any stage of life.

Here are examples of the kinds of questions that social science scholars are currently asking and exploring through research:

Sociology - What explains the success of social networking sites like Facebook and Myspace?
Psychology - Why do some people feel so sad around the holidays?
Economics - Why did the housing market go into decline in 2008?
Political Science - What role did the internet play in the 2008 Presidential election?
Religious Studies - Is religion playing a bigger or smaller role in American society?

Debunking the Myth
800-1200 words
double spaced
I-inch margins
font size 12
APA Format
Topics to choose from
1. As you age you become less sexual
2. It is mostly men who have extramarital affairs
3. In all cultures there are only two genders male and female



part 1
does social science research tell us about this belief? To what extent is your choosen statement supported or not supported by social science research? Find at least two academic resources that address those questions. How does social science research relate to what people commonly think or believe on the topic
the topic is
part 2
after presenting the research I would like for you to include a brief personal reaction that answers the following question
1)what pieces of information did you find to be particularly interesting or surprising?
2)how did your research on the topic change your viewpoint on X

The doc file has been uploaded to fax board!

My core subject is International Politics but the essay is in Sociology.

Essay Question: 'Empiricism provides the only truly scietific basis for social science research.' Discuss.

I would like to have a well structured essay with sub-headings. Our research-source minimum is usaually 5 books.
I have listed some books to be used in the "compare and contrast" part of the essay. Not all of them have to be used but it would be nice to use them in a manner that will prove that I understand the major differences between the theories. We've been studying empiricism, logical positivism and metatheorical realism. all of these must be incorporated into the essay as part of the discussion.

Essential Primary texts:
D. Hume- Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, section 4
K. Popper- Conjecture and Refutations
C. Hempel- The Philosophy of Natural Science

Essential Reading
R. Keat and J. Urry- Social Theory as Science, chs 1-4
. Benton- Philisophical Foundations of the Three Sociologies
P. Halfpenny- Positivism and Sociology

Highly Recommended

A. Giddens- Positivism and Sociology

We have also been studying Kuhn's critique of Logical Positivists' account of scientific development and how Bhaskar used these ideas to differentiate realism from the empiricist traditon. It is very important to incorporate Kuhn and Bhaskar into the essay.

Here are the texts we have been looking at.

Essential Primary Texts:

T. Kuhn- The Structure of Scientific Revolutions

R. Bhaskar- The Possibility of Naturalism, Ch.1

T. Benton- Realism and Social Science, Radical Philosophy, no. 27

R. Bhaskar- A Realist Theory of Science.

D. Sayer- Realism and Social Science.

attached you will find a complete outline of the course I am doing. I'm
studying International Politics but the essay is for sociology.
The essay question is: 'Empiricism provides the only truly scientific
basis for social science research'. Discuss.

At least five books must be used as resources. Essentially the essay
should be focused on the subjects discussed in topic numbers 4, 6, 7, 8
and 9 in the course outline I have attached to this email. Please be sure
to use D. Hume- Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding-section 4, T. Kuhn-
The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, R. Bhaskar- The Possibility of
Naturalism.
If there are any more questions about the essay be sure to contact me
asap! Thank you!

Regards Peter Gullestrup

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Trends in Research in Criminal Justice

Research design is the plan or blueprint for a study and includes who, what, where, when, why, and how of an investigation. Some researchers in the field of criminal justice feel that the experiment represents the only and best means of data gathering in research design. However, there are many other forms of data gathering in research design available. Define and thoroughly discuss the experiment and how it is beneficial to the study of criminal justice. Also define and discuss alternative data-gathering strategies and how they are beneficial to the study of criminal justice.

Define what an experiment is and how it is useful in the field of criminal justice research.
Define some alternative forms of data gathering strategies and discuss how they can be beneficial in social science research. In what ways might some of these reflect the assumptions associated with good experimental design?
Discuss the strengths and weaknesses of using the experimental method and the strengths and weaknesses of other alternative data gathering strategies that you might use in the criminal justice field.
Discuss some examples of research studies employing alternative data gathering strategies.





The Administration and Operation of the Criminal Justice System

From Perry Mason to Law and Order and its many spin-offs to CSI and its various versions, Americans have been shown views of the inside of the American system of justice over many decades while also being entertained. These television shows have presented many alleged details of how our criminal justice system works while also providing many opportunities for people to gain distorted or incorrect views of the system. In a participatory democracy based in the rule of law, it can be argued that citizens need a deep and accurate understanding of how the criminal justice system is supposed to work. What factors in our society help enhance our understanding of the criminal justice system? What factors act so as to reduce our understanding?

What are the roles of law enforcement, the court system, and the penal system in bringing a proper balance to our criminal justice system?
How do citizens influence our system versus wealth and private interests, or the media?
How does the existing social climate of the times influence how the criminal justice system might work or what might be emphasized in the enforcement and adjudication of the laws of the land?
How might we change the criminal justice system so as to make it work better for the greater good?





Ethics and Moral Behavior in the Criminal Justice System

The work of Kant on the categorical imperative and the dedication to duty is well known. In this question, the police agency you work for has been investigating a large prescription drug case involving a wealthy woman who is the owner of a major corporation and also a great supporter of local causes including the police. The suspect donates millions every year and is a pillar of the community. Should she be arrested and convicted her reputation will be destroyed, her business will suffer and so will her favorite charities. You search her car during a routine traffic stop and find a large quantity of illegal drugs (enough to send her away for many years). She promises to donate $50,000 to the police department drug initiative and to enroll in rehab if you let her go.

What ethical course of action should you pursue within the context of Kants categorical imperative?
Expanding on your ethical position, explain why you would make the decisions that you made?
Using Deontology, what call to duty will you honor (your own, your profession, your departments, the charities, the citys)?

HW8 Draft and HW9 Final Research Proposal

Your final assignment is to write a 10-14 page deductive social science research proposal based on the research questions (HW2), literature review (HW4), preliminary plan (HW6), and data collection planning (HW7) assignments submitted earlier in the course. The paper will follow the conventional format for deductive social science research proposals, which normally consists of four sections:

Introduction. Identifies your specific research question and sets the general context for the study. Using a grabber before the Introduction helps set the context.

Literature Review/Theoretical Framework. Reviews the literature on a the specific research and develops a testable research hypothesis(es). The literature review focuses on discussing how other researchers have addressed the same of similar research questions and the Theoretical Framework section develops the theory or model to be used in the study.

Data and Methods (or Research Design). Describes how you will test the hypothesis and carry out your analysis. Describes the data you will use to test your hypothesis(es), how you will operationalize and collect data on your variables, and the analytic methods that you will use, noting potential biases and limitations to your research approach.

Reference List. References the works that you have cited in the text (15-20 is normal).


Research Proposal Outline (Use as a self-check before submitting your final paper.)

HW8 Draft Research Proposal should include all sections noted below with the exception of the Reference List section.

HW9 Final Research Proposal should include all sections noted below and corrections based on instructor feedback on HW8.

Title Block (paper title, student name, course, universitya title page, table of contents, abstracts, etc., are not required).

Grabber (optional)

I. Introduction (1 page maximum) (introduces study, places in larger context, tells why it is important we study this case).

General research question and context leading to a clear statement of the specific research question.
Background and contextual material justifying why we should study this case or topic.
Purpose statement.

II. Literature Review (3 page maximum) (provides current state of our accumulated knowledge as it relates to your specific research question)

Summarize the general state of the literature (cumulative knowledge base) on the specific research question.
Study 1summarize to include researchers findings, how those findings were obtained, and evaluation of biases in the findings.
Study 2 summarize to include researchers findings, how those findings were obtained, and evaluation of biases in the findings.
Etc., etc.(3-4 most important studies are minimum effort required).
Short conclusion and transition to Theoretical Framework section.

Reference List (15-20 for most studies). Turabian (7th Edition) parenthetical-reference list citation style formatting is required in the entire paper.

Appendixes (tables, graphs, diagrams, etc., not presented in text).

There are faxes for this order.

question first and then continue to answer. Do Not Use Outside Sources.
Berliner readings refer to educational research, however, at the same time that educational researchers themselves are expanding their repertoire; such as the federal government narrowing their focus on scientific research.

Discussion Question
1.What do you think are some likely outcomes of this conflict?

Educational Research: The Hardest Science of All: by David C. Berliner

Under the stewardship of the Department of Education, recent acts of Congress confuse the methods of science with the process of science, possibly doing great harm to scholarship in education. An otherwise exemplary National Research Council report to help clarify the nature of educational science fails to emphasize the complexity of scientific work in education due to the power of contexts, the ubiquity of interactions, and the problem of decade by findings interactions. Discussion of these issues leads to the conclusion that educational science is unusually hard to do and that the government may not be serious about wanting evidence-based practices in education.

Scientific Culture and Educational Research (this issue), as well as the National Research Council (NRC) report from which it draws, are important documents in the history of educational research. I commend the authors and panelists who shaped these reports, and I support their recommendations. But it is not clear to me that science means the same thing to all of us who pay it homage, nor do I think that the distinctions between educational science and other sciences have been well made in either report. There are implications associated with both these issues.

Definitions of Science
I admire Richard Feynmans (1999) definition of science as the belief in the ignorance of authority (p. 187). Unrestricted questioning is what gives science its energy and vibrancy. Values, religion, politics, vested material interests, and the like can distort our scientific work only to the extent that they stifle challenges to authority, curtailing the questioning of whatever orthodoxy exists. Unfettered, science will free itself from false beliefs or, at the least, will moderate the climate in which those beliefs exist. As politicians recognize that facts are negotiable, perceptions are
rock solid, so there is no guarantee that science will reduce ignorance. But as long as argument is tolerated and unfettered, that possibility exists. Another admirable definition of science was provided by Percy Bridgman (1947), who said there really is no scientific method, merely individuals doing their damndest with their minds, no holds barred (pp. 144145). I admire Feynmans and Bridgmans definitions of science because neither confuses science with method or technique, as I believe happens in recent government proclamations about the nature of appropriate, and therefore fundable, educational research. World-renowned scientists do not confuse science with method. As Peter Medawar said, what passes for scientific methodology is a misrepresentation of what scientists do or ought to do. The evidence-based practices and scientific research mentioned over 100 times in the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 are code words for randomized experiments, a method of research with which I too am much enamored. But to think that this form of research is the only scientific approach to gaining knowledgethe only one that yields trustworthy evidence reveals a myopic view of science in general and a misunderstanding of educational research in particular. Although strongly supported in Congress, this bill confuses the methods of science with the goals of science. The government seems to be inappropriately diverging from the two definitions of science provided above by confusing a particular method of science with science itself. This is a form of superstitious thinking that is the antithesis of science. Feuer, Towne, and Shavelson, representing the entire NRC committee, clearly recognize this mistake, and we should all hope that they are persuasive. To me, the language in the new bill resembles what one would expect were the government writing standards for bridge building and prescription drugs, where the nature of the underlying science is straightforward and time honored. The bill fails to recognize the unique nature of educational science.

