SOC 008

Sense and Nonsense in Social Issues and Research

Introduces basic steps in the research process and/or basic steps in critically evaluating discussions on social issues. Students are taught to recognize common errors through the analysis of non-technical applied research and/or through newspapers and sociological articles about social issues and problems. Emphasizes the logical steps involved in thinking critically about social research and/or social problems such as quality of operational definitions, weaknesses in research design, sampling errors, value assumptions, logical consistency between premises and conclusions, and the structure of arguments.

Units: 3.0