This is an introduction to social science research methods for examining communication influences, processes, and outcomes for those who have little or no prior experience or course work in this area or in statistics.  

It is designed to accomplish seven inter-related goals: 

(1) to introduce students to the process, basic concepts, logic, and techniques of social science research; 

(2) to provide students with a critical framework and a set of tools to examine communication problems and to evaluate various claims on communication processes and effects; 

(3) to facilitate students’ awareness of the purpose of communication data and how to critically evaluate data to better understand communication processes and outcomes; 

(4) to build students’ awareness and expertise in identifying the appropriate data and analysis tools and techniques to empirically examine communication; 

(5) to offer students opportunities to gain insights into research processes by having hands-on experiences in data collection and the processing and evaluation of data sets on communication variables; 

(6) to build students’ skills in creating and evaluating the visual presentation of data; and

(7)  to generate student awareness of the ethical issues related to collecting, analyzing, and presenting data about human communication.

Week 1	Introduction to research in communication and the research process
Week 2:	Concept explication
Week 3:	Operationalization and measurement 
Week 4:	 Validity and reliability of measures and data
Week 5:	Variables and hypothesis development	 
Week 6:	Scale and index construction
Week 7:	Applied sampling and data collection				
Week 8:	Survey research
Week 9:	Experimental studies
Week 10:	Ethics and human subject protection in communication research	
Week 11	Overview of elementary statistics for translating and interpreting data  	 
Week 12:	Inferential statistics and logic of inference for translating and interpreting data 
Week 13:	Quantitative data analysis 		
Week 14:	Content analysis
Week 15:	Field research	 
Week 16:	Presentation and evaluation of data on communication research

“Academic honesty is – defined broadly and simply – the 
performance of all academic work without cheating, lying, 
stealing, or receiving assistance from any other person or 
using any source of information not appropriately authorized or 
attributed” (From the Preamble to “A Culture of Honesty”). The 
University, the Department of Communication Studies, and I 
personally take academic honesty very seriously. Every student 
at the University of Georgia should be familiar with the 
booklet, “A Culture of Honesty: Policies and Procedures on 
Academic Dishonesty.” If you are not, please obtain one of 
these booklets and read it carefully. This document has a 
thorough presentation of four types of academic dishonesty, 
including plagiarism, unauthorized assistance, lying/tampering, 
and theft, as well as the procedures that are in place to 
adjudicate alleged incidents of academic dishonesty. The 
policies and procedures described in “A Culture of Honesty” 
will be strictly followed. University Mandated Statement 
Concerning the University Honor Code & Academic Honesty All 
academic work must meet the standards contained in “A Culture 
of Honesty.” Students are responsible for informing themselves 
about those standards before performing any academic work. More 
detailed information about academic honesty can be found at
http://www.uga.edu/ovpi/honesty/acadhon.htm.