Hard and Soft Science: A Flawed Dichotomy
The distinctions between hard and soft sciences are part of our culture. Physics, chemistry, geology, and so on are often contrasted with the social sciences in general and education in particular. Educational research is considered too soft, squishy, unreliable, and imprecise to rely on as a basis for practice in the same way that other sciences are involved in the design of bridges and electronic circuits, sending rockets to the moon, or developing new drugs.
But the important distinction is really not between the hard and the soft sciences. Rather, it is between the hard and the easy sciences. Easy-to-do science is what those in physics, chemistry, geology, and some other fields do. Hard-to-do science is what the social scientists do and, in particular, it is what we educational researchers do. In my estimation, we have the hardest-to-do science of them all! We do our science under conditions that physical
scientists find intolerable. We face particular problems and must deal with local conditions that limit generalizations and theory buildingproblems that are different from those faced by the easier-to-do sciences. Let me explain this by using a set of related examples: The power of context, the ubiquity of interactions, and the problem of decade by findings interactions. Although these issues are implicit in the Feuer, Towne, and Shavelson article, the authors do not, in my opinion, place proper emphasis on them.

The Power of Contexts
In education, broad theories and ecological generalizations often fail because they cannot incorporate the enormous number or determine the power of the contexts within which human beings find themselves. That is why the Edison Schools, Success for All, Accelerated Schools, the Coalition of Essential Schools, and other school reform movements have trouble replicating effects from site to site. The decades old Follow-Through study should
have taught us about the problems of replication in education (House, Glass, McLean, & Walker, 1978). In that study, over a dozen philosophically different instructional models of early childhood education were implemented in multiple sites over a considerable period of time. Those models were then evaluated for their effects on student achievement. It was found that the variance in student achievement was larger within programs than it was between programs. No program could produce consistency of effects across sites. Each local context was different, requiring differences in programs, personnel, teaching methods, budgets, leadership, and kinds of community support. These huge context effects cause scientists great trouble in trying to understand school life. It is the reason that qualitative inquiry
has become so important in educational research. In this hardest-to-do science, educators often need knowledge of the particularthe localwhile in the easier-to-do sciences the aim is for more general knowledge. A science that must always be sure the myriad particulars are well understood is harder to build than a science that can focus on the regularities of nature across contexts. The latter kinds of science will always have a better chance to understand,
predict, and control the phenomena they study. Doing science and implementing scientific findings are so difficult
in education because humans in schools are embedded in complex and changing networks of social interaction. The participants in those networks have variable power to affect each other from day to day, and the ordinary events of life (a sick child, a messy divorce, a passionate love affair, migraine headaches, hot flashes, a birthday party, alcohol abuse, a new principal, a new child i the classroom, rain that keeps the children from a recess outside the school building) all affect doing science in school settings by limiting the generalizability of educational research findings. Compared to designing bridges and circuits or splitting either atoms or genes, the science to help change schools and classrooms is harder to do because context cannot be controlled.

The Ubiquity of Interactions
Context is of such importance in educational research because of the interactions that abound. The study of classroom teaching, for example, is always about understanding the 10th or 15th order interactions that occur in classrooms. Any teaching behavior interacts with a number of student characteristics, including IQ, socioeconomic status, motivation to learn, and a host of other factors. Simultaneously, student behavior is interacting with
teacher characteristics, such as the teachers training in the subject taught, conceptions of learning, beliefs about assessment, and even the teachers personal happiness with life. But it doesnt end there because other variables interact with those just mentioned the curriculum materials, the socioeconomic status of the community,
peer effects in the school, youth employment in the area, and so forth. Moreover, we are not even sure in which directions the influences work, and many surely are reciprocal. Because of the myriad interactions, doing educational science seems very difficult, while science in other fields seems easier. I am sure were I a physicist or a geologist I would protest arguments from outsiders about how easy their sciences are compared to mine. I know how messy their fields appear to insiders, and that arguments about the status of findings and theories within their disciplines can be fierce. But they have more often found regularities in nature across physical contexts while we struggle to find regularities across social contexts. We can make this issue about the complexity we face more concrete by using
the research of Helmke (cited in Snow, Corno & Jackson, 1995). Helmke studied students evaluation anxiety in elementary and middle school classrooms. In 54 elementary and 39 middle school classrooms, students scores on questionnaires about evaluation anxiety were correlated with a measure of student achievement. Was there some
regularity, some reportable scientific finding? Absolutely. On average, a negative correlation of modest size was found in both elementary and middle school grades. The generalizable finding was that the higher the scores on the evaluation anxiety questionnaire, the lower the score on the achievement test. But this simple scientific finding totally misses all of the complexity in the classrooms studied. For example, the negative correlations ran from about ?.80 to zero, but a few were even positive, as high as +.45. So in some classes students evaluation anxiety was so debilitating that their achievement was drastically lowered, while in other classes the effects were nonexistent. And
in a few classes the evaluation anxiety apparently was turned into some productive motivational force and resulted in improved student achievement. There were 93 classroom contexts, 93 different patterns of the relationship between evaluation anxiety and student achievement, and a general scientific conclusion that completely missed the particularities of each classroom situation. Moreover, the mechanisms through which evaluation anxiety resulted in reduced student achievement appeared to be quite different in the elementary classrooms as compared to the middle
school classrooms. It may be stretching a little, but imagine that Newtons third law worked well in both the northern and southern hemispheresexcept of course in Italy or New Zealandand that the explanatory basis for that law was different in the two hemispheres. Such complexity would drive a physicist crazy, but it is a part of the day-to-day world of the educational researcher. Educational researchers have to accept the embedded-ness of educational phenomena in social life, which results in the myriad interactions that complicate our science. As Cronbach
once noted, if you acknowledge these kinds of interactions, you have entered into a hall of mirrors, making social science in general, and education in particular, more difficult than some other sciences. Decade by Findings

Interactions
There is still another point about the uniqueness of educational science, the short half-life of our findings. For example, in the 1960s good social science research was done on the origins of achievement motivation among men and women. By the 1970s, as the feminist revolution worked its way through society, all data that described women were completely useless. Social and educational research, as good as it may be at the time it is done, sometimes shows these decade by findings interactions. Solid scientific findings in one decade end up of little use in another
decade because of changes in the social environment that invalidate the research or render it irrelevant. Other examples come to mind. Changes in conceptions of the competency of young children and the nature of their minds resulted in a constructivist paradigm of learning replacing a behavioral one, making irrelevant entire journals of scientific behavioral findings about educational phenomena. Genetic findings have shifted social views about race, a concept now seen as worthless in both biology and anthropology. So previously accepted social science studies about differences between the races are irrelevant because race, as a basis for classifying people in a research study, is now understood to be socially, not genetically, constructed. In all three cases, it was not bad science that caused findings to become irrelevant. Changes in the social, cultural, and intellectual environments negated the scientific work in these areas. Decade by findings interactions seem more common in the social sciences and education than they do in other scientific fields of inquiry, making educational science very hard to do.

Conclusions
The remarkable findings, concepts, principles, technology, and theories we have come up with in educational research are a triumph of doing our damndest with our minds. We have conquered enormous complexity. But if we accept that we have unique complexities to deal with, then the orthodox view of science now being put forward by the government is a limited and faulty one. Our science forces us to deal with particular problems, where local knowledge is needed. Therefore, ethnographic research is crucial, as are case studies, survey research, time series, design experiments, action research, and other means to collect reliable evidence for engaging in unfettered argument about education issues. A single method is not what the government should be promoting for educational researchers. It would do better by promoting argument, discourse, and discussion. It is no coincidence that early versions of both democracy and science were invented simultaneously in ancient Greece. Both require the same freedom to argue and question authority, particularly the government. It is also hard to take seriously the governments avowed desire
for solid scientific evidence when it ignores the solid scientific evidence about the long-term positive effects on student learning of high-quality early childhood education, small class size, and teacher in-service education. Or when it ignores findings about the poor performance of students when they are retained in grade, assigned uncertified teachers or teachers who have out-of-field teaching assignments, or suffer a narrowed curriculum
because of high-stakes testing. Instead of putting its imprimatur on the one method of scientific inquiry to improve education, the government would do far better to build our community of scholars, as recommended in the NRC report. It could do that by sponsoring panels to debate the evidence we have collected from serious scholars using
diverse methods. Helping us to do our damndest with our minds by promoting rational debate islikely to improve education more than funding randomized studies with their necessary tradeoff of clarity of findings for completeness of understanding. We should never lose sight of the fact that children and teachers in classrooms are conscious, sentient, and purposive human beings, so no scientific explanation of human behavior could ever be complete.
In fact, no un-poetic description of the human condition can ever be complete. When stated this way, we have an argument for heterogeneity in educational scholarship and for convening panels of diverse scholars to help decide what findings are and are not worthy of promoting in our schools. The present caretakers of our government would be wise to remember Justice Jacksons 1950 admonition: It is not the function of our government to keep the citizens from falling into error; it is the function of the citizen to keep the government from falling into error. Promoting debate on a variety of educational issues among researchers and practitioners with different methodological perspectives would help both our scholars and our government to make fewer errors. Limiting who is funded and who will be invited to those debates is more likely to increase our errors.

Choose a common belief (or stereotype) about sexuality from the list below. Research the topic in at least three academic research articles (from academic journals only) to assess what social science research claims about the belief (e.g. is it true? What has social science discovered about it? Etc.) Then, write a 2-3 page thesis driven paper synthesizing what you learned about the topic, determining whether the research supports, contradicts or is inconclusive with respect to the ?commonsense? belief. (Note that this is not a summary or
re-articulation of the material, but rather an integrated synthesis of the information.

Possible ?common beliefs? or stereotypes/assumptions:
? Comprehensive sex education encourages teens to have sex
? Abstinence-only education helps reduce the amount of teen sex, abortions, and STIs
? Children raised by same-sex parents have more problems than children raised by different-sex or single parents
? Children raised by same-sex parents are more likely to be homosexual themselves
? All people with fetishes or who engage in S&M are psychologically disturbed
? With therapy or sufficient ?re-training,? homosexuals can become heterosexual/stop being homosexual
? It is mostly men who have extramarital affairs or cheat
? Mass media has little to no influence on people?s attitudes towards sexuality
? In all cultures there are only two genders, man and woman
? There are only two sexes, male and female
? Abortion has lifelong negative psychological consequences for the women who have them
? People choose to be homosexual
? There is no such thing as ?bisexuality,? bisexuals just refuse to commit to hetero- or homosexual identity
? Only homosexual men rape or sexually assault/abuse boys or other men
? People become homosexual because they lack appropriate role models of their own gender
? People become homosexual because they were abused as children
? Men are more sexual than women
? People become less sexual as they age
? Children are not sexual until the reach puberty
? Pregnancy as a teenager is harmful to the mothers
? Abstinence before marriage leads to better/stronger marriages
? Prostitutes and other sex workers (people who strip, perform erotic dance or act in pornographic films) were sexually abused | use drugs | have STIs [you may research any/all of those assumptions]

Possible academic journals:
? Archives of Sexual Behavior
? Gender and Society
? Gerontology and Geriatrics Education
? Journal of Child Sexual Abuse
? Journal of Homosexuality
? Journal of Marriage and Family
? Journal of Psychology and Human Sexuality
? Journal of Sex and Marital Therapy
? Journal of Sex Education and Therapy
? Personal Relationships
? Sex Rules
? Sexualities
? Sexuality and Disability
? American Sociological Review? American Journal of Sociology
? Journal of Social Issues
? Journal of Sex Research
? Any American Psychological Association (APA) journal ? e.g. Developmental Psychology, Journal of Abnormal Behavior, etc

Format & Style:
? Your paper should follow standard expository style ? introduction, body paragraphs, and conclusion.
? Your thesis statement should be the first sentence.
? You need to properly cite all material. In-text parenthetical references (author last name, #) are adequate for course materials.
? Your paper should be in Times New Roman size 12 font, double-spaced with 1-inch margins


Tips on the thesis statement:
A thesis identifies the argument and purpose of your paper.
You can think of your thesis as answering a question. For instance, if the question is, ?Does Katy Perry?s song, ?I Kissed a Girl?challenge or reinforce dominant norms about sexuality?? your thesis could be something like:
? ?Katy Perry?s song, ?I Kissed a Girl? challenges dominant norms about sexuality by openly celebrating same sex
behavior and sexual agency, creating positive space for same sex desire in popular culture,?

or

? ?Katy Perry?s song, ?I Kissed a Girl? reinforces dominant norms of sexuality by portraying female same sex behavior
for the primary purpose of voyeuristic male heterosexual pleasure, further establishing and privileging heteronormativity.?
Your thesis can also complicate the question and subsequent analysis, and does not need to arrive at an easy, either/or response: instead, your thesis can include a both/all or otherwise complicated approach to your question. For instance, you could also answer the Brio question with a thesis statement like this:
? ?By openly celebrating same sex behavior and sexual agency, but doing so in part for the voyeuristic pleasure of a heterosexual male audience, Katy Perry?s song, ?I Kissed a Girl? both challenges and reinforces dominant norms about sexuality.

A GOOD THESIS STATEMENT WILL INCLUDE THESE FOUR CRITICAL ELEMENTS:
1. Your subject of analysis: Note that the artist?s full name and the title of her song are used to identify the subject. Your thesis statement should also explicitly and specifically identify your subject
2. The argument | point | purpose you are making in the paper
3. A hint of the argument you are going to make (in other words, briefly identify how you are going to support your claim)
4. A ?so-what?? component that indicates the significance of your thesis & paper (in other words, why should your reader care about this argument? Why is this an important point to make?)
NOTE: Your thesis statement needs to include all four elements. It does NOT need to copy the structure of the example Katy Perry thesis; it does NOT need to argue whether or not the subject challenges and/or reinforces dominant norms, it DOES need to incorporate all four aspects of a thesis statement. The Katy Perry examples are just examples of one way to do that.

WHAT YOU WILL BE GRADED ON:

1. Organize your essay around a central thesis For this paper, your thesis statement should be the first sentence
2. Write clear, succinct and powerful sentences to express your meaning. Each sentence should move your paper closer to proving your thesis. Awkward, over-complicated, or grammatically incorrect sentences impede your ability to clearly argue your point. Your reader should not struggle to understand what you are trying to say, as this lessens the
impact of your argument.
3. Support claims with evidence Use quotations from scholarly sources to support the claims you make. Do not support claims with personal opinion, recommendation, mere declaration, etc.
4. Analyze evidence Explain quotations in your own words, to demonstrate how you interpret the quotation and to clarify how it advances your argument.
5. Demonstrate how each claim advances the overall argument. Every point you make ? every sentence you write ?should be clearly advancing your argument. The connection to the main point should be clear.
6. Quote properly. This includes avoiding stand-alone quotes (quotes should always be in the context of a larger sentence of yours), properly formatting block quotes when applicable, and giving enough information about the quote and speaker to establish the quote as coming from a reliable source and being relevant to the point you are making. You should never start nor end a paragraph with a quotation: you should always provide your own analysis of the quotation.
7. Use 3rd person only in scholarly writing. When writing an argumentative essay, it is not appropriate to address the reader (?you,? 2nd person) or to refer to oneself (?I think?,? ?We do XYZ?).
8. Use gender-inclusive or gender-neutral language. See Bb for tips on how to do this. (Remember: gender neutrality/inclusivity does NOT mean you cannot use gendered pronouns to describe ACTUAL beings/characters whose gender is known).
9. Use proper grammar and avoid spelling and typographical errors. This includes noun-pronoun agreement and writing in complete sentences. Proofread your essay ? your final draft should be free from errors.
10. Use formal/academic writing styles. This includes avoiding contractions, colloquialisms, generalizations and other language that may be appropriate for informal conversation, but not formal academic writing

Review the suggestions for writing a research proposal given on the Social Science Research Council Web site:

http://www.ssrc.org/fellowships/art_of_writing_proposals.page

Using the potential research project you identified for Written Assignment 1, consider how you would prepare a proposal to do the research. Be sure to:

- Include the necessary sections of a proposal.


- Describe why the research is important.


- Consider and describe the sampling plan you would use.


- Think about the literature review. What key words would you use to search?


- Discuss how the results would be used.


- Include a bibliography.

There are two sources for this Module's Case:

Tony Oulton has an interesting article about "management research for information" (Oulton, Tony. (1995) Management research for information. Library Management. Vol.16, Iss. 5; pg. 75-81 -- available through ProQuest); here's the abstract:

It is suggested that the conclusions of a research study, whether one's own or another's, have value as a source of information for decision making. Experienced managers and prompt students of management are reminded about various approaches to research. Research is defined, and an evaluation is made to determine its worth in terms of validity, reliability and generalizability. Various approaches to research, in particular quantitative and qualitative research, and the interpretation of findings are examined. The use of statistical inference, statistical expression of probability and nonparametric and multivariate statistics is explained.

Don't let the last part scare you yet; it's not all that technical.

A Consumer's Guide to the Business and Management Literature by Dr. John Kmetz of the University of Delaware (available at http://www.buec.udel.edu/kmetzj/PDF/Chapter1.pdf) is a very useful discussion of alternate kinds of sources of knowledge in the field of business.

When you've read through both of these sources, please compose a short (ca. 4-6 pages) paper on the general topic of believability in business research. The following questions are suggested as things to think about, not necessarily as point to be answered specifically in your paper:

What do each of these sources tell you about the basis for believing what you read in a research study? Do you believe them?

Are there any other insights into the question of believability that you've gained from the Background Readings? The General References listed at the top of the Background Readings page? Other sources? What are the insights?

We said earlier that this course was to cultivate in you twin capacities: to be practitioners capable of conducting research in your domain, and to be educated users and critics of the research of others. To what degree might these things require different skills? What might those differences be?

What's the current state of your thinking about believability? How can we ensure that we disseminate only truth in our own research? How can we be sure that we believe only the truth in others' research?

How important is truth, really, to the businesses and organizations with whom we work and on behalf of whom we conduct research?


When your paper is done, send it in to CourseNet.


