Syllabus SOCW 580 - Winter 2012

1. About this Course: I hope this course will be one of the most fun, challenging, and practical courses you'll take as a graduate student!

   I used the School of Social Work's Guidelines for Research Competency Acquisition in the PhD Program, from the Guidelines on Social Justice Objectives, as well as my conversations and input from prior students as well as the as guides in building the course.

   The course is designed assuming you are coming in with some foundation in quantitative research methods from either undergraduate or masters work, and provides a venue for you to add depth to your knowledge about particular methods and designs. Most of the required readings are drawn from research journal articles.

   If you do not have this foundation, or it needs reinforcing, don't despair: I have also structured the course such that you can build or consolidate a foundation as necessary, but anticipate a bit of extra time to both reinforce your foundation and tackle deeper issues.




2. Aims. I have designed the course to enable you to meet the following objectives.
   
   By the end of Winter Quarter, course participants will:
   • be able to use the logic, terminology, and methods of standard social science approaches to experimental, quasi-experimental, survey and applied program evaluation research;
   • be able to design defensible research studies that demonstrate the effects (outcomes) of a deliberately manipulated or naturally occurring change (intervention or cause);
   • be familiar with the strengths and limitations of quantitative and qualitative approaches to scholarship, and standard approaches to combining qualitative and quantitative methods for research purposes;
   • understand the steps or phases in the research process (e.g., problem definition, concept explication, hypothesis formulation, etc.);
   • be able to apply ethical principles of research (e.g., human subjects review, ethical constraints, vulnerability of at-risk populations, etc.);
   • understand issues involved in instrument development (e.g., construction of questionnaires, interview guides, scales, etc.);
   • understand approaches to sampling (e.g., types of probability and nonprobability sampling, mechanics of sample drawing);
   • be familiar with common data collection procedures (e.g., research interviewing, observation, archival);
   • be able to describe the logic of how data will be analyzed to draw conclusions about the effectiveness of an intervention or strengths of a model in a correlational study;
   • have practiced writing a research proposal.
   
   
   Come see me (!) if you have any questions or concerns about the material, assignments or the course, -or- if you're just curious about career options, etc. and would like to drop by!



3. Course Outline, Requirements & Grading. There are four graded components to the course: a methodological critique of an intervention study (20%), a methodological critique of a correlational study (20%), a final consolidated research proposal (40%) and class participation (20%, reflected by coming prepared to class, participating in discussions and doing the smaller exercises 1-6). I would prefer you turn your assignments in by e-copy that I may return them, in turn, with e-comments.

   A rough overview of the course follows. For a more detailed version, follow the link Session Schedule at left.

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   topic
   • intro - developing theories of change regarding social processes and
   • interventions
   • ethics in social work research
   • bias in research
   • conceptualization/operationalization
   • design choice
   • sampling
   • power
   • measurement/instrument design
   • experiments & quasi-experiments
   • experiments & quasi-experiments case studies
   • correlation i - issues
   • correlation ii - methods
   • mixed methods
   • evaluation research
   
   

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   Most research is collaborative, so I encourage you to ask your classmates to read and provide feedback on each other's work as you go along. The ability to review and critique colleagues' work is another important skill that would be good to build in this course.
   
   Since the course is highly interactive, everyone in the class will benefit from consistent attendance.



4. Texts and Reading. Please read the assignment prior to the date indicated in the weekly syllabus! I've tried to keep the reading load down so you aren't just "reading to the assignment." Each reading will aid in the assignment you are working on that week, and will, of course, promote class discussion. Some portion of each class I will likely present some ideas of the topic of the day, however, the major portion of each class will be used for discussion where we can see how the week's readings illustrate each aspect of the research process.
   
   In trying to not overload you with reading to permit time to work on your research designs and proposal sections, I have divided the reading portion of this course to consist of three types: required, foundational, and deeper reading. The required readings are typically drawn from journal articles. They are essential to successfully meet the aims of the course and are what provide the depth expected in a graduate research methods course. The foundational readings are available on each topic for you to build or strengthen your foundation as needed. Typically the foundational readings are from the Asaluutari, Bickman & Brannen text. Each week I would suggest skimming the contents of the foundational chapter to see if you have learned this sufficiently from prior courses and review the concepts a bit. If you find topics or terms in the chapter that are new to you, then go ahead and read it more closely, followed by the required reading. Finally, the "deeper reading" sources are provided if you would like to dig a bit deeper on any given topic than we have in the required readings.
   
   Texts.For years I have had quite a difficult time finding and deciding upon a good text. Each year I find myself relying more and more on original articles. I am recommending a short text that we will read mostly at the start of the quarter that I think will serve you as a reference for later years when you would like to write research proposals. This text, Research Design: Qualitative, Quantitative and Mixed Methods Approaches (by John Creswell, 2009), should serve as a resource/reference for you for years to come. The Shadish, Cook and Campbell text is the classic bible on design (recently revised and updated!), but doesn't include many of the non-design research issues like ethics, instrument design, program evaluation, etc., and is a bit pricey. Thus I selected the Creswell text to support our journal article readings, and occasionally have an SCC chapter as needed. Both books are on reserve in the Social Work library.
   
