RES 603: Applied Research Development

	Cooper, D. R., & Schindler, P. S. (2008). Business research methods (10th ed.). New York : McGraw-Hill.
	Aaron, J. E. (2007). The little, brown compact handbook (6th ed.). New York: Pearson Education.

Syllabus
To view the syllabus and the Supplemental Readings material, you will need the Adobe Reader, available free from Adobe.

September/October 2009

Lecture Notes
Week 1: Charateristics of a Good Thesis and Presentation (PowerPoint file - 514kb)
Week 2: APA Citation Protocol (PowerPoint file - 2.67mb)
Week 3: Introduction Section, Research Question, and Qualitative Research (PowerPoint file - 2.7mb)
Week 4: Literature Review and Probability Theory (PowerPoint file 1mb)
Week 5: Research Design and Sampling (PowerPoint file - 2.1mb)
Week 6: Quantitative Methods and Data Analysis (PowerPoint file - 1mb)
Week 7: Summary / Conclusions and Research Ethics (PowerPoint file - 491kb)
Week 8: Correlations and hypothesis testing (PowerPoint file - 2.25mb)
Week 9: N/A. Student presentations.

Handouts
Basic Methods of Research (PDF file - 10kb)
Reliability and Validity (PDF file - 19kb)
Informed Consent Form (PDF file - 6kb)
Tragedy Related to Informed Consent Form

Levels of Measurement and Requisite Analyses of the Data
Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Research Methods Knowledge Base

Sampling
How Are Polls Conducted? A very good article on sampling, question development, methodology, etc. by the Gallup Organization. (Small world, one of the authors, David Moore, was one of my statistics professors at Purdue.) Some key passages as they pertain to sampling include the following:

• "Probability sampling is the fundamental basis for all survey research. The basic principle: a randomly selected, small percent of a population of people can represent the attitudes, opinions, or projected behavior of all of the people, if the sample is selected correctly."
• "First we clearly identify and describe the population that a given poll is attempting to represent."
• "In other words - although this is something many people find hard to believe - if respondents are not selected randomly, we could have a poll with a million people and still be significantly less likely to represent the views of all Americans than a much smaller sample of just 1,000 people - if that sample is selected randomly."

American Psychological Association (APA) Citation Protocol
Bedford/St. Martin's
This site provides great information on properly citing online sources.

Purdue University's Online Writing Lab
This site has a wealth of information on the proper citation protocol for your papers. Brought to you by my alma mater, it's definitely worth a look. (Be sure to scroll down the page to see the examples.)

APA In-Text Parenthetical Citations
Another source for examples of proper citations provided by the Duke University Libraries.

The Assignment Process
From the University of Waikato. Provides many great examples.

Sample APA Research Paper

Still struggling with the APA format? Then consider purchasing APA Perrla or StyleEase.

Plagiarism Resources
Plagiarism: What It is and How to Recognize and Avoid It
A comprehensive description of plagiarism with examples.

Avoiding Plagiarism
Great source for suggestions and recommendations on how to avoid plagiarism.

Examples of Plagiarism
Very useful illustrations of different types of plagiarism.

Literature Review
Characteristics of scholarly publications: This document differentiates between popular press sources of information (which you should not use) and scholarly sources of information.

WIU Online Library: This site will serve you well during your education at WIU as it contains a huge repository of articles (select the "Online Library" link toward the lower section of the page).

Scholarly & Academic Research: See any one of the links under the 'Searchable Journal Articles' heading.

Writing the Literature Review: A Website with very exhaustive coverage of this topic.

Evaluating Web Sites
A great source of information to use in the determination of a Web site's credibility.

Supplemental Readings List
Note: Please use Internet Explorer to view these pages. Due to the omission of HTML code on some of the pages on the NCS Pearson site, the complete document will not appear if you are using Netscape.
Class 4: How Many People Are Enough? A Lesson in Sampling

Class 5: Response Scales: How Many Points and What Labels?, How to Ask the Questions You Want, The Importance of Validity, and Determining Survey Content

Class 8: Qualitative Research

Survey Development
The Survey System
Includes the steps involved in survey design, a sample size calculator, and information on the use of correlations.

Designing Surveys and Questionnaires
Great source for general survey development guidelines.

Data Analysis Tool
StatCrunch
A low-cost statistical analysis tool.

Free Statistical Software
Great resource containing a plethora of free statistical software packages including plug-ins for MS Excel.