Chapter 1
A Consumer's Guide to the Business and Management
Literature
Introduction
This chapter began years ago as a short tip sheet for students who were often puzzled
and frustrated by their ventures into the academic literature. These experiences were
usually motivated by course requirements from faculty in our MBA program, most of
whom genuinely believed that the rigor and quality of the research reported in the
academic journals exceeded that from any other source. Students were therefore not only
encouraged but required to become consumers of material from the academic journals as
well as other more general sources of information.
The literature of management has been very much a part of the broader
information explosion of recent decades. Consumers seeking to use this material must
cope with a bewildering variety of information. This variety not only takes the form of a
huge number of sources, but differences along many dimensionsspecificity, readability,
and applicability, among others. The quality of many publications is perceived
differently by different users, and advice from these sources on what to believe and to do
is often confusing and contradictory.
This chapter has two purposes. The first is to provide a guide to interpreting and
using the management literature, to help one search through the material, categorize and
sort it expediently, and make ones own decisions about the quality and utility of the
information found. If a consumer using information gathered and summarized by others in
the form of reports or reviews, these guidelines will help to formulate relevant questions to
ask of those who provide the original information. In that regard, the second purpose is to
provide a critical view of the management literature, to balance the arguments of the
champions of each category below.
The basic message of this chapter is quite simple: there is a lot of information out
there competing for attention, and there is a great deal of good material in that. At the
same time, every source of information has its limitations, and there is no single source
that either is without some drawbacks on one hand, or that can meet the information needs
of every consumer every time, on the other. Some means of making a decision about what
to use for different purposes is needed, and this chapter is intended to provide some help
toward that end.
Locating and Selecting What Is Needed
The ability to keep up with all the literature in even a specialized field is rapidly being
overwhelmed by the volume of material available. This is one of the key implications of
the information explosion. Fortunately, recent advances in electronic search and
information retrieval have at least made searching the literature much more efficient.
2
While electronic databases are not yet entirely comprehensive, almost all new material can
be located electronically (and a significant amount of older material is being added all the
time). Finding time to read it all is another matter, of course.
Databases are being created by individual libraries around the country, and most
now provide comprehensive lists of the holdings of these libraries. The University of
Delaware, for example, has created DelCat for its book holdings, similar to the electronic
catalogs at the majority of US libraries; Web links to the electronic catalogs of many other
libraries are available. There are extensive CD-ROM databases for journals and
periodicals, and these are of enormous value to the business researcher. The main
difference between the book and periodical databases is that abstracts or descriptions of the
contents of books are not provided, so that the user cannot make a preliminary evaluation
of the contents. This is particularly unfortunate in the case of the specialized books, which
often provide excellent summaries of particular areas of research; this is also changing.
Access to these resources at Delaware is available through campus terminals or an outside
modem at (302) 831-0100 (up to 33000 bps). Modem settings are No parity, 8 data bits,
and 1 stop bit (N-8-1). A Web browser is needed to use the Library databases, and for the
Web version of DelCat. Browsers may be obtained for free by University students from
the Smith Hall computing site or by downloading from the University technology support
Web site.
The other type of information which is not always located through a database
search is from the proceedings of the professional societies. Unlike most professional
groups in the physical sciences and engineering, not all of the social sciences abstract and
keyword the majority of their papers, and so many do not appear in the databases. There
is a major difference between the types of materials covered in proceedings, depending on
the discipline. In the physical sciences, proceedings carry summaries of the most current
materials being presented at a professional conference; in the management literature, they
either carry developmental or preliminary work or papers not considered good enough to
submit to journals.
In addition, there are rapidly-growing numbers of Web sites which also provide
information directly from the source (for example, the International Standards
Organization and the World Trade Organization, both located in Geneva, Switzerland,
support excellent Web pages). Given the diversity of sites and flexibility of access and
operation, the eb has become a major gateway for information that fits into all of the
categories below.
Types of Literature
At first glance, the management literature may appear to be much more homogeneous than
it really is. There are actually several different management literatures, and each of these
occupies a specialized niche. Thus, an important problem is how to find the appropriate
3
material for the consumers needs. To a considerable extent, this requires some idea of the
content carried in each of the different categories of material.
I will begin by categorizing the types of literature in the field, and then offer
suggestions on methods to locate, select, and interpret the types. The management
literature can be roughly divided into five groups:
1. Popular press and electronic documents
The popular press refers to general readership publications, including such well-known
names as The Economist, Business Week, Fortune, Inc., and many others. Also included
in this category are business newspapers such as The Wall Street Journal and Barrons. A
lesser-known set of publications in this group comes from various government or serviceorganization
publishers, including publications such as Business America from the US
Department of Commerce, and materials from the Chamber of Commerce. Most are
distributed nationally, and many of them are also distributed electronically through the
World Wide Web.
The familiar trade publications found in nearly every industry in the US and
elsewhere also fall into this category. These are valuable sources of information specific
to an industry, and many carry articles on broader management practices similar to those
found in the national publications. These are increasingly being widely distributed through
electronic media, and have become much more accessible than in the recent past.
The most current newsworthy information on matters in the business world is
found in the popular press. If the researcher wants current information on the Pacific Rim
or Europe, it is most likely to be found in this category. The market niche these
publications target is the business or technical reader; they differ in orientation, in that the
mass-market publications aim for general information while the trade journals are highly
specific to industries. Their values are for practical, hands-on, applicable information that
will be useful to their readers. Reportage, not analysis is the simplest characterization
of material carried in these outlets.
2. Practitioner books and compendia
The type of book found here is practitioner-oriented, such as Blown to Bits, Competing for
the Future, The One-Minute Manager, and countless others. They are found in
bookstores, newsstands, and airport terminals all over the world. Two examples of these
types of books are Goldratts (1986) The Goal, which has been both a commercial success
and has had wide impact on manufacturing management in the US and abroad; another is
Peters and Watermans (1982) In Search of Excellence, which has been a commercial
success and very influential, but has also been roundly criticized as being a poor
prescription for many firms (and equally poor at identifying excellentcompanies). These
books emphasize readability and applicability, and target the executive and professional
4
markets; indeed a large part of this category is made up of the professional press. A
book for every occasion might characterize material in these publications.
3. Practitioner journals
These are journals written primarily by academics and published through universities or
academic outlets, but with content oriented toward practitioners. Included in this group
are The Academy of Management Executive, and others such as the Harvard Business
Review, California Management Review, and Organizational Dynamics.
While the number of these journals is relatively small, they have a well-defined
niche, being written primarily for executives and management professionals. They also
serve as outlets for academics who want to write for executives and colleagues, but in
executives terms. The practitioner journals serve as a bridge between the popular press
and academic materials, in that many ideas from the theoretical world can be made
accessible to potential users. What appears in these journals is less likely to be as current
as the popular press, but it is still topical. Articles on new theoretical or other academic
developments are often covered; they provide some insight into the current thinking in
academia, but are not necessarily as concerned with theoretical developments or technical
issues as the academic literature. The values reflected in these journals are also those
common to both the practitioner and the theoreticianboth want fresh information and
new ideas, but want some objectivity and closure as well. Bridges, not new roads are
characteristic of the material in these journals.
4. Academic books and compendia
Literature in this category comes from specialized academic publishers of books and
collections of materials, principally to provide outlets for research summaries, essays,
theoretical articles, and similar materials. (This may be changingin recent years
competitive pressures have forced many o f these houses to offer more professional titles.)
Publishing houses such as Sage, JAI, Lawrence Erlbaum, and Ashgate are well-established
in this area. While these are oriented toward academics and researchers, these compendia
are generally made up of chapters and essays by well-established scholars in the field, who
provide an overview of the area and point out its strengths, along with its limitations and
shortcomings as well. Most of these summaries are based on journal publications, but are
not journal publications themselves.
Additionally, of course, there is the college textbook, by no means a homogeneous
type itself, but sharing a common orientation to the undergraduate or graduate student.
Texts are highly variable with respect to the depth of coverage of material and orientation
(theory versus practice), but they usually value clarity and are aimed at the mass market
for students. Texts therefore are valued for readability as well as for scholarly criteria, and
do not assume familiarity with the field. The purposes and values of these publications are
5
similar to those of the other three categories, respectively, for each type of publication. A
book for every discipline is the characteristic of these publications.
5. Academic journals
These are journals which publish academic theory and research. They carry articles
almost exclusively written and read by academics. Several kinds of articles are published,
but most are either theoretical papers or literature reviews, or the results of empirical
research itself. These are highly specialized, and assume that the reader is familiar with
previous research done in specialized fields on which articles are written. Most
professional organizations publish proceedings of their major meetings, and these include
material similar to the professional journals. Both frequently require expertise in
complicated statistical and mathematical procedures, and give much detail on the steps
taken in the research being reported. Because of these properties, their articles have highly
selective audiences, and usually do not report information in a way which lends itself to
direct application.
In the academic world, where much of ones career depends on publish or perish
criteria, there has been a tremendous expansion of these journals and outlets. The market
niche these journals occupy is almost exclusively the academic world, with very little
readership among practitioners. The purpose of the journals is to enable scholars to
communicate their theories and findings with each other; of equal importance is to enhance
the prestige of the contributing authors and their institutions. Their nominal values are
those of science and the scientific method. Analysis, not reportage is the characteristic
of these jourals.
Survey Research
One other popular type of research has generated many questions from students over the
years, and this is the survey. While not a category in their own right, surveys are a
popular way to gather empirical data on many subjects, and are widely used to evaluate
many questions, both for academic research and for practical matters in industry and
elsewhere. While they are relatively easy to do and are very flexible, those same
properties make it easy for them to be done poorly. Statistical significance is not so much
the issue with surveys, but two problems afflict many of them: (1) wording of survey
questions, and (2) the nature of the sampling and data collection.
A good survey always follows three guidelines: (1) it uses neutrally-worded
questions; (2) it uses a random (probability) sample; and (3) data are collected from all
sample members. The last part is often the hardest, and the most importantif the
researcher does not get all the members of the sample, a survey cannot be truly considered
as representative.
6
The divergence between the categories of literature also reflects the diversity of
topics in the field. There is an abundance of interesting things to write about in business
and management, and each category of literature carries information which is valid
within its own sphere. However, readership studies and reports (Buckley, Ferris,
Bernardin, & Harvey, 1998; Byrne, 1990; Gopinath & Hoffman, 1995; Hambrick, 1994;
Thomas & Kilmann, 1994; Lorsch, 1979; Oviatt & Miller, 1989; Price, 1985; Kilmann,
Thomas, Slevin, Nath, & Jerrell, 1994) consistently show a nearly complete divergence
between those who read popular press versus academic journals (categories 1 and 2 vs. 4
and 5), and only limited integration of these materials through the practitioner journals in
category (3). This is even true in education (Miller, 1999), and is evidenced by the July
14, 2000 introduction of a bill by Delawares US Representative Michael Castle to require
scientific standards for education research. What is current or useful or good is
therefore by no means similar between categories, and there is every reason to expect that
what is considered valuable by those who read one category will not necessarily even be
known to other consumers.
However, from the perspective of what the different types of materials try to
accomplish, it should be borne in mind that each has its special contribution to make. The
popular press is invaluable for current information in a rapidly changing, time-driven
business environment, and not everything that business does lends itself to scientific
investigation. Those interested in underlying, deeper trends and phenomena must detach
themselves from the everyday din of business to look more carefully into data specifically
gathered to address those issues. Thus, the reality is that no single source or type of
literature can do everything that all consumers might need, and materials from the different
sources are not interchangeable. Each category of the business and management literature
has its strengths and weaknesses, and the next section will summarize these.
Strengths and Weaknesses of the Literature Types
1. The popular press. The major strengths of the popular press and Internet sources are
that they are current, keyed to the specialized interests of their readership, and highly
readable. More than any other category, quality of writing is important to most popular
publications, and the information in them is much more comprehensible, and therefore
useful, to readers. The major publications in the field have highly accurate, credible
reporting; this may not necessarily be true of all Web sources, however, since many of
them have advocacy roles as well as simply providing information.
The problem inherent in the popular press is the same as its strengthcurrency.