   
   
   You are encouraged to suggest alternative or additional readings and topics for seminar discussion.
   
   


5. Late work. Please bring your notes, etc. for each exercise to class on the day we are to discuss the topic. If you're going to miss a class, please send me an email so I can know not to wait for you to start the class. Please turn the methodological critique and the final paper in early or on time.



6. Special Needs. If you would like to request academic accommodations due to a disability, please contact Disability Resources for Students, 448 Schmitz, 206-543-8924/V, 206-543-8925/TTY. If you have a letter from the office of Disability Resources for Students indicating you have a disability that requires academic accommodations, please present the letter to me so we can discuss the accommodations you might need for this class.



7. Content on Diversity. This course addresses a diversity of ideas, conceptual frameworks, research participant populations and uses for data and social research. In addition, course participants will be encouraged to relate theoretical and methodological choices in research design to their own values, interests, experience and professional goals.



8. Format for the Course. The course is conducted in seminar format for which discussion of the assigned readings and peer exchange comprise major components. I see my role as helping you to explore key themes and issues, identify resources for acquiring knowledge beyond what can be covered during class time, sharpen your critical skills, and acquire information and skills crucial to the design of valid and meaningful research. One of my primary roles is to foster a stimulating, supportive classroom environment in which you may serve as resources for one another.



9. Course Evaluations: In addition to on-going informal feedback from participants throughout the quarter, participants will be asked to provide written evaluation of the course and the instructor's contributions to it on forms provided and collected by the Educational Assessment Center. Participation in these evaluations is voluntary.



10. teaching philosophy

    Years ago, when I was teaching at Wellesley College, I wrote out my teaching philosophy at that time, and talked about it with my students. Recently, some of the second year SSW doctoral students taking the teaching seminar asked faculty for their teaching philosophies, which prompted me to dig mine up. I hadn't made it explicit for this course. I was surprised to see that it had remained consistent in its core, but I've learned a lot since then.

    At the time I wrote this, I was reading a lot and inspired by Freire and Vygotsky, and it comes through pretty clearly now in retrospect. Here is what I wrote when I was teaching Psychology in the 1990's:

    Some general thoughts on learning/teaching: Traditionally education has taken a form which assumes that the student's consciousness is and should be merely an empty receptacle to be "filled," and the classroom context is reduced to a situation in which the educator as "the one who knows" transfers existing, fixed, indisputable knowledge to the learner as "the one who does not know." In this traditional form, a distant, omniscient professor presents the Truth through lecture, while the students quietly, passively sit and take notes, never daring to question or examine the assumptions and content of the material. The students become, in effect, domesticated, and the professor is locked into the stultifying role of the domesticator.

    I think education should take a more humane form. In this view, the student takes an active part in studying the material. Studying becomes a form of reinventing, re creating, rethinking, rewriting the ideas of people who, through studying, wrote them. In humanistic education, the classroom becomes a non authoritarian, non competitive, and supportive environment where the students and educator can examine the material in relation to themselves, and themselves in relation to the material. In this context the instructor serves as a guide, as one who has walked through these fields before, and thus can point out certain landmarks and views, but s/he is a guide who, through student insights, each time discovers new views and dangerous pitfalls. Together, the students and teacher create a zone within which their mutual learning and development can occur.

    In this view, the responsibility for learning is shared jointly between teacher and students: I must do my part guiding you through the material during our class periods, responding to your course work, and coordinating the class activities, and you must do your part reading the material, attending and participating in the class, and contributing to your group's project.

    When applied to psychology, humanistic education requires us to actively question the material in relation to ourselves and to what we know of other humans; axiological questions such as: What is the view of human nature bound up in this theory? What cultural values are hidden in this theory's rational scientific framework? How, if at all, does this theory respond to things I know about myself? Do people really think (behave, react, feel, etc.) this way? In what context might the theoretical framework be a valid view, and in what context wouldn't it work?

    If you would like to read similar views of critical pedagogy, a good place to start is with the following:

    • Freire, P. (1985). The Politics of Education: Culture, power and liberation. S. Hadley: Bergen & Garvey Pub.
    • McLaren, P. & Leonard, P., Eds., (1993). Paulo Freire: A critical encounter. NY: Routledge.
    • Wertsch, J. V. (1985). Vygotsky and the Social Formation of Mind, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass., and London.

    Over the years teaching here at UW-SSW, I think these ideas remain at the core of my pedagogical philosophy, but I've become much more interested in issues of social justice inquiry, both through interrogating the content about issues of power, privilege and oppression, and in seeking to establish a learning environment consistent with these principles. Lately I've enjoyed reading Bourdieu (at the suggestion of one of my doctoral students, Olivia Lee), and appreciate his emphasis on reciprocal interactions between people and their social contexts in thinking about ontology, agency and power. For the last couple of years, I've also enjoyed thinking about how our communication (for example, in the classroom) is informed by difference. A lot of my thinking about this (the importance of difference) comes from reading Emmanuel Levinas. I also appreciated Levinas' emphasis on a fundamental (foundational) duty to the other.

11. A Final Comment: I hope this is a great experience for you; that you deepen your knowledge of research methods and are intellectually challenged and have fun doing it!