This test will be administered during Week 6. The test is intended to assess students’ fluency with the key concepts, terms, theories, and procedures of social survey research methods. Students will have 60 minutes to complete the test. It will cover materials from week 1 to week 5 on social survey. It will consist of 40 multiple-choice questions.

More information on the test will be provided on iLearn.

Students will have six analysis tasks, which are take-home assignments. From week 7 to week 12, students will be required to complete and submit analysis tasks in due time after the class. These tasks are intended to assess students’ skills to analyze survey datasets using the software R/RStudio. They consist of several statistical problems that students should address. Each task contributes to 5% of students’ overall assessment.

Detailed guidelines will be provided on iLearn.

This project is a research paper in which students will apply the skills they have learned in the classes to a topic of their own choosing. Students can choose between two types of survey research project to complete this assignment. The first type of research project is writing a research proposal. In the research proposal, students will design their own social surveys (e.g., the construction of survey questionnaires) that address their own research questions. Students need to review previous studies on their chosen topic and have to develop their own research hypotheses. It is not necessary to implement their designed surveys, but students will be required to provide a detailed explanation of how they would administer their designed surveys (e.g., the design of sampling) and which kind of statistical analysis is most suitable for testing the hypotheses. This research proposal will be evaluated primarily by students’ ability to design social surveys, to formulate research questions and hypotheses, to write survey questionnaires, and to administer social surveys. The second type of research project is writing a complete research paper. In the research paper, students will analyze existing survey datasets (e.g., Australian General Social Survey, Household Income & Labour Dynamics of Australia) to address their own research questions, but will not be required to design their own social survey. In the research paper, students will propose their own research questions, develop hypotheses (including the literature review), explain the dataset, variables, and analytic method, analyze the dataset, and report the statistical result. The research paper will be evaluated primarily by students’ ability to formulate research questions and hypotheses, to find a suitable dataset and variables, and to analyze the survey dataset. I recommend students to discuss with the unit convenor about their research project as early as possible.

More information on the project will be provided on iLearn.

Active participation involves the attendance of at least 75% of the classes (not counting excused absences) and an active engagement in the classes. Students will be graded according to their contributions to in-class discussions. Students who score highly for in-class participation will be those who arrive to class on time, actively discuss assigned readings, share related materials they have discovered outside of class, and make connections to additional topics that enhance our course. Attendance is tremendously important. Missing classes will diminish this part of your grade. If a student is absent from more than 3 classes, he or she will lose all in-class participation points.

Further details will be provided on iLearn.