This means that much of the information in this category is incomplete and uneven, in the
sense that some aspects of an issue may be very well developed while other parts are only
fragmentary. Usually this is the nature of newsthe story is only partially complete.
On a few occasions, this unevenness may reflect conscious or unconscious biases from
authors or editorial staff. Coupled with these limitations is the lack of scientific rigor
measures and criteria, other than relatively standard financial and physical performance
7
data, are often not provided or well explained. In some cases, reports of outcomes are not
well substantiated. Faddishness is one of the inherent risks of reliance on popular
reportingconcepts of what is ideal, or even workable, may come and go very rapidly,
with little solid evidence of utility, acceptability, or economic payoff.
The World Wide Web is a particularly interesting case. The freedom and ease of
access inherent in the Web allow one to find anything from jumper settings on computer
hard disks to restoration of the American chestnut tree. It also allows hate groups and
terrorists to communicate freely at the other extreme. With its appetite for timely
information, the business community depends on the Web increasingly, not only for
conduct of its B2B transactions, but for more general information as well. Some of this,
from professional news sources and reporting organizations, is monitored and subject to
editorial controls which place a premium on accuracy; other information sources place a
premium on image. For one example, I have yet to read a clear description of the details
of the Procter & Gamble matrix organization on their website; for another, I have students
do country reports on European nations for one of my courses, and despite the fact that
unemployment in the European Union hovered around 11 percent for much of the midand
late 1990's, it was nearly impossible to find any member of the EU 15 nations which
reported unemployment higher than that average on their official national websites!
2. Practitioner books and compendia. The diversity of this field makes generalizations
about strengths and weaknesses very difficult. The popular-market books are of such
variable quality and diverse focus that they cannot really be summarized. The best advice
one can give is to read reviews of them, if available, and to maintain a healthy skepticism
about them. Many of these books are written from the point of view of one individuals
beliefs and experiences, and no matter how heartfelt the authors convictions that these
personal lessons represent generalizable truths, the validity of this view is hard to establish.
These books can be as subject to faddishness as the popular press, and are often the
primary vehicle for new fads. Caution is the watchword.
Having given that caution, it is only fair to note that many very high-quality books
and compendia have been generated within this category, particularly the professional
press. Anyone who has uttered the words, core competence has been influenced by
Competing for the Future (Hamel & Prahalad, 1994); A Future Perfect (Micklethwait &
Wooldridge, 2000) is one of the most lucid and balanced examinations of globalization to
be found anywhere; The Fifth Discipline (Senge, 1990) has arguably done more to make
managers aware of the complexities of organizations than anyone before in the field of
systems theory. Consumers can get major value from sources like these, but there are
many volumes in this group which are thinly disguised pitches for a new fad, many of
which can be damaging to company health; one is inclined to think of reengineering as a
case in point (Hammer & Champy, 1993).
3. Practitioner journals. The strengths of the practitioner journals are that they usually
are less subject to faddishness than the popular press, and that their articles undergo a
8
review process similar to the academic journals. These journals are also highly readable,
and do not presume expertise (or much interest) in methodology or theory. They deal
with current events, but often with more objectivity than the popular press.
The weaknesses of the practitioner journals are that they sometimes drift in the
direction of philosophy and generality, and that they have limited immediate application
potential for either practitioners or academic researchers. This lack of direct utility is a
function of the bridge role that these journals play: they typically try to avoid
involvement in short-term trends and industry-specific issues, but also avoid reporting
many of the theoretical and research-methodological questions of greatest interest to
academics. Partly because of this breadth of interests, they can sometimes fall prey to
faddishnessarguments long on philosophy and short on validity have found outlets here:
the end of nationality-based consumer preferences (Levitt, 1983), organizational
reengineering (Hammer, 1990), and the death of hierarchy through computers (Leavitt &
Whisler, 1958).
4. Academic books and compendia. Compendia and annual editions are very similar to
the academic journals in both their strengths and weaknesses. One of the major
advantages of many of these works is that they summarize and evaluate progress in whole
areas of academic researchoften some of the best literature reviews of a field are to be
found in these publications. But as was noted above, the fact that these are not journals
means that many of these items slip through the databases, so that their availability is more
limited. Also, these materials are usually prepared from a research perspective, and thus
tend to be technical and presume familiarity with the research area. Because their
readership is academic, there is a tendency to present materials in academic terminology,
which may result in the reviews being far less useful to non-expert consumers than they
might otherwise be.
5. Academic journals. The strengths of the academic journals, grounded in the traditions
and value system surrounding academic research, are that they try to avoid the pitfalls of
popular literature through application of relatively more scientific rigor. While academic
research may not reflect current events, and may be very conservative in its willingness to
advocate a position (or even a firm conclusion, in many cases), the objectivity of the
research, the scrutiny of reviewers before an article is published, and the reliance on more
rigorous methods all reduce subjectivity, faddishness, and unclear thinking, especially in
the empirical research literature. The primary safeguard against such errors is the use of
quantitative measures and careful data collection, along with statistical analysis to analyze
and evaluate the data. The assessment of meaning is fundamentally shaped by what
empirical data say.
The weaknesses of the academic literature, as with other literatures, are the obverse
of the strengths. The social science model that predominates in management research is
far less mature than the model of the hard sciences. Thus, while the traditions and
values of the scientific approach are adhered to as far as the field will allow, much
9
improvement in the social science model in management research is needed before this
literature can be considered truly scientific.
An irony in this connection is that while many individual studies in the social
science tradition are quite good, the literature as a whole falls far short of achieving
scientific credibility. Generally speaking, the more closely the academic literature
approaches the methods and procedures of the soft social sciences, such as
communication, decision making, motivation, leadership, team building and group
behaviors, school psychology, and the like, the more unlikely it is that individual studies or
the literature as a whole have scientific validity (Meehl, 1967). This weakness will be
discussed in more detail below.
Suggestions for Interpreting Management Literature
Interpretation is the hardest part of the job in using the management literature. Each of the
different categories above has at least one unique strength not found in other categories,
and at least one major drawback or limitation which is not offset by any of the others. The
short answer to the question of what to accept or believe, then, is that it falls to the user.
At present, none of the categories provides completely reliable or generalizable
information.
Two general points should be kept in mind when evaluating information from any
of these sources. The first concerns time and timeliness. In general, the more rigor
involved in publishing anything, the less timely it becomes. Thus, one is always faced
with a tradeoff between timeliness of information and something approaching more
scientific rigor. However, this is not a simple time-vs.-quality tradeoff; each category
contains examples of high and low quality relative to others within its group.
The second point is that there is an underlying economic motivation to all of these
types of publications. In the case of purely commercial publications, the motivation is
simple and directsell copies. In other cases, and particularly the academic literature, the
motivation is indirect. Journals and books may be used to build personal and institutional
prestige, which results in pay raises and the ability to attract good faculty and students. In
my first academic job at the University of Southern California, a wise senior colleague
once advised me that there are only two questions that really matter in academic
publication. If the publication is a book, the question is Will it sell?; if an article, the
question is Will it impress? I have never found reason to discount that wisdom, and I
would recommend that it be borne in mind by any consumer.
By this point, the reader may have come to the conclusion that it is impossible to
find anything that can be believed, and to trust nothing, no matter what the source. That is
far from the case. It is important to bear in mind that in nearly any kind of serious
literature the author or researcher is not intending to deceive. Even when errors are found,
10
they are usually the result of misinformation, miseducation, often with the best of
intentions, or simply an honest mistake.
Fortunately, the increasing ease of access to information provides opportunities to
cross-check and broadly evaluate material and ideas. In addition, we can formulate some
guidelines to help interpret these literatures, once we are aware of their relative strengths
and weaknesses. In fact, many of the limitations in one category often suggest some of
the precautionary steps we should take in another.
General Suggestions for Interpreting Information
MAGIC. One excellent general set of guidelines for the evaluation of information comes
from Abelson (1995), a source which is really intended for more technical academic
audiences but in my view has wide applicability in all categories. He refers to the
following five criteria which are summarized by the acronym MAGIC:
Magnitude (of effect or outcome)how large?, how often?, what percentage
of events? what are base rates? are the kinds of questions we should ask to see
how large an effect is.
Articulation (of argument, including possible opposing positions)is the research
story told well, and does it consider both sides of an argument in reasoned form?
Generality (breadth of applicability)is the argument something that has wide
implications, or is it very specific to a time or set of circumstances, and how is that
claim supported?
Interestingness ( the argument has the potential to influence someone, perhaps to
even change beliefs)this is usually a matter of having compelling support for an
argument.
Credibility (whether the argument is methodologically or perhaps theoretically
sound)have alternative arguments been confronted? Are the data too good to
be true? Is the conclusion based on a small difference of one out of 100 findings
or only on personal experience?
Although Abelson addresses an academic audience whose interests are in using
statistical information most effectively, his ideas strie me as having much applicability to
many questions we face in business, where cause and effect can never be that clear and
every story might have another side we have not yet considered. Without too much effort,
it is easy to apply MAGIC criteria to many kinds of questions.
Measurement. In any of the categories of literature (not just empirical studies and
surveys), results, findings, payoffs, and similar things are often reported. Thus,
11
another very useful question to ask is How was that measured? Often the details are not
supplied, or the result is not supported. Whether someone claims that there was a huge
benefit from a new information system or a huge unrecovered cost, it is always a good
idea to ask how that result was obtained. Measuring most things, even the seemingly
obvious ones like costs and returns, is often harder than it first seems. For that reason, it is
worth keeping in mind that most surveys are not cheap or simple, and are not undertaken
out of disinterest in the outcome.
This is an area where the academic research literature has a lot of value. Whether
we think a particular theory or idea is worth studying or not, we usually can tell how data
were obtained. It is common to publish the actual measures used, no matter what the
variables being studied. This is very unusual in the other categories of literature. Once
again, however, be wary of the claims of what those measures showthis is the
interpretational problem.
Advocacy and Generalizability. Any item in the literature must be evaluated carefully for
its generalizability. The primary question is the extent to which a finding can be
considered to be representative of a large groupdoes the result apply in general? In the
popular press, many single-case or single-company studies are reported, and the extent to
which the conclusions from one study might apply to a broader population of
organizations is always an open question.
A common characteristic of materials which are argued to be generalizable is the
advocacy of some position, whether intended or not. A problem or an opportunity may be
widespread; convincing people that it is also huge is much more likely to evoke action
than something widespread but small. Since the time and energy to do a study or an
article showing some effect is usually not trivial, there is a vested interest in having some
impact when the story comes out. This can easily lead to the kind of sensationalism that
Stossel (1997) calls junk science.
Multiple Sources. One of the benefits of having several different categories of material to
draw from is that they allow consumers to cross-check arguments. This may not always
be possible because some topics tend to be specific to one or the other of the categories,
but over time a topic usually generates multiple papers and studies, and even within a
category some triangulation is possible. With the increasing ease of literature searches
through databases and the Web, finding multiple items is less of a problem than before.
For any kind of material, it is always useful to avoid extremes, either in sources we
select, or in criteria we use to accept material of a specific type. Just because some
advocacy researchers are prone to overstatement in their zeal, it is not necessarily true that
advocacy of a particular position is unwarranted. Neither is it true that objective
researchers have no stake in the outcomes of their research. We might value experience
more than experiment, and therefore tend to disregard academic research in favor of
stories from the trenches. But it is hard to generalize from one experience to another,
12
and so we might do well to take a more dispassionate look at a subject if we can, and
academic research often meets that need very well.
Suggestions for Interpreting Academic Research Information
The academic literature is harder to evaluate because of its specialized nature and the
persistence of many of the limitations discussed earlier. In many cases, to be quite frank,
there is little reason for the research consumer to go into this material directly unless
needing some very specialized information in the field being investigated, and frequently
with the help of a knowledgeable assistant. Given the specialized nature of this body of
literature, it is necessary to go into some additional details on the problems inherent in it,
particularly the empirical research in the field.
Limitations of the Academic Literature. In the academic world, the professional
journals and materials are valued above all others. They are considered to provide the
most rigorous analysis of important questions and serve as communication media among
professionals. However, the primary weaknesses to guard against in the academic
literature are those inherent to the soft social sciences, which are weak sciences at best
(Meehl, 1986; Meehl, 1990) and in my view are not yet fully science at all. Those
wishing to go into this question in more detail should read Chapter 4.
The majority of my comments in this section are related to the empirical research
