MC 5113 Research Methods
MC 5113 Research Methods
Spring 2003
Class
Meetings
Lecture: 5 to 7:50 p.m. Mondays 208
Paul Miller Building
Instructor
Stan
Ketterer, Ph.D., assistant professor 310
Paul Miller Building
Office
hours: 3 to 5 p.m.
Mondays, 1:30 to 3:30 p.m. Tuesdays and Thursdays, or
by appointment.
Office
phone: 744-8279
E-mail: kstan@okstate.edu
This course introduces you to the principles and the basic techniques of mass communication research. This semester you will learn how to plan and design research and to collect data for topics pertinent to the field. You also will learn the role of research in journalism, broadcasting, public relations and advertising. In addition, you will learn about various statistical procedures and how to select the appropriate measures for your studies. This class is a core course in the Mass Communications graduate program in the School of Journalism and Broadcasting.
Specifically, the course is designed with the following objectives to help you:
· Understand the scientific method and why it is used for research.
· Understand the relationship between theory and research in advancing knowledge.
· Understand ethical issues associated with scholarly inquiry.
· Understand the process of scholarly research in mass communication, how to write academic research papers, and how to evaluate the work of other scholars.
· Be able to state mass communication problems and derive working hypotheses from testable definitions of variables.
· Understand different research approaches and data collection procedures.
· Understand the strengths, weaknesses and assumptions that each approach carries.
· Be able to develop appropriate data collection instruments.
· Be familiar with commonly used statistical techniques and know when and how to use them.
· Enhance critical and strategic thinking skills.
This course will be structured as a combination of the lecture and seminar formats. Lectures are the most efficient way of conveying information about general concepts and working through the steps of methodologies, whereas the seminar method is the best way of discussing the applications, sharing common problems and evaluating the strengths and weaknesses of each research method we discuss. Readings, projects, and exercises must be completed by the assigned date in order for you to be able to take advantage of this valuable exchange of information with your colleagues.
Buddenbaum, J. M., and Novak, K. B.
(2001). Applied Communication Research.
Ames, IA: Iowa State University Press.
Galvan, J. L. (1999). Writing
Literature Reviews: A Guide for Students of the
Social and Behavioral Sciences. Los
Angeles, CA: Pryczak Publishing Co.
Additionally, the graduate faculty of the School of Journalism and Broadcasting has specified that all graduate papers should be prepared according to the following stylebook:
American Psychological Association. (2001). Publication Manual for the American Psychological Association. 5th ed. Washington, DC: Author.
You must have an e-mail account for this class. You will be communicating in various ways throughout the semester with the instructor and your classmates. The instructor will post messages to the class via e-mail, and you can post messages to the class as well.
This class will focus on research principles and methods, which are best communicated via the lecture format. During most weeks, the instructor will begin the class with a lecture about the topic for that week. After the lecture, the class will discuss the exercise that was assigned the previous week. Finally, the exercise for the next week will be discussed. Sometimes, we also will do in-class activities. At the end of the semester, members of the school’s graduate faculty will discuss their research, which you will read. These presentations will give you the opportunity to ask questions about actual studies and to gain insights into how to do your thesis or project. They also will introduce you to the research agendas of faculty members and their methodological specialties.
During most weeks you will be assigned an exercise. The exercises are designed to help you apply what you have learned and to acquaint you with the basic considerations of scholarly research. Because we only meet once a week, preparation is essential for meaningful discussion.
You also will do a semester project. The project will involve the first three parts of a conference paper. Consequently, you will write the introduction, literature review and the methodology sections. However, you will not conduct the actual research or write the results and discussion sections.
Ideally, you should do this class project on the topic that you plan for your thesis or professional project. If you do, it will help prepare you to write your formal thesis or professional project proposal, which will be due in the middle of the fall semester for most of you. Although not part of this class, you must write the proposal and successfully defend it in front of your committee before you can conduct your research for your thesis or professional project. The more thorough your proposal, the easier it will be for you to complete your thesis or professional project during the following spring semester.
Deadlines
Deadlines are final in academic work and in the mass communications industry. Consequently, all work for this class must be handed in when it is due. If you do not hand in your work by the deadline, you will receive a ZERO for that work.
Attendance
The graduate faculty of the School of Journalism and Broadcasting has determined that attendance for this course is required if you are to attain the course objectives. According to school policy, I have the responsibility of helping you attain these goals and implementing a system that monitors and encourages class attendance. Therefore, regular class attendance is expected and required. Consequently, missing three class sessions this semester will result in a failing grade. A student who misses 30 minutes or more of any session will be considered absent for the entire period. Absences can only be excused through prior arrangements with the professor except in cases on a verifiable emergency.
Acceptable excuses include an illness, participation in an officially sponsored school activity, and the death of a family member. No absence will be excused without documentation. The illness must be substantial to be excused. Consequently, a note from a physician is required. Likewise, a letter on official school stationary is required before the student attends the official school function. Similarly, a program from the funeral is required for a death in the family. In an emergency, proof of the emergency, such as a bill for automotive repairs, is required.
If the student has an acceptable excuse, the student is responsible for contacting the professor about that work and making it up. All work must be completed within two weeks of returning to class. If the work is not turned in within the two-week period, the student will receive a ZERO for the missed work.
Academic honesty is fundamental to the activities and principles of a university. All of the work you do in this class must be original work. In academic writing, plagiarism basically means taking the work of others and using it as your own. Make sure any use of published work contains proper citation to avoid the appearance of plagiarism. Graduate faculty know the literature in this field and can spot previously published work or find it quickly. In this class, academic dishonesty includes, but is not limited to, the following:
· Taking all or part of information from other sources, including academic journals, academic papers, dissertations and the trade press, and including it in a paper as your own.
