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AIS5026 - Research Design for the Social Sciences

Offering Academic Unit
Department of Asian and International Studies
Credit Units
3
Course Duration
One semester
Exclusive Courses:
Course Offering Term*:
Semester A 2019/20

* The offering term is subject to change without prior notice
 
Course Aims

This course offers an introduction to key methodological approaches required to understand, critically analyze, and explain problems in social sciences. It first covers philosophical, ethical and practical issues regarding systematic social inquiry. It then provides students with specific tools and techniques for empirical research in social sciences, including literature review, case studies, qualitative interviews, focus group and participant observation, quantitative surveys and questionnaires, archival research and e-research. Students will learn the necessary skills for conducting and evaluating social inquiry as well as crafting an independent research project. The core assignment is a research “proposal” (not a “paper”) in which students wishing to write a Master’s Thesis in Semester B must design an original “project” (successful completion of the course with a grade of B+ or above is required to do so). The course will be an opportunity for students to bring their own research questions into the class, on a topic of their choice and discuss their research design and methodology.

Course Aims

This course aims to provide students with the ability to: (1) design, plan, write and disseminate a polished research project, (2) identify a research problem in social sciences and develop hypotheses to effectively describe, examine, critique, and solve that problem, (3) build arguments that are coherent, empirically supported, theoretically grounded, and logically sound, as well as evaluate arguments made by others, (4) understand the values and limitations of different methodological approaches and evaluate scholarly work based on the merits of research design and instruments, (5) collect data and evaluate the reliability and validity of selected references and sources, and (6) identify, and comply with, ethical issues related to social inquiry.


Assessment (Indicative only, please check the detailed course information)

Continuous Assessment: 100%
 
Detailed Course Information

AIS5026.pdf

Useful Links

Department of Asian and International Studies