literature in management. A bit of background or review may be helpful. Empirical
research is usually conducted by forming a theoretical model, stated in the form of one or
more hypotheses; gathering data to measure the variables in the model; and then
examining the results. The paper derived from this process is then submitted to a
professional journal. It is almost certain that it will be subjected to blind peer review;
unlike the physical sciences, it is likely to be revised one or more times on the basis of
reviewer comments before finally being accepted for publication. However, the large
majority of articles submitted to the most prestigious of these journals are rejected.
The questions we ask in empirical research studies can almost all be reduced to
one of two formswhether one group of items is different from another, or whether two
groups are associated with each other. All that we really measure in research are these
two thingsdifferences or associations. Differences are usually measured as the
difference between averages or means, and association is usually measured as a
correlation. We refer to the difference or the association as the effect, and to its
magnitude as the effect size (technically, this is a raw effect, not standardized, but this
point need not concern us here).
For example, we want to know whether classroom training for workers actually
improves job performance. We may sample people given classroom training and people
not given classroom training, and compare their job performance to see whether there is a
difference. We could also see whether people given more hours of training perform better
13
than those with fewer hours, to see whether the amount of classroom training is associated
with job performance. The research question is to see whether differences in training are
related to differences in performance, i.e., a performance effect.
Since we call this kind of question an hypothesis, the overall process of collecting
data and analyzing it this way is hypothesis testing. Also, we almost always base our
studies on samples of people, rather than a whole population. We state our hypothesis in a
form known as a null hypothesis, which proposes that the groups to be evaluated are
assumed to be drawn from the same population, even if we really do not think they are.
For example, even though we sample people given classroom training and people not
given classroom training, the null hypothesis says that we assume there will be no
difference in performance between them, as if they came from the same untrained
populationthis is why we call the hypothesis null. The objective of testing the null
hypothesis is to see whether we can reject itthe null hypothesis is a straw man we try
to knock down. If the difference is big enough, or the association strong enough, we reject
the null hypothesis, and conclude that we cannot say that classroom training did not make
a diffeence in job performance (but we still cannot say with certainty that it did). This
may seem a strange way to do empirical research, but this method lets us use some very
powerful statistical tools.
How do we know if we found anything? To answer that question, we need to look
at the effect size, and that is straightforward: if there is a difference between things, or an
association between things, how big is it? The problem is deciding when an effect is big
enough to be meaningful. There are no short, good answers to that questionin the end, it
falls on the researcher to conclude that the effect size is meaningful, and on the consumer
to decide if the researcher has made a convincing case.
So far, this all sounds very good, and these general methods can be applied to
many different kinds of data. This analytical technique can be a very powerful tool if used
correctly. Unfortunately, there are several problems in the soft social science model which
greatly limit the utility of much academic business research. Although I am treating them
separately, they are highly interdependent. Three problems in particular are endemic to
the soft social science research tradition: (1) the lack of research replication; (2) the
inability to cumulate or generalize the results of research; and (3) the incorrect
interpretation of statistical significance.
These problems are discussed in more detail in Chapter 4, but the practices of the
soft social science model are such that virtually no research is ever replicated, so that
errors may go undetected, challenges to published interpretations of findings are not likely
to be reported, or failures to replicate a published study are not reported. For a number of
reasons, there is a premium placed on novelty and originality in this research tradition, so
that nearly every study published is dissimilar in some respects to previous work (even on
the same subject), so cumulation of research toward reasonably firm conclusions is not
possible.
14
Finally, statistical significance has effectively become a substitute for effect sizes,
meaning that many conclusions based on support from statistical significance are highly
questionable, and any finding based on a large sample will be able to claim support for a
theory based on rejection of the null hypothesis. This is simply an error, and is a very
serious limitation to the credibility of research based on soft social science methods. For
present purposes, the only thing we need to be aware of is that the p level tells us the
likelihood that we got the data we did as a result of sampling error, or P(D|H), and nothing
more.
The consumer should always be mindful of an obvious but crucial difference
between the social and physical sciencesthe physical world can be counted on to behave
in ways determined by physical forces, and the world of human behavior cannot. In the
business world, this is especially true since organizations strive to differentiate themselves
from others, and to find a niche where they can succeed. This precaution becomes very
important when reading popular-market books based on the research. But because of
the limitations of academic research based on statistical significance, just about any
position on any argument can be supported in that literature as well. Most academic
researchers make the statistical misinterpretations discussed above, and the best journals
are filled with them.
Effect Size Is What Matters. How should we evaluate an empirical study if we need to?
The answer to that problem is straightforward: the user should consider the effect size, and
can use that to further evaluate the power of the test. Power in the broad sense (i.e, not
strictly just 1 - $) depends on three things: (1) the effect size, (2) the level of statistical
significance, as a check on P(D|H), and (3) sample size.
For example, if we measured two groups on a five-point scale of performance on
some task, is it important that the average for Group A is 3.87, and the average for Group
B is 3.99? On a five-point scale, a difference of 0.12 units (the effect) is so small we
would probably conclude it means nothing; on the other hand, means of 3.13 and 3.99 are
far enough apart to indicate that these groups probably differ in some material way. This
is exactly what effect means.
Effect sizes in tests of association are usually expressed as correlation coefficients
(r for simple correlation and R for multiple correlation). Correlations are best interpreted
conservatively as squared values: that interpretation is literally the percentage of variance
in the dependent variable explained by the independent variable(s). An r of .21 explains a
little more than 4 percent of the variance in the dependent variable (.0441, to be exact)
the other 96 percent is unexplained.
The interpretation of findings through statistical power makes very good sense: we
consider sample size (and method, by implication) to determine if we have enough of the
right cases to measure what we want; we check statistical significance to estimate the risk
of sampling error; and then we see how big the effect is. Based primarily on the latter, we
15
make our call as to what the results tell us. (Although it is never seen in the management
or social sciences, I agree with Cohen (1990, 1994) that confidence intervals should be
reported as well.) When reading a paper, look for direct reporting of effectsusually
mean differences or correlation coefficients (there are also specialized and standardized
measures of effect size, but these are rarely used). Since results reported in many studies
are not measures of effect size, be prepared to simply disregard them.
There has been a recent important improvement in the reporting of results. Since
1995, the American Psychological Association has required publication of R2 and adjusted
R2. Shortly thereafter, the Academy of Management followed suit, and an article by
Waller, Huber, and Glick (1995) actually discussed the importance of Type II error (an
important source of error which is completely ignored when the criterion of merit is
statistical significance); there was even a short discussion of the issue of statistical power
in that article. In addition, there are some journals where publication of data to support
meta-analysis has been encouraged, to allow better accumulation of studies (see Hunter,
Schmidt, and Jackson (1982) for a clear and convincing explanation of meta-analysis, or
Schmidt (1992) for a briefer discussion; like Cohen (1990, 1994), I am a big fan of metaanalysis).
The American Psychological Association Task Force on Statistical Inference
(Wilkinson & the Task Force on Statistical Inference, 1999), about which we will hear
more in Chapter 4, also recommended some positive changes in reporting and discussing
research results. But unfortunately, the Task Force failed to fully confront the limitations
of significance testing, and that problem persists and in fact, is spreading and
contaminating other areas of research outside the soft social sciences.
Interpreting Survey Results. I noted earlier that if a researcher does not get all the
members of a survey sample, the results cannot be truly considered as representative. This
is where many surveys get into trouble, and can become misleading. Allowing
respondents to select themselves (actively or passivelyi.e., allowing some participants to
not participate, or simply not chasing down the final hard-to-reach subjects) creates what
Norman Bradburn of the National Opinion Research Centers calls SLOPSSelf
seLected Opinion PollS (Tanur, 1994). However trendy or otherwise interesting, these
are not representative surveys. An example of a SLOPS survey is the famous fax poll
of Ross Perot during the 1992 Presidential campaign. He reported that the overwhelming
response of the survey (50 percent of the American people) was in favor of an
immediate balanced budget. While half of the people who faxed may have stated that
opinion, this was by no meansa representative surveyonly those who were already
watching, a self-selected audience, knew there was a survey being done, and of those the
only respondents were those with a fax machine (which the majority of the population has
never owned).
The problem of wording of survey questions often produces results which are very
good at attracting attention, but very poor at providing information. Daniel Koshland,
editor of Science, refers to these as Oy Veys, rather than true surveys (Tanur, 1994).
Either of these can yield results which are fun, exciting, sensational, and often the raw
16
material for a book or an appearance on a talk show, but they are not science. An example
of this (and a SLOPS as well) was the famous Shere Hite survey of womens relationships
conducted through Redbook magazine. She asked readers to complete an eight-page
longhand form describing womens problems in their relationships with men, and then
published it as representative of the whole population. She made claims such as 98
percent of the women in the US feel men treat them in demeaning ways in their
relationships. The criticism of her incorrect methods became so intense that she
eventually left the US, and now lives in Switzerland (doing the same thing, by the way).
The recent popular book Stiffed (Faludi, 1999) makes an equally serious error of nonrepresentative
sampling of American males, many of which would be considered fringe
groups. All of these are fun to read, but none of them are science, any more than the
conclusions one might reach by surveying customers as they enter a Wal-Mart.
Learning from SurveysFour General Questions. The discussion of surveys
earlier also suggests four very good questions to keep in mind in evaluating nearly any
item from the management literature: (1) Who sponsored the survey (or study, or
article)?; (2) How was the sample determined (or source of any kind)?; (3) How were the
data collected?; (4) How were the questions worded? For cases involving specific survey
questionnaires, we might also ask, (5) How were options for responses arranged? The
first four questions are useful for just about anything in the literaturebooks and articles
from descriptive and non-research literature, as well as surveys and academic research.
Keep It Simple, Stupid. Another guideline is to place relatively more weight on
conservative statistical procedures, simple designs, and simple methods when making
judgements about the reliability of research claims. It is also completely appropriate to be
skeptical of studies relying on multivariate methods. This is contrary to much of the
conventional wisdom that leads to a bountiful career as an academic researcher, but
multivariate methods often produce statistics which are difficult to interpret clearly, such
as interaction effects. Many multivariate procedures rely on model assumptions which are
frequently unmet, and multivariate methods always capitalize on any form of random
association between measures, no matter what the source. Abelson (1995) points out that
many of these rely on omnibus tests and are about as precise as playing a guitar while
wearing mittens.
In contrast, tests of differences between group means and tests of association
through correlation or contingency tests are robust, well understood, and have meaningful
interpretations. In a literature review, findings based on these simpler procedures should
always be given more weight than results from complex or multivariate procedures.
Simple procedures are always the most powerful.
If these guidelines are followed in evaluating the academic research, using it will
be much easier for the simple reason that the majority of it will be rejected as inconclusive.
And that is completely appropriateno user wants to base important decisions on
ambiguous information, and if that is all there is, then we want to develop our own.
17
On the other hand, while the null hypothesis is something we continue to use in the
academic literature despite its flaws, it suggests a good approach to interpreting much of
what we read from any source: assume it is no different from anything else you have read
before. If you are convinced it had value at the end of the item, then it probably did. But
a willingness to ask hard questions, and a healthy skepticism, is a good perspective for any
consumer or any researcher.
Conclusion
Much of this chapter has focused on the limitations of the different categories of
management literature rather than the relative advantages. In part, I have chosen this
because any of the sources tend to be championed by those who find them most helpful, of
course; there is, in other words, an inherent form of advocacy which characterizes all the
different types of literature. Those who favor the richness and currency of company case
histories prefer the popular and bridge-journal presses; scholars and academics favor the
academic research journals; and so on.
But while I have been critical of all of these sources, each also has its advantages,
and no single source can provide all the information consumers might want for different
purposes. The point is that we need to look at both the roses and the thorns to have a
balanced view of what the literature has to offer. We are fortunate to have rich
information resources available to us, and we want to use that resource as intelligently and
effectively as we can. I hope this guide will provide some assistance in that direction.
Beware the Canals on Mars
There is a famous story about Sir Percival Lowells study of the canals on Mars, based on
his years of observations from the Lowell Observatory. He saw them because he knew
they were there from the 1877 work of Giovanni Schiaparelli, and carefully documented
and mapped how they changed over the seasons. He also found almost four times as
many canali as Schiaparelli! Having our present knowledge of Mars topography from
unmanned landings and close satellite photography, we now know there are no such
features at all. True believers in a particular management approach (or anything else) will
always find support for it. This is true for any kind of literature at all, and if even the
most careful of hard scientists can fall prey to it, the popular press and social sciences are
even more prone. Beware of the canals on Mars!
18


