SCHOOL OF COMMUNICATION

CMNS 260-3

INTRODUCTION TO EMPIRICAL METHODS FOR COMMUNICATION RESEARCH

Prerequisite:

CMNS 110-3 or CMNS 130-3.

Research begins with a question. How many of these are also those? Why do so many of those end up in these circumstances? How often does this happen? This course is about research – the process of asking questions about the world around you, and getting answers to those questions. In particular, it is about empirical research – research in which the questions are about things that exist or happen, questions about people or events or circumstances in the world that do or do not happen – and in which the answers are obtained by somehow observing things in the world.

Week Topic

1 Scientific vs. non-scientific enquiry. Paradigms, theory, explanation, research. Conceptualizing: concepts & variables.

2 Research questions. Operationalizing research. Measurement. Four kinds of numbers. Categorical vs. continuous. Levels of scaling.

3 Validity and reliability. Sampling: non-probability and probability sampling.

4 Univariate descriptive statistics. Central tendency: mode, median, mean. Dispersion: range, IQR.

5 Variance, standard deviation. The computational method. Z-score.

Mid-term exam #1.

6 Distributions. The normal distribution. Sampling variability, sampling distributions, standard errors.

7 Confidence intervals, Z-test of a single mean.

8 Bivariate descriptive statistics: cross-tabulation, discrete relationships.

9 Mid-term exam #2. Continuous relationships: covariance, correlation, regression.

10 Inferential statistics: statistical significance -- sampling variability ... or not? The null hypothesis. Testing the null hypothesis. Chi-squared.

11 Z-test for difference between means. Testing correlations.

12 t-test for difference between means. ANOVA.

13 Research design, experiments, survey research.


Required Text:

William D. Richards, The Zen of Empirical Research. 1998.


Grading:

The School expects that the grades awarded in this course will bear some reasonable relation to established university-wide practices with respect to both levels and distribution of grades. In addition, the School will follow Policy T10.02 with respect to “Intellectual Honesty” and “Academic Discipline” (see the current Calendar, General Regulations section).