Pre-Field Requirements

Departmental Pre-Field Preparation Courses
The following list of courses has been approved by Undergraduate Advising and Research and is divided into two groups. Courses that meet requirements for Methodology are shown in the first group. The second group provides courses that meet requirements for Cultural Awareness/Sensitivity (CAS). If a course fulfills both requirements, it will be identified with an asterick next to its name. Other courses may be substituted after consulting with the student’s research sponsor, their undergraduate Honors director, or the UAR research staff.

*Courses that meet both Methodology and CAS requirements


Methodology
ANTHRO 91A*
Archaeological Methods - (Same as ARCHLGY 102.) Methodological issues related to the investigation of archaeological sites and objects. Aims and techniques of archaeologists including: location and excavation of sites; dating of places and objects; analysis of artifacts and technology and the study of ancient people, plants, and animals. How these methods are employed to answer the discipline's larger research questions.
5 units, Spr (Hodder, I)

ANTHRO 91B*
Method and Evidence in Sociocultural Anthropology - Characteristic ways of collecting evidence and supporting arguments in sociocultural anthropology. How to evaluate ethnographic claims. Research activities such as interviewing, participant observation, tracking extended cases, inspecting archives, and reading popular culture.
5 units, Win (Ferguson, J)

ANTHRO 91C*
Anthropological Methods in Ecology, Environment, Evolution - The methodological and practical aspects of conducting anthropological investigation into human-environmental interactions. Tools for developing, asking, and evaluating anthropological questions in a systematic way. What can constitute an important question, how to frame a question that facilitates investigation, how to design a research project to begin investigating a question, hypothesis development, and experimental design. Approaches to ethnographic, behavioral, and ecological data collection, sampling strategies, observational methods, recording techniques and presentation style.
5 units, Spr (Bird, D)

ANTHRO 92*
Undergraduate Research Proposal Writing Workshop - Practicum. Students develop independent research projects and write research proposals. How to formulate a research question; how to integrate theory and field site; and step-by-step proposal writing.
1-3 units, Aut (Beliso-DeJesus, A), Win (Beliso-DeJesus, A)

ANTHRO 93*
Pre-field Research Seminar - For Anthropology majors only; non-majors register for 93B. Preparation for anthropological field research in other societies and the U.S. Data collection techniques include participant observation, interviewing, surveys, sampling procedures, life histories, ethnohistory, and the use of documentary materials. Strategies of successful entry into the community, research ethics, interpersonal dynamics, and the reflexive aspects of fieldwork. Prerequisites: two ANTHRO courses or consent of instructor.
5 units, Spr (Inoue, M)

ANTHRO 93B*
Prefield Research Seminar: Non-Majors - Preparation for anthropological field research in other societies and the U.S. Data collection techniques include participant observation, interviewing, surveys, sampling procedures, life histories, ethnohistory, and the use of documentary materials. Strategies for successful entry into the community, research ethics, interpersonal dynamics, and the reflexive aspects of fieldwork.
5 units, Spr (Kapur, C)

ANTHRO 94
Postfield Research Seminar - Goal is to produce an ethnographic report based on original field research gathered during summer fieldwork, emphasizing writing and revising as steps in analysis and composition. Students critique classmates' work and revise their own writing in light of others' comments. Ethical issues in fieldwork and ethnographic writing, setting research write-up concerns within broader contexts.
5 units, Aut (Ahmad, T)

ANTHRO 98B
Digital Methods in Archaeology - (Same as ANTHRO 298B.) Hands-on. Topics include: data capture, digital survey, and mapping instruments; GPS; digital video and photography; 3-D scanning; data analysis; CAD; GIS; panoramic virtual reality; and photogrammetry. GER:DB-EngrAppSci
3-5 units, not given this year

ANTHRO 304
Data Analysis in the Anthropological Sciences - Univariate, multivariate, and graphical methods used for analyzing quantitative data in anthropological research. Archaeological and paleobiological examples. Recommended: algebra.
5 units, Spr (Robertson, I)

BIOMEDIN 156
Economics of Health and Medical Care - (Same as BIOMEDIN 256, ECON 126, HRP 256.) Graduate students with research interests should take ECON 248. Institutional, theoretical, and empirical analysis of the problems of health and medical care. Topics: institutions in the health sector; measurement and valuation of health; nonmedical determinants of health; medical technology and technology assessment; demand for medical care and medical insurance; physicians, hospitals, and managed care; international comparisons. Prerequisites: ECON 50 and ECON 102A or equivalent statistics. Recommended: ECON 51.
5 units, Aut (Bhattacharya, J)

COMM 106
Communication Research Methods - (Same as COMM 206.) (Graduate students register for 206.) Conceptual and practical concerns underlying commonly used quantitative approaches, including experimental, survey, content analysis, and field research in communication. Pre- or co requisite: STATS 60 or consent of instructor. GER:DB-SocSci
5 units, Win (Staff)

COMM 166
Virtual People - (Same as COMM 266.) The concept of virtual people or digital human representations; methods of constructing and using virtual people; methodological approaches to interactions with and among virtual people; and current applications. Viewpoints including popular culture, literature, film, engineering, behavioral science, computer science, and communication.
5 units, Spr (Bailenson, J)

COMM 167
Advanced Seminar in Virtual Reality Research - Restricted to students with previous research experience in virtual reality. Experimental methods and other issues.
1-3 units, Aut (Bailenson, J)

EDUC 151
Introduction to Qualitative Research Methods - Primarily for master's students. Issues, ideas, and methods.
3-4 units, Aut (Pope, D), Win (Wolf, J)

ETHICSOC 77*
Methodology in Ethics: Translating Theory into Practice - (Same as PHIL 77.) Ideally, social policies are informed by ethical thought and reflection, but doing good in the world requires the active translation of moral theory and political philosophy into action. What kinds of empirical data are relevant to social decision making, and how should they be collected, evaluated, and integrated into normative analysis? What assumptions about human nature are in play? How should diverse cultural values be addressed? Case studies from biomedical science, business, and government.
4 units, not given this year

HIST 299H
Junior Honor's Colloquium - Required of junior History majors planning to write a History honors thesis during senior year.
1 unit, Win (Staff)

HUMBIO 82A*
Qualitative Research Methodology - Goal is to develop knowledge and skills for designing and conducting qualitative research studies including purposes, conceptual contexts, research questions, methods, validity issues, and interactions among these facets. Each student designs a qualitative research study.
3 units, Win (Wolf, J), Spr (Wolf, J)

INTNLREL 199*
Honors Research: Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law in Developing Countries - Restricted to students in the CDDRL option of the International Relations honors program. Goal is to prepare students to do research and/or fieldwork to complete their thesis research. Main currents in democracy and development literature concerning how economic growth and democratization are related; how the rule of law supports these processes in countries undergoing change. Student presentations of thesis questions; student groups develop research problems and designs. May be repeated for credit.
3-5 units, Spr (Stoner-Weiss, K)

INTNLREL 200A*
International Relations Honors Field Research - For juniors planning to write an honors thesis during senior year. Initial steps to prepare for independent research. Professional tools for conceptualizing a research agenda and developing a research strategy. Preparation for field research through skills such as data management and statistics, references and library searches, and fellowship and grant writing. Creating a work schedule for the summer break and first steps in writing. Prerequisite: acceptance to IF honors program.
3 unit, Spr (Drori, G)

LINGUIST 197*
Undergraduate Research Seminar - Research goals and methods in linguistics and related disciplines. Students work on a small project to define a focus for their linguistic studies and prepare for honors research. Presentations; final paper.
2 units, Win (Clark, E)

MED 147
Methods in Community Assessment, Evaluation and Research - (Same as MED 247.) Development of pragmatic skills for design, implementation, and analysis of structured interviews, focus groups, survey questionnaires, and field observations. Topics include: principles of community-based participatory research, including importance of dissemination; strengths and limitations of different study designs; validity and reliability; construction of interview and focus group questions; techniques for moderating focus groups; content analysis of qualitative data; survey questionnaire design; and interpretation of commonly-used statistical analyses.
3 units, Win (Kiernan, M; Fortmann, S)

POLISCI 150A
Political Methodology I - (Same as POLISCI 350A.) Introduction to probability and statistical inference, with applications to political science and public policy. Prerequisite: elementary calculus. GER:DB-Math
5 units, Aut (Wand, J)

POLISCI 150B
Political Methodology II - (Same as POLISCI 350B.) Understanding and using the linear regression model in a social-science context: properties of the least squares estimator; inference and hypothesis testing; assessing model fit; presenting results for publication; consequences and diagnosis of departures from model assumptions; outliers and influential observations, graphical techniques for model fitting and checking; interactions among exploratory variables; pooling data; extensions for binary responses. GER:DB-Math
5 units, Win (Rivers, D)

POLISCI 150C
Political Methodology III - (Same as POLISCI 350C.) Models for discrete outcomes, time series, measurement error, and simultaneity. Introduction to nonlinear estimation, large sample theory. Prerequisite: 150B/350B.
3-5 units, Spr (Jackman, S)

POLISCI 151B
Data Analysis for Political Science - Operationalization of concepts, measurement, scale construction, finding and pooling/merging data, cross-tabulations, tests of association, comparison of means, correlation, scatter plots, and regression models. How to present the results of data analysis in research reports, essays, and theses. Emphasis is on getting and using data with appropriate statistical software. Prior mathematics not required. GER:DB-Math
5 units, Spr (Jackman, S)

POLISCI 157
Sampling and Surveys - (Same as POLISCI 357.) The importance of sample surveys as a source of social science data including public opinion, voting, welfare, programs, health, employment, and consumer behavior. Survey design, sampling theory, and estimation. Non-response, self-selection, measurement error, and web survey methods. Prerequisite: 150B or equivalent.
5 units, Spr (Rivers, D)

PSYCH 10
Introduction to Statistical Methods: Precalculus - (Same as STATS 60, STATS 160.) Techniques for organizing data, computing, and interpreting measures of central tendency, variability, and association. Estimation, confidence intervals, tests of hypotheses, t-tests, correlation, and regression. Possible topics: analysis of variance and chi-square tests, computer statistical packages. GER:DB-Math
5 units, Aut (Thomas, E), Win (Walther, G), Spr (Boik, J), Sum (Staff)

PSYCH 196*
Contemporary Psychology: Overview of Theory, Research, Applications - Capstone experience for juniors and seniors that bridges course work with research opportunities. Lectures representing the department's areas: social, personality, developmental, neuroscience, and cognitive psychology. Faculty present current research. Discussions led by advanced graduate students in the field represented by that week's guest. Students write research proposals. Small grants available to students to conduct a pilot study of their proposed research. Limited enrollment. Prerequisite: consent of instructor. GER:DB-SocSci
3 units, Aut (Clark, H)

PUBPOL 105
Quantitative Methods and Their Applications to Public Policy - Reviews material covered in prerequisites with applications of qualitative independent variable techniques to labor market data. Maximum likelihood estimation and qualitative dependent variable models with an application to voting models. Final papers estimate influence of quantitative and qualitative independent variables on Congressional voting probabilities. Prerequisites: ECON 102A,B. GER:DB-SocSci
5 units, Spr (Rothwell, G)

PUBPOL 197
Junior Honors Seminar - (Same as ECON 198.) Primarily for students who expect to write an honors thesis. Weekly sessions discuss writing an honors thesis proposal (prospectus), submitting grant applications, and completing the honors thesis. Readings focus on writing skills and research design. Students select an adviser, outline a program of study for their senior year, and complete a prospectus by the end of the quarter. Enrollment limited to 25.
5 units, Win (Rothwell, G), Spr (Rothwell, G)

