This course is will introduce students to a set of social science research methods that are used in the communication discipline and in workplace and organizational contexts. At the end of this course, students should have a basic understanding of several general research methods used by communication scholars and have gained an appreciation for the ethical considerations in conducting human subjects research. Students will gain knowledge and practice of collection methods such as questionnaires, experiments, structured interviews, focus groups, structured observations, and content analysis.  (Offered every fall semester)

Upon successful completion of this course, students will:

• Understand and use a basic vocabulary of concepts relating to social science methodology.
• Be able to identify the basic considerations in designing and conducting questionnaire studies, experiments, structured interviews, content coding.
• Be familiar with the requirements for treatment of human subjects in social science research and be apply to apply principles for ethical research to specific study designs.
• Be able to identify quality and problematic research exemplars.
• Be able to describe a research study that uses social science methods of questionnaires, experiments, interviews, and /or content coding.