These are very specific "objectives" for our course...and are, in effect, substantive matters of the course. You will be asked later in the semester to evaluate yourself as to how well (or not) you fulfilled them.
Read them carefully
1. To understand that the activities of formal research methods are things we all already do in our daily lives...in other words, to demythologize them.
2. To understand WHAT social research is all about and what it is dependent upon.
3. To understand that social research and its procedures are social constructions susceptible to analysis and critique...all are based on assumptions and premises which need to be examined.
4. To understand the relationship between method and theory and to grasp their interrelatedness and commonalities.
5. To depolarize not only "method" and "theory," but also "qualitative" and "quantitative."
6. To learn the basic details of each method and to learn how and when to utilize them.
7. To learn about "science" and how to design a scientific study.
8. To learn how to read and analyze data and situate it in a larger theoretical frame of reference.
9. To learn how to become and be one's own methodologist.
10. To learn how methods can easily and erroneously determine issues for study.
11. To understand the larger societal conditions and their influence on methodology.
12. To examine the social and political issues related to social research and its relation to public policy.
13. To learn and understand the issue of "ethics" in relation to research...and to the use of "human subjects" in that research.
14. To learn that "measurement" is not a neutral or objective activity.
15. Finally, to learn and appreciate that not everything that can be counted really "counts" for anything and that not everything that "counts" for something can be counted.