Course Description
Designed to prepare students for a broad range of methods used in the study of hazards and disasters. Topics include quick response fieldwork training, ethics, introduction to SPSS, and basic GIS. Students will practice forming research questions, strategies for data collection, and conducting analyses.
Athena Title
Methods in Disaster Research
Prerequisite
DMAN 3100
Semester Course Offered
Offered fall and spring
Grading System
A - F (Traditional)
Course Objectives
In this course, students will acquire the ability to: • Describe procedural steps for conducting mixed-methods research for the study of disasters. • Generate research questions and hypotheses using relevant literature and information from the body of knowledge in disaster research. • Identify key issues and principles of research ethics related to disaster research. • Critique research methods in classic case studies from social and behavioral hazards research. • Demonstrate effective strategies used for quick response field research, rapid ethnographic assessments, and other key methods used in disaster research.
Topical Outline
Topics: 1. Overview of Research Methods in Disaster Research a. How policy is influenced by research b. Ethics; scholarship, authorship, collaboration c. Ethics; fieldwork, human subjects d. History of the major research centers e. Trends in literature and data f. How to write a good literature review g. How to form a research question 2. Entrée: Gatekeepers, Community Involvement, Partnerships, and Implementation a. Participatory research: case studies 3. Designing a Study a. Thinking about variables b. Thinking about survey design c. Designing focus groups 4. Data Types a. Secondary data: SHELDUS, Census data, mapping programs b. GIS guest lecture and in-class exercise c. Qualitative data–Phillips book readings; coding practice d. Quantitative data sets–SPSS; practice assignments in class e. SPSS continued; chi-squares, descriptive statistics, demographic data