EDLD 582: Survey Research Methods Spring 2009, MRH 137, Wednesdays 5:30 - 8:20 Professor: Fred Galloway (galloway@sandiego.edu) Office/Phone/Fax: 275H MRH 619-260-7435/619-849-8175 Office Hours: Tuesdays and Wednesdays 2:30 – 5:00 and by appointment As described in the catalogue, this course provides instruction in “how to conduct and critically evaluate survey research.” Furthermore, “the course will explore various survey methods such as mail questionnaires, telephone interviews, face-to-face interviews, and will develop key principles in developing surveys.” In other words, this course will teach people how to design and construct statistically reliable and valid surveys, as well as how to analyze them using the appropriate analytical techniques. For any student thinking of using a survey in their dissertation or thesis, this course is strongly recommended. Although there are many objectives for students in this course, students will be expected to master the following five basic objectives: • • • • •
Understand the scientific context of survey research; Be able to articulate the principles of survey design and sampling theory; Be able to write clear, straightforward, survey questions; Understand how the basic techniques of descriptive and inferential analysis can be applied to survey data; and Be able to use more advanced correlational and factor analytic techniques to describe an instrument’s reliability and underlying structure.
To meet these objectives, all students will be expected to attend class regularly, do the assigned readings before class, pass the in-class midterm, complete the team-related empirical project, and actively contribute to class discussions. Please remember that in terms of class participation, the quality of the contribution is infinitely more important than the quantity of the contribution. In other words, monopolizing class discussion provides little, if any, value-added to the class and as such is to be avoided; this is especially true in this class since we will be spending lots of time discussing individual survey items and issues. There is only one required text for the course, Survey Research Methods, Second Edition by Earl Babbie. Although this text is perhaps the most popular single text on the subject, some areas are stronger than others; as a result, various handouts and readings from other texts will be used to supplement the Babbie text – especially in the area of some of the more advanced research techniques such as factor analysis. These supplements will be important for work on the empirical project, which will involve working with real survey data; more information on the specifics of the project will be discussed later in the course. From an evaluative standpoint, students will be graded on their performance on the midterm, empirical project, and the quality of their class participation. For those that fail
to pass the midterm, a make-up exam will be offered in hopes that students can raise their grade to a low B. The relative weights for these evaluative components are listed below: Midterm Empirical Project Class Participation
40% 40% 20%
Taken together, the relative weights for the course suggest that the principles of survey design (40%) and the subsequent analysis (40%) are equally important; each one of them counts twice as much as class participation (20%). For a weekly schedule of readings and lecture coverage, please see the schedule below.
Weekly Schedule of Readings and Lecture Coverage Date
Readings
January 28
Lecture Coverage Course structure and overview
February 4
Babbie 1-3
The Scientific Context of Survey Research
February 11
Babbie 4-5
Survey Research Design
February 18
Babbie 5-6
The Analytics of Sampling Theory
February 25
Babbie 7
Instrument Design
March 4
Babbie 8
Index and Scale Construction
March 11
SPRING BREAK
March 18
Babbie 9-10
Issues in Data Collection
March 25
Babbie 1-10
MIDTERM
April 1
Babbie 11-12
Issues in Data Processing
April 8
Babbie 16
The Basics of Survey Data Analysis: Descriptive and Inferential Statistics
April 15
Babbie 17
Advanced Survey Data Analysis: Reliability, Validity, and an Introduction to Factor Analysis
April 22
Babbie 17
Advanced Survey Data Analysis: Factor Analysis
April 29
Babbie 19
The Ethics of Survey Research
May 6
No Formal Class Meetings - Individual Meetings Scheduled with Student Teams
May 20
FINALS WEEK Empirical Project due at 5:00 PM