COM 618: Applied Research Methods for Administrators Hi, My name is Charlene Berquist. Everybody calls me Char so I hope you'll free to as well. I want to use this time to give you a send of who I am and what some of my interests are and also to talk to you a little bit about the class - Communication 618 which you'll soon be enrolling for. I'm a Professor in the Department of Communication at SMS. My research and teaching interests are in qualitative research methods, family communication and also conflict and mediation. I direct the Center for Dispute Resolution at SMS and I'm also a certified mediator. In terms of the class that you're about to take, Communication 618. It's really a survey of a variety of different methods that we use to answer questions in whatever organization and situation you may find yourself in. The course will begin with some of the philosophies that underlie the different methodological approaches. We'll also be looking at ethics and research, and we'll talk about ways that you can evaluate research in Journals or research that people maybe doing for you in your organization to determine how effective it is and also to determine how to use that information to solve problems and deal with situations that you might be faced with. We will overview quantitative methods, looking at things like mean, median, mode; some basic statistical processes like t-test and ANOVA's. If you're afraid of numbers, don't worry, because we'll in a very basic way look at that information not from the stand point of doing strategies but rather understanding when they are applicable. We'll also going to be looking at qualitative methods which are more interpretive and less about numbers. Qualitative methods really focus on things like observation and interviewing. The balk of the class will be focused on developing and understanding surveys and survey techniques, and also doing focus groups, both virtual focus groups and face-to-face as well as interviewing. I think the course will be interesting and exciting. I'm glad that you're taking the course and I think we'll have a great semester. |