There are faxes for this order.

You are expected to complete one Literature Review Essay on the topic of Corporate Governance. Please use the following steps to write your Literature Review Essays.

1. Search for relevant research articles:

Search for academic, social science research literature (you must use the list of journals provided below) that deal with the assigned topic. Read and review the article abstracts from this search, then pick only one article to print and read completely.

2. Write an ?annotated bibliography? style Essay on the chosen article (write about one article only):

An ?annotated bibliography? style essay consists of first providing the article source information (i.e. author, title, citation APA style), and then providing a summary of the article (note: you cannot simply copy the article?s abstract, you must create a much longer summary in your own words). Your citation must follow the American Psychological Association Style Guidelines, but follow my instructions on line spacing (the document should be double-spaced throughout; place page numbers in the upper-right corner). Please see the attached AMJ Guide for authors for some examples.

The summary should contain the following:

The purpose of the article;
The design and/or methodological approach of the article;
The findings of the article;
The conclusions of the article;
Avoid direct quotations, you will loose at least 5 points for each quotation included; and,
Make your essay from 800 to 1000 words in length. Cover page, student information, and references are not included in the 800-1000 word range


Please check the available rubrics for this assignment before submitting your work.

All Essays must be uploaded as a Word doc file. Your essays must be submitted in Blackboard by the due date and time. Please attach the academic article as a PDF file. No late work will be accepted, and please type appropriate for a graduate level course (this is not text messaging).



All of your articles MUST come from journals in this list of academic periodicals in the field of management strategy. No exceptions!

Academy of Management Journal
Academy of Management Review
Administrative Science Quarterly
British Journal of Management
European Management Journal
Global Strategy Journal
International Journal of Applied Strategic Management
International Journal of Strategic Change Management
Journal of Applied Management
Journal of Management
Journal of Management and Strategy
Journal of Management Studies
Journal of Strategy and Management
Management Quarterly
Organization Science
Organization Studies
Strategic Management Journal

Please answer the following questions please number the answers



Study Questions: J. Gaventa, Power and Powerlessness, Preface & Chapter1

1. What groups (e.g. social classes) live in Gaventas study area of Appalachia, and what are the relations of social inequality between these groups?

2. Describe the three dimensions of social power, and give examples of each.

3. How does Gaventa relate the three dimensions of social power to each other?

4. In the preface to Power and Powerlessness, Gaventa describes an encounter with a coal minor. How might the three dimensions of social power explain this miners reluctance to participate in an effort to raises taxes on land owned by the coal company?

5. What is a counterfactual, and why does this matter for social science research?

There are faxes for this order.

Customer is requesting that
There are faxes for this order.

Customer is requesting that (dmusings) completes this order.

I need a personal statement explaining my immediate and long-range occupational objectives in relation to the PhD in Educational Policy I want to pursue. Currently, I am a full time professional academic librarian. As a professional librarian, I am a uniquely qualified PhD candidate, for the librarian field affords a wealth of experience, opportunity and skills that are very transferable to other professions. Skills that include but are not limited to: knowledge and experience in reference, bibliography, and information services, acquisitions and collection development, cataloging and classification of library and media materials, and the application of computer technology to different areas in academia.

My first exposure to this reality was a library internship in London where I assisted professors at Florida State University London Study Center with their research, and benefited from the experience of conducting research outside of the United States.

After this internship I secured a job as a media specialist at a high school, where the economics teacher fell ill the last half of the school year. Subsequently I taught Economics and American Government to seniors, and this experience helped me understand the teacher/student relationship in K-12 classroom, and how students view research at this stage.



In my current position as a Policy Studies Librarian at the University of Washington in Seattle, and my previous librarian position at the University of Minnesota, I honed my statistical skills in finding and interpreting data, and navigating through the ?information explosion? that is characteristic of social science research. Statistical research is the lifeblood of the type of research I wish to pursue during my PhD so I am well armed to perform all types of data analysis for my research to be a successful Ph. D candidate.


Here is a description of the program:

The doctor of philosophy (Ph.D.) degree with a program emphasis in comparative and international development education (CIDE), administered by the Graduate School and offered by the Department of Educational Policy and Administration (EdPA), provides an opportunity for intensive study of comparative education, international development education, and international educational exchange. CIDE uses an interdisciplinary approach for the study of education?s role in economic, political, and sociocultural development; international educational exchange; and the internationalization of education.


I do not have a high GPA or high GRE scores, partly because I have had to work my entire way through school, since my parents immigrated to this country and didn't even know the language, much less hold down awell paying job. I need to explain this in the essay as factors that have influenced my Grade point average or test scores, for example, if your educational has been generally disadvantaged I need these factors articulated successfully in my personal statement.

the task here is to design a very small social science research project. the first task, is to select a question you want to answer about diversity issues in your workplace or one that you are familiar with. some ideas:
1. identification and analysis of how differences might affect workplace interaction.
2. gender issues that exist in the workplace management or work place interaction.
3. differences that may exist that appear to threaten workplace productivity, confuse workplace communications, and/or enhance workplace productivity and/or communications.
4. leadership styles and how one or another might be more useful in a diverse workplace.

you can select one of the above, all of the above, or any combination of the above in creating your survey and data collection activites. these activites can include any or all of the following research methods: interviews,surveys,participant observation activites. once you have gathered your data, write a 8 page paper that:
1. introduces the issue, the organization youre looking at and the method you chose to collect your data(include reasons for selecting this method)
2. specifically details how you conducted your research(e.g rationale behind survey questions, how you picked your sample, what your starting hypotheses were, reaction to your project by co-workers, etc.)
3. provides an analysis of your data.
4. provides a conclusion section in which you discuss the implications of your findings and how they might be useful to improve your workplace or for some other purpose.

