Social Research Design: Principles and Methods
Unit code: HASP309
| Credit points | 12.5 Credit Points |
| Duration | 1 Semester |
| Contact hours | 3 Hours per Week |
| Campus | Hawthorn |
| Prerequisites | Nil |
| Corequisites | Nil |
Related course(s)
A unit of study in the Bachelor of Social Science, Bachelor of Social Science (Psychology), Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Arts (Media and Communications) .
Aims and objectives
- To develop understanding of quantitative research techniques.
- To develop an understanding of research design.
- To develop understanding of the links between existing research and new research.
Generic skills outcomes
- Capacity to develop and test arguments through the use of numerical data.
- Time and resource management skills in planning for the execution of a substantial piece of independent work based on quantitative techniques.
- Capacity to evaluate social research based on quantitative techniques.
- Understanding the relationship between research, and political, ethical and theoretical constraints.
Content
- Objectivity and social research
- Research design and ethics
- Problems of measurement
- Questionnaires and structured interview schedules
- Computer assisted Telephone Interviewing (CATI)
- Non-random samples
- Random samples
- Secondary data
- Content analysis
- Evaluation research
- Analysing data
- Writing research proposals and research reports
