Beginning of the schedule
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Wimmer & Dominick, Mass Media Research, 8th ed., Wadsworth, 2006
I've asked the bookstore to get the 8th edition, even though the 9th is out. Note: a 7th edition (Hardcover, 2003) will work just fine if you have access to one--the chapters are basically the same. Or the ninth edition.

Other materials: Additional readings will be on reserve in Student Services and on the web. I will place copies of research articles and other methods chapters on reserve from time to time in Student Services (In the adviser trailer behind Agate). I also will put copies of chapters from the book From Numbers to Words by Morgan, Reichert and Harrison on reserve. This book has examples of how to report research results for a variety of statistical techniques.

This class is designed to explore quantitative approaches to research methodology and to have students plan research using these approaches. Much of the class will focus on issues in quantitative analysis, such as measurement, sampling, reliability, validity, research ethics, appropriate statistics and data analysis. We'll look at such questions as, What are the strengths and weaknesses of quantitative approaches? When are these methods appropriate and when aren't they? What issues must you address in designing a quantitative study?

I would like this class to be both practical and analytical. It will involve analyzing and critiquing quantitative studies as well as developing skills in conducting such research.

A key goal of the class is to produce a research plan and a paper completed up to the point of data collection/results. In recent years, a number of students completed these projects in an advanced quantitative methods class in spring, and several led to conference presentations

Class meets twice a week. I lean much more toward discussion than lecturing, and class participation is crucial. I like to raise questions as much as, if not more than, provide answers. I'll expect you to have completed the readings by the time of the class and to be able to show your mastery of them in class discussion. Throughout the term, we will discuss and critique your research plans. Five or six class meetings will be SPSS workshop sessions. We will use the PC version of SPSS in Agate 100 (that's why we;re scheduled there).

Required work will include short papers or article critiques due throughout the term, a longer research paper (mentioned above) and data exercises. There will be a presentation of the longer paper in the last week of class.

Short (2-3 page) papers: Critiques of articles and/or answers to take-home questions. The short papers will be due about every two weeks. Each short paper will have a due date. Late papers will be accepted only in case of unavoidable circumstances, and I might require documentation of such circumstances. I've spent too much time in the media to wink at deadlines. Also, because I've spent most of my career as a copy editor, I tend to think less of papers that are full of errors in spelling, grammar or punctuation. Make sure to proofread.

In-class critiques: Students will lead a brief class discussion on an assigned research article. We will probably do this in teams.

Data exercises: A graded exercise based on work using SPSS in the lab.

Final paper: My hope is that you will plan a final research project that you can eventually use as part of a conference paper. This paper will be a research report without the Results and Conclusion sections. In other words, it will have an Introduction, a Literature Review, a Methods section and dummy tables. To produce such a paper, you will need to be working on the idea throughout the term.

Students often develop a research area by pursuing related projects in different classes. I think that's a good approach, but it does not mean you can do the same, or a very similar, paper for more than one class. Your paper for this class should be an original effort for this class. If you have any questions about this requirement, let's talk about it.

It should go without saying, but attendance is expected, and a good participation/evaluation grade depends on it.  

Your overall grade will be based on the following formula:

Short papers, data exercises	40 %
Research paper	40 %
Presentation/discussion	10 %
Class participation/evaluation	10 %

My background

I consider myself both a scholar and a professional. As a professional, I spent most of my career working as a daily newspaper copy editor and copy chief. As a researcher, I examine some of the issues I observed in practice as a professional. I study newsroom technology and organizational change, primarily from sociological and management perspectives, with an underlying aim of examining and critiquing media performance and quality. Most of my published work has used quantitative analyses, including content analysis and survey methods.

Portions of the work for this class may be done in teams or groups; most will be done as individuals. I will make it clear on each assignment what is to be done in groups and what should be done as individuals. I expect you to follow accepted scholarly practice on citation of the work of others. There are different styles (e.g., Chicago, APA, MLA). There is no hard and fast style rule for quantitative work--it tends to depend on the field, sometimes on a given journal within a field, or even to which division you might submit a paper for academic conferences. Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly, for example, wants Chicago Style. Many journals ask for APA style (In-text citations and a reference list). Occasionally, it's even a mix of styles. Newspaper Research Journal, for example, wants AP style in text and Chicago style used for endnotes. I'd suggest using a style that's common in work that is similar to yours.

Tentative schedule

Besides readings from the books, I will assign other materials — most of them journal articles. I may add or drop a couple of journal articles. I will put them on reserve in the reading room and most are are available online through the library databases.

Riffe, Aust, Lacy, "The Effectiveness of Random, Consecutive Day and Constructed Week Sampling in Newspaper Content Analysis, Journalism Quarterly, Vol. 70, No. 1, Spring '93, 133-139.

(the article we will discuss in class and will use in lab--probably week 5 lab)
Robert Entman, "Blacks in the News..." Journalism Quarterly, Summer '92, 341-361

Wimmer & Dominick, Chapter 12, p. 279-284 on Chi Square

Here is a link to a Random Number Generator. Here's one for a tool called Recal, which makes it easy to compute different reliability coefficients. Here is one reference that helps in selecting statistical tests. Here is another one. Thanks to Toby Hopp for the last few references.

Here are some other references: