Weekly Web Resources

New items are constantly being added.

Week 1 Introduction to the Class and Social Research

Week 2 The Ethics and Politics of Social Research

• Protection of Human Research Subjects This is the National Institues of Health site where EVERY CUNY researcher has to go for computer based training in order to do resarch with human subjects. When you finish the training you get a certificate.

• Code of Professional Ethics and Practices from the American Association for Public Opinion Research
  
• From the American Evaluation Association read "Guiding Principles for Evaluators" (paying particular attention to the sections on Integrity/Honesty, Respect for People, and responsibilities for General and Public Welfare."

• The Joint Committee on Educational Evaluation Standards produced important and more detailed standards for evaluators.
  

• Human Subjects and Research Ethics This site has many very useful resources.

• American Anthropological Association

• Human Subjects/Participants and Research Ethics from the University of Wales, Bangor.

• On Being a Scientist:Responsible Conduct in Research An on-line book published by the National Academy of Sciences.

• Web sources about Milgram and Other Controversial Studies

Week 3 Unobtrusive Research I. Using the Internet, Secondary Data Analysis

• Internet searching All of these search methods provide information on how to use them. Usually you need to click on the word help.

• About the internet and types of resources available

• Netscape tutorial Covers the important points. Hint: At the bottom of each section there is an arrow pointing to the left. Click on that (or the Netscape back button) when you are done with a lesson. Start with basic navigation and then go through each item in order.

• Lehman Library Home page

• Don't forget to follow up on some of the internet resources given on the theme pages.

Week 4 Unobtrusive Research II : Content Analysis and other approaches

• Content Analysis resource page.

• Examples of Content Analysis

• Matthias' Content Analysis Page

• Content Analysis: bibliography (and much more)

Week 5 Secondary Data Analysis and Elementary Statistics

• The Gallup Poll - How Polls are Conducted

• National Council on Public Polls
• On The Road To Consensus (Introduction) This document describes the Americans Talk About Issues Foundation's surveys that are supposed to help AMericans reach consensus on social issues. Along the way there is a lot of interesting information about the process of survey research.

Week 6 Surveys I Operationalization and measurement

• Guidelines for writing questions

• Here's a link to a question bank which will let you look at ways different surveys have operationalized various concepts. You might try searching for a particular topic. This is a site that is under construction, so it doesn't always have everything it promises on a given topic. The topics marked "new" tend to be the most complete.

• Here's a good overview of validity issues. Click on the different types of validity. In this unit we are particularly focusing on construct validity. Also, another page from the same place deals with measurement validity types in a more specific way. And, yes, they also have a unit on reliability which goes into more depth than Babbie.

• This issue of Social Research Update uses the problem of measuring fear of crime to examine issues surrounding open and close ended questions.

• The Blind Men and the Elephant is an Indian folktale that can also teach us about multidimensionality and the problem of developing reliable measurement procedures.

• Surveys involving diaries are one way that researchers can study how people use their time. This article from Social Research Update describes this approach and some issues about its validity and reliability.

• Here's a link to the General Social Survey which Babbie discusses. If you look at the codebook you can see the actual questions. You can also create simple tables.

• Who Can See the Wind? A real poem that I think reflects some of the issues we face in trying to measure things.

Week 7 Surveys II Carrying out Survey Research

• Here are some links to major polling organizations. On many of these you can fill out a survey. Go ahead and do so. You can also try to think about whether you would pose the questions in the same way.

• Gallup Poll
• Harris Poll Online You can read about their on-line polling uder "questions", "privacy" and "how you benefit." (You can also sign up to be on their panel.

• This page from the Business Research Lab gives a lot of good advice about designing surveys and carrying out surveys under their General Research Tips. Browse through it and look at topics that interest you.

• This issue of Social Research Update deals with telephone surveys.

• Market Research on the Web Has a section on quantitative market research and, specifically, using the internet to do it.

• My page on designing a survey using a word processor.

Week 8 Sampling

• This KnowledgeBase site goes through a lot of the sampling basics in a pretty clear way. (William M. The Research Methods Knowledge Base, 2nd Edition. Internet WWW page, at URL:<http://trochim.human.cornell.edu/kb/index.htm> (version current as of April 09, 1999))

• The Science of Sampling--Telephone Surveys, The Science of Sampling--Mall Intercept Samples from the Business Research Lab are very interesting pieces on special topics in sampling.

Week 9 Field Work and Qualitative Research I

• QualPage Contains lots of information and resources on qualitative research of all types assembled by Judith Norris.
• Market Research on the Web This has a nice introduction to qualitative market research.

Week 10 Field Work and Qualitative Research II

Week 11

Field Work and Qualitative Research III

• Narrative Psychology: An Internet Guide by Vincent W. Hevern, S.J., this is a very thorough collection of resources and bibliography on the use of narrative approaches to qualitative research.

• Focus groups are another qualitative method featured in this issue of Social Research Update.

Week 12 Experiments, Evaluation Research, and Single System Design I

• Here's a detailed KnowledgeBase page on experimental design. This is from: Trochim, William M. The Research Methods Knowledge Base, 2nd Edition. Internet WWW page, at URL:<http://trochim.human.cornell.edu/kb/index.htm> (version current as of April 09, 1999)

• American Evaluation Association Look at some of their "other sites of interest to evaluators."

• Bureau of Justice Administration Electronic Road Map for Evaluation

• CYFERNet ™ Evaluation Resources

Week 13

• Introduction to A Primer on Single-Subject Design for Clinical Social Workers by Tony Tripodi and published by the NASW press.

• Christine Marlow "Single Subject Designs" in Research Methods for Generalist Social Work

• A Beginner's Guide to Action Research by Bob Dick

• Definitions of Action Research by Barbara Gibson

• Participatory Action Research These pages describe an approach to research and evaluation that is somewhat at odds with Babbie's presentation. It is very compelling, and especially interesting to those interested in using research to encourage change.

• A Selection of Quotes about Action Reseach complied by Andrew Forgrave

Week 14

• Careers in Sociology
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