Source: Diversity in Organizations: New Perspectives for a Changing Workplace by Martin M.Chemers

The Survey Resources Network pulls together extensive information about designing surveys and questions for the academic community in England. The link below will take you to an archive of questionnaires used in social science research projects and annual surveys. The BCS is among these. Select the most current year and follow the links to the questionnaire modules used in the BCS. Then select the "Self-completion Module Questionnaires," which produces a transcript of the CASI items in the BCS.
Write a paragraph that explains how this CASI transcript illustrates general principles we have discussed in this chapter.
http://surveynet.ac.uk/sqb/qb/docs/surveys.htm ( Assignment #1)


Web Survey Methodology (WebSM) presents information on a variety of topics in connection with conducting web-based surveys. A series of links to available software is presented. Though the site is maintained by a loose coalition of organizations in Europe, it offers much of interest to researchers generally.
Visit the site and write a one-paragraph summary of two articles or topics currently listed on the site.
http://www.websm.org/ ( Asssignment#2)


The web now includes hundreds of firms that will conduct web-based surveys, along with services that enable you to prepare, distribute, and compile results yourself. Though it may seem to counter our advice to use professionals whenever possible, you can learn quite a lot about the mechanics of web surveys by doing one. Fortunately, a number of sites offer varying levels of access ranging from free surveys of very modest scope to more costly subscriptions for large surveys. One example is Surveymonkey.com, where free subscriptions allow users to prepare surveys of 10 questions each, and receive up to 100 responses. Registration is simple. Questionnaire design templates are available. Or you can start from scratch.
Design a five-item questionnaire that you propose to administer to a sample of students in your class. Briefly describe why you are interested in these questions.
http://surveymonkey.com/ ( Assignment# 3)


Among the resources available at the Center for Problem-Oriented Policing (POP Center) is Scott Decker's guide to interviewing offenders. The focus is on applied research, such as how learning more about offender techniques can help develop crime prevention strategies. See the publication, "Theft of and from Autos in Parking Facilities in Chula Vista, California," by Rana Sampson for an example of a questionnaire used to interview offenders that produced detailed information about how cars are stolen. Both can be found on the POP Center website. After reviewing these documents
write a brief summary that describes how you would modify Sampson's questionnaire.
http://www.popcenter.org/tools/offender_interviews/
http://popcenter.org/Library/researcherprojects/TheftCars.pdf ( Assignment#4)


Two related features of Manhattan combine to produce routine counts of pedestrians in different neighborhoods. First, though it's the nation's largest city, New York is very much a pedestrian town. Second, retail shops and other businesses depend on walk-up customers attracted by walk-by displays. Areas of Manhattan that appeal to shoppers and tourists therefore regularly sponsor systematic counts of pedestrians passing by sampled points.

Here are links to pedestrian counts for two such areas: Times Square and Grand Central Station. Each site is maintained by a business improvement district, coalitions of business owners that promote development and general well-being in their areas. The document for Grand Central presents details on how the counts are conducted, including the specific locations of observers. Read the Grand Central Station document. Then go to the site for Times Square.
Select counts for two or three dates and describe any evidence of seasonal variation you see. What might account for the patterns you detect?
http://www.timessquarenyc.org/facts/PedestrianCounts.html
http://www.grandcentralpartnership.org/pdfs/Pedestrian_Counts_Dec%202005.pdf ( Assignment #5)


In the course of research on car crime in northern New Jersey, the police learned of a wave of headlight thefts. Beginning in 2002, thefts of high-intensity headlights from a certain car make and model became very common. A surveillance video of a theft showed thieves taking two lights in about 40 seconds. Some people were repeatedly victimized, including a Newark police officer whose headlights were stolen on two occasions. But the all-time repeat victim lived in a Bloomfield, New Jersey, apartment complex; this person's headlights were stolen five times in about 13 months. If you examine an aerial photo of the complex and its parking lot, you'll see why this was an attractive location for thieves to repeatedly strike.

Using a mapping program that also includes satellite photos (for example, http://maps.google.com), type in this address: 188 Watchung Ave, Bloomfield, NJ.

Zoom in a couple of clicks and you will see the pointer in front of an L-shaped building at the corner of Watchung Avenue and
Broughton Avenue
. That's where the repeat victim lived and parked his car. Zoom in closer and you will see the parking lot behind the building, partly screened by trees. Next to the building's driveway on Watchung Avenue (to the east, or right) is the southbound entrance to the Garden State Parkway, an expressway leading to Newark about six miles to the south.
(1 ) Write a brief report (two paragraphs) that explains why this appears to be an ideal place for headlight thieves.

More generally, the availability of satellite photos makes it possible to "observe" substantial detail in just about any part of the country. Other web-based services show photos all over the world.

As another exercise, view the parking lot for the New Jersey Transit train station in Princeton Junction. Type in: 2 Wallace Road, Princeton Junction, NJ. Switch to satellite view and zoom in a couple of clicks.

You will see hundreds of cars parked on both sides of the tracks in sprawling parking lots. These are commuter cars, belonging to people traveling the 40 miles or so to New York and Newark.
(2) Write a brief report (two paragraphs) that explains why this setting might be a high risk location for auto theft.

Now, consider the photo in a slightly more analytic way. It offers a way to approximate the population at risk of car theft??"the number of vehicles parked in station lots. Because the lot is full, it's reasonable to assume that demand for parking is high and it will probably always be full on weekdays. (Assignment#6)

The Social Research Update website has a very useful article on general resources for survey research available online. These are grouped into four categories: questionnaires available and the Centre for Applied Social Surveys, organizations that conduct surveys, data providers, and general resources.

Old - not working http://www.soc.surrey.ac.uk/sru/SRU41.html
Corrected URL http://sru.soc.surrey.ac.uk/SRU41.html


Customer is requesting that (Isak) completes this order.

Unit Two Exercise
(due at the end of week four)

CHECKLIST FOR INTERDISCIPLINARIANS

Turn to exercise 4-1 on page 41 of the Augsburg book called, "Checklist for Interdisciplinarians"

Instead of the book directions, please follow these directions:

Evaluate all 21 items listed. Put each trait/characteristic into one of two lists:
Traits/characteristics that you have
Traits/characteriscs that you do not have
Define each trait/characteristic. There is a text book definition for some of these terms, however, do not copy the word for word definition from the book. Read, assimilate, and interpret the information, and then explain it in your own words. Be as comprehensive as possible.
If it is a trait that you have, in addition to the definition, provide personal examples and explain how having this trait helps you.
If it is a trait that you do not have, in addition to the definition, explain why you think you might be lacking this trait and what you can do to obtain it.
College level writing is expected.

Grammar, spelling, punctuation, and sentence structure are always important. Having someone else read your paper sometimes helps.

Unit Overview
An exploration of the social sciences

Unit two will build a framework of understanding for the social sciences. Some scholars feel that perhaps there has never been an invention that changed society as much as the Gutenberg printing press. Many feel that it changed thinking itself and led to the modern age of technology that we have today.

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Unit Objectives
After completing this unit, students will be able to:

Have a thorough understanding of the Gutenberg printing press and its impacts on society.
Define and understand what the social sciences are.
Understand what critical thinking means and begin to apply it to your evaluation of topics and writing.
Understand and define the traits and characteristics of a successful interdisciplinarian.
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Required Text Book Readings
Please read chapters three and four of Becoming Interdisciplinary.

Read chapter four of Writing and Reading Across the Curriculum - Make sure you have a thorough understanding of synthesis. Synthesizing information is very important in interdisciplinary inquiry.

Read pages 778-779 of Writing and Reading Across the Curriculum on APA documentation basics.

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What do we mean by the social sciences?
Social science is the study of society and social behavior. The social sciences deal with the patterns and interrelationships of human behavior. Obviously, many animals are social, such as bees and wolves; however, the study of the social behavior of non-humans is usually classified as natural science.

We must remember that the different disciplines often overlap and this is particularly the case with the social sciences. Primatology (the study of primates, such as apes and monkeys), for example, often becomes part of anthropology (the study of simpler human cultures.) Oftentimes, as your Liberal Studies courses will prove, the combination of disciplines and methodologies reveals more than utilizing a single discipline and its methodologies.

Social science can use a combination of humanities and natural science methods to evaluate issues. In anthropology, there are cultural anthropologists who study the behaviors of simpler cultures. A cultural anthropologist might take up residence in a community of hunters and gatherers in the Amazon and study their values and patterns of marriage, inheritance, and means of survival. A physical anthropologist, on the other hand, would use hard science methods to study the physical characteristics of living or dead people. A forensic anthropologist would be a physical anthropologist who specializes in studying bones and other remains for identification and other legal purposes. An archaeologist is an anthropologist who uses exacting scientific methods, such as carbon-14 dating and pollen analysis, to study the artifacts of past cultures in order to understand their history and social characteristics.

Similarly, although history is usually viewed as one of the traditional humanities, many historians think of themselves as social scientists. The historian who gathers records and recollections of past events in order to interpret them is using the methodology of the humanities. However, the historian who uses a statistical analysis of property ownership during the reign of Henry VIII or analyzes birth rates in colonial Massachusetts, is engaged in methodologies normal to the natural scientist.

In summary, what characterizes the social sciences is the subject of human behavior on a social level. The social sciences often combine the techniques common to the humanities with those common to the natural sciences.

What subjects make up the social sciences?
The subjects normally included in (but not limited to) the social sciences are sociology, psychology, anthropology, history, economics, ethnology, political science, religious studies, gender studies, economics, education, and law.

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Why might some scholars feel that the scientific method doesn't apply very well to the social sciences?
One of the main reasons is that in the scientific method you have a puzzle solving component which includes both scientific predictability and scientific falsification through experimentation guided by a strict set of rules. Yet academic pursuits like psychoanalysis, sociology, and even economics have difficulty in making precise predictions at all, let alone ones that provide for clear confirmation or unambiguous refutation.

Other scholars disagree. They feel that even though social science research doesn't produce the precise results of the natural sciences, it does produce research results that can identify trends and changes. Some scholars also feel that the function of research is different in the social sciences. This research describes behavior and therefore, outcomes are measured and monitored differently.

Here is an article that explores this important issue with the social sciences:

Are the Social Sciences Scientific?
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Critical Thinking Zone - Social sciences food for thought
One of the primary goals of the College of Liberal Studies is to improve your critical thinking skills as you work your way through these courses and the program. Finely tuned critical thinking skills can be a plus in any walk of life, at any stage of life.

Here are examples of the kinds of questions that social science scholars are currently asking and exploring through research:

Sociology - What explains the success of social networking sites like Facebook and Myspace?
Psychology - Why do some people feel so sad around the holidays?
Economics - Why did the housing market go into decline in 2008?
Political Science - What role did the internet play in the 2008 Presidential election?
Religious Studies - Is religion playing a bigger or smaller role in American society?