Course Description (core course)
As part of the five MSU StratCom core courses, CAS 829 is designed to develop your ability to conduct and evaluate social scientific research. As a communication professional, you may need to conduct a research project yourself, or may want to commission research from others (e.g., a consulting firm). To ensure that the research addresses the questions you are interested in and provides the necessary information to answer the questions you have asked, you must understand a number of issues essential to the conduct of sound scientific research and understand how the results are calculated. You must also be able to interpret and evaluate studies once they have been completed. This course focuses on developing your skills and knowledge in these areas. Specifically, the course will examine the philosophy of social science research, fundamental elements of research design and statistical methods for analyzing data.
Learning Objectives
- The ability to evaluate social scientific research in the eld of communication.
- The skills to help you to understand a number of issues essential to conducting sound scientific research and to ensure that the research conducted addresses the questions that you set out to be examined.
- The tools to interpret and evaluate completed research studies.
