Sociology 280.003, Fall 2006
Research Team Meeting, November 3, in class
Instrument chart, revised survey/instrument and new research plan due Nov. 10

Today's class (and most likely an additional team meeting in the coming week) will be spent refining your concepts, research plan and data collection instrument. This exercise is designed to aid in solidifying the concepts, measures, variables and indicators for your pilot study, as well as finalizing the items to be included in your survey or other data collection instrument.

Data collection chart
Spend some time as a group talking through your concepts and clarifying which specific concepts you will measure in your pilot study. For each concept, settle on a definition and a source (if the concept is from someone/somewhere else, cite the source). Operationalize the concept and enter the measures and corresponding data collection items on the chart.

Revised data collection instrument
Using the chart, revise your survey or other instrument for collecting data. Make sure that the items in your instrument correspond precisely to your concepts and operationalization procedures. Your items should give you enough to adequately and accurately measure your concepts, with nothing "extra" included in the instrument.

Revised research plan
Based on your discussion, chart and new instrument, write up a revised set of concepts and operationalization procedures. For each concept, specify the exact measures you will use, the corresponding items in your instrument, what the full range of potential responses are, and how the responses will be interpreted and analyzed. Anyone ought to be able to use this write-up as a guideline for conducting your study -- in other words, if you were abducted by aliens and a brand new team took over your project today, your write-up should tell them exactly what steps to take in order to collect precisely the data needed and to analyze/interpret the data correctly.

Turn in on Nov. 10:
Data collection instrument chart
Revised instrument
New research plan specifying concepts and operationalization procedures (INCLUDE RESEARCH QUESTION AT TOP)