SOCS185N: Culture and Society

Week 8 Discussion: Coming Back to Research

Required Resources

Read/review the following resources for this activity:

• Textbook: Chapter 1, 15, 16


• Lesson: Week 1, 7


• Minimum of 1 outside scholarly source (in addition to textbook)


• Minimum of 2-3 paragraphs

• Initial Post Instructions
  
  End-of-course student surveys exist for you to share your anonymous feedback on your courses. The purpose of the survey is to gather data from a specific population (you, the students) to understand your experience in the course, and to determine areas of success and improvement in our courses, including this one (so hopefully you do share your feedback because we always want to improve our courses and teaching).

Chapter 1 of the textbook and Week 1 of this course explored the research process. As mentioned in Week 1, research is fundamental in the social sciences, and a survey is a common sociological data collection method. If we look at the course surveys from a sociological perspective, we see that they are used to understand a specific population's perspective of a social experience/issue. For this discussion, then, you will observe and analyze and evaluate the survey itself, as the budding social scientists you all now are, based on your learning in this course!

Now, to come full circle, analyze the end-of-course surveys for their effectiveness as a sociological measurement tool.

For the initial post, respond to one of the following options, and label the beginning of your post indicating either Option 1 or Option 2:

• Option 1:How would you improve the survey itself to create the best snapshot of student impressions of this or any Chamberlain University Online course?


• Option 2: What specific change or changes would you make in the survey, or in how it is administered, in order to increase the survey’s reliability and/or validity? Remember, as you learned in Week 1, reliability is consistency in results and validity asks the question: “Are you measuring what you intended to measure?

Writing Requirements

• Minimum of 3 posts (1 initial & 2 follow-up)


• APA format for in-text citations and list of references


• Include citations from at least the assigned textbook/lesson reading and one additional outside scholarly source to support your response.

Criteria

Content: Addresses all aspects of the initial discussion question(s), applying experiences, knowledge, and understanding

Evidence & Sources: Integrates evidence to support discussion from assigned readings** OR online lessons, AND at least one outside scholarly source.*** Sources are credited.*

Professional Communication: Presents information using clear and concise language in an organized manner (minimal errors in English grammar, spelling, syntax, and punctuation).

Notes

***Scholarly source - per APA Guidelines, only scholarly sources should be used in assignments. These include peer-reviewed publications, government reports, or sources written by a professional or scholar in the field. Wikipedia, Wikis, .com websites or blogs should not be used as anyone can add information to these sites. For the discussions, reputable internet sources such as websites by government agencies (.gov) and respected organizations (.org) can be counted as scholarly sources. Outside sources do not include assigned required readings.

Ebook: Kendall, D. E. (2018). Sociology in our times: The essentials. Boston MA: Cengage Learning

https://www.chegg.com/reader/9781337517287/0/