· Failure to cite the source of information that you include in a paper or project.
· Making up sources of information.
· Having others write or substantially contribute to your exercises, project or take-home exams.
Please note OSU’s Policy on Special Accommodations attached to this syllabus. If you have special needs as addressed by the policy, please notify the instructor immediately. We’ll do whatever can be reasonably done to accommodate your special needs. The Office of Disabled Students Services is in Room 326 of the Student Union.
Class
Web Site
This syllabus and other class-related information will be posted on the Web site for this class. The URL is:
http://www.cas.okstate.edu/jb/faculty/ketterer/rmethods.htm
You will do a series of take-home exercises. As stated previously they will be designed to help you explore the topics discussed in class and to think about their implications. For each assignment, you will be given a handout explaining the exercise. When the assignment is due, you will share what you have learned with the class. Each exercise is worth 20 points.
The semester project in this course will involve writing the first three sections of a conference paper. It will help you prepare for your thesis or professional project proposal, which will lead to your thesis or professional project. The class project is intended to get you moving toward this ultimate goal in graduate study, and it would be appropriate for you to use this opportunity to actually begin to build the foundations of your graduate capstone experience. It is never too early to think about topics, and we will discuss this matter in class. You should be thinking about it now so that you can make the most efficient use of this project. The conference paper in this class, which will include an introduction, literature review and methodology, should be suitable for acceptance at an academic conference.
It will be due in three parts. The first part will be the introduction. The second part will be the literature review. You will be expected to take the feedback that you receive from the first two parts, rework them, and add a methodology section for your combined final paper.
In the past few years, papers presented at the annual convention of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication, the principal academic organization in our field, have been available online. The Web address for the convention paper archive is:
http://list.msu.edu/cgi-bin/wa?S1=aejmc
You can search by subject or author, or you can use Boolean operators. If you need help searching, contact your professor. The project must be a minimum of 20 and a maximum of 30 double-spaced pages. It must be professionally written in formal language, APA style and without editing errors. Further, it will be due at the start of class in Week 16, the final week of regular classes.
You
will complete a series of exercises, a major semester project and
three-take-home exams during the semester that will acquaint you with the basic
considerations of executing scholarly research. Your grade will be calculated
based on the following:
Assignment Points
Exercises Evaluating
research in mainstream media
20
Operationalizing
variables
20
Research
Analysis
20
Data
Screening
20
Data
analysis I
20
Data
analysis II
20
Data
analysis III
20
Exams Exam
I 100
Exam
II 100
Exam
III 100
Project Introduction
30
Literature
Review
60
Introduction,
Lit Review and Methodology 110
Total 640
Please
keep in mind that in addition to content, your written exercises and analyses
will be evaluated on the quality of your writing, which may account for as much
as one third of the points possible for each assignment. Final course grades
will be determined according to the following scale:
640 –
600 A
599–
540 B
539 –
490 C
489 –
440 D
439 or less F
Mass Communication majors must
earn a “B” in this course, or they will be required to repeat
it until they do. If you have complaints about the grading, please consult
first with the professor. If we cannot resolve the matter, you should submit
your complaint in writing to Dr. Paul Smeyak, director of the School of Journalism
and Broadcasting, who will appoint a three-member faculty committee to investigate
the complaint.
* NOTE: Please note that we will try to stick to this schedule, but we will make allowances for topics that require more or less attention. Because this class only meets once a week, we need to cover a week’s worth of material in each session.
Topic Readings
& Deadlines
WEEK 1
Jan. 13 Introduction to the course, the scientific method, Buddenbaum, Chpt. 1 & 2
the role of
statistics, research topics Exercise
1 handed out
Jan. 20 Martin Luther King Jr.’s Birthday. NO CLASS.
WEEK 3
Jan. 27 The Academic Research Process. Academic Galvan, Chpt. 1-5.
Writing. Alexander, 1 & 2
Exercise 1 due.
WEEK 4
Exercise 2 due.
Exercise 3 handed out.
WEEK 6
Exam
1 handed out
WEEK 8
March 3 Data screening Exam 1 due
Exercise
4 handed out
March 10 Basic statistical procedures, nonparametric Buddenbaum, pp. 137,
statistics,
T-tests, ANOVA 141,
169-173, 157-179
Appendix
B
Exercise 4
due.
Exercise
5 handed out.
WEEK 10
March 17 SPRING
BREAK
WEEK 11
regression, multiple regression Exercise 5 due.
WEEK 12
March 31 Experimental research Buddenbaum,Chpt. 6
Experiment Readings
Literature Review due.
Exam 2 handed
out
WEEK 13
April 7 Survey research Buddenbaum, Chpt. 7
Appendix
C
Survey
Research Readings
Exam
2 due
Exercise
6 handed out
WEEK 14
April 14 Content analysis Buddenbaum, Chpt. 8
Appendix D
Alexander, Chpt. 5
Content Analysis Readings.
Exercise
6 due.
Exercise
7 handed out.
WEEK 15
April 21 Qualitative
research methods Buddenbaum,
Chpt. 9 & 10
Alexander,
Chpt. 6
Exercise
7 due.
WEEK 16
April 28 Applied Qualitative Research: Legal research, Qualitative Readings.
historical
research, other qualitative research Final
project due.
May 6 Exam 3 due in instructor’s office by 3 p.m.
MC 5113 Research Methods