| Extended Course Description: | Catalog Course Description:
Surveys basic statistical, tabular, and graphic methods as applied to decision making, requirements analyses, user studies, and implementation of change in information organizations when generalizability of results beyond the organization is not a primary concern. Focuses on formulating researchable problems, sampling, data gathering, and computer-assisted analysis of data. Develops skills for preparing reports and presentations and for reading research literatures.
Pre-requisites and Co-requisites:
No specific prerequisite
Curriculum Role:
This course is required for students in the MS program in Library and Information Science. The course is typically taken early in the program. Literacy in research and statistics is useful for interpreting academic research, which is included in other courses within the program.
Course Rationale:
As a consumer of literature in an interdisciplinary field, students need to have a basic understanding of research methods and statistics in order to interpret academic research. In their role as an information professional, students need to be prepared to organize and present data in meaningful ways. In their profession, they may be called upon to conduct action research in information organizations.
Course Outcomes:
Upon successful completion of this course, a student will be able to:
• Recognize action research as aiming at usefulness to the sponsoring organization rather than generalizability beyond the organization, with employee involvement and participation as a secondary goal
• Distinguish action research in the context of general research methods (experiments, surveys, case studies, quantitative vs. qualitative approaches, etc.)
• Define and identify basic concepts of measurement and evaluation, including the concept of operationalizing variables at different levels of measurement.
• Compute and interpret univariate frequency distributions, measures of central tendency and variability, significance tests, and measures of bivariate relationships
• Identify methods for drawing an appropriate sample to represent an organizational population under study
• Use packaged computer routines (e.g., SPSS) to produce tables and summary statistics and be able to interpret them
• Use packaged computer routines (e.g., SPSS) to create graphic representations of data and be able to interpret them.
Course Content:
Principal topics and the approximate number of weeks devoted to each are:
• Research designs and measurement (1)
• Planning and conduct of action research (.5)
• Use of computer statistical routines for analysis and graphics (2)
• Univariate frequency distributions, central tendency, and dispersion (1)
• Bivariate tables and plots (.5)
• Interpreting regression and correlation (1)
• Basic inferential techniques (2)
• Sampling (l)
• Reference statistics workbook and non-parametric statistics (1)
Presentation:
Note: Presentation method may vary somewhat from section to section.
Lecture with readings and homework assignments.
Assessment:
Note: Assessment method may vary somewhat from section to section.
Evaluation by midterm, final examination, and homework assignments.
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