SOC 180A
Foundations of Social Research - (Same as SOC 280A.) Formulating a research question, developing hypotheses, probability and non-probability sampling, developing valid and reliable measures, qualitative and quantitative data, choosing research design and data collection methods, challenges of making causal inference, and criteria for evaluating the quality of social research. Emphasis is on how social research is done, rather than application of different methods. Limited enrollment; preference to Sociology and Urban Studies majors, and Sociology coterms. GER:DB-SocSci
5 units, Aut (Sorensen, A), Spr (Sorensen, A)

SOC 180B
Evaluation of Evidence - (Same as SOC 280B.) Methods for analyzing and evaluating data in sociological research: comparative historical methods, ethnographic observation, quantitative analysis of survey data, experimentation, and simulation. Emphasis is on application of these methods through small data analysis projects. Limited enrollment; preference to Sociology majors. GER:DB-SocSci
5 units, Win (Rosenfeld, M)

SOC 181B
Sociological Methods: Statistics - (Same as SOC 281B.) (Graduate students register for 281B.) Statistical methods of relevance to sociology: contingency tables, correlation, and regression.
5 units, Aut (Johnson, J)

SOC 191
Undergraduate Directed Research - Work on a project of student's choice under supervision of a faculty member. Prior arrangement required.
1-5 units, Aut (Staff), Win (Staff), Spr (Staff), Sum (Staff)


SOC 192
Undergraduate Research Apprenticeship - Work in an apprentice-like relationship with faculty on an on-going research project. Prior arrangement required.
1-5 units, Aut (Staff), Win (Staff), Spr (Staff), Sum (Staff)

SOC 202
Preparation for Honors Thesis - (Same as URBANST 202.) Primarily for juniors in Sociology; sophomores who plan to be off-campus Winter Quarter of their junior year may register with consent of instructor. Students write a research prospectus and grant proposal, which may be submitted for funding. Research proposal in final assignment may be carried out in Spring or Summer Quarter; consent required for Autumn Quarter research. WIM
5 units, Win (McAdam, D)

STS 190*
Junior Honors Seminar -For juniors intending to pursue honors in STS or a related discipline. Goal is to identify a research problem and identify key components of honors research and thesis writing such as literature reviews, methodologies, theoretical frameworks, and writing standards.
3-4 units, Win (Slayton, R)

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Cultural Awareness/Sensitivity (CAS)
ANTHRO 91A*
Archaeological Methods - (Same as ARCHLGY 102.) Methodological issues related to the investigation of archaeological sites and objects. Aims and techniques of archaeologists including: location and excavation of sites; dating of places and objects; analysis of artifacts and technology and the study of ancient people, plants, and animals. How these methods are employed to answer the discipline's larger research questions.
5 units, Spr (Hodder, I)

ANTHRO 91B*
Method and Evidence in Sociocultural Anthropology - Characteristic ways of collecting evidence and supporting arguments in sociocultural anthropology. How to evaluate ethnographic claims. Research activities such as interviewing, participant observation, tracking extended cases, inspecting archives, and reading popular culture.
5 units, Win (Ferguson, J)

ANTHRO 91C*
Anthropological Methods in Ecology, Environment, Evolution - The methodological and practical aspects of conducting anthropological investigation into human-environmental interactions. Tools for developing, asking, and evaluating anthropological questions in a systematic way. What can constitute an important question, how to frame a question that facilitates investigation, how to design a research project to begin investigating a question, hypothesis development, and experimental design. Approaches to ethnographic, behavioral, and ecological data collection, sampling strategies, observational methods, recording techniques and presentation style.
5 units, Spr (Bird, D)

ANTHRO 92*
Undergraduate Research Proposal Writing Workshop - Practicum. Students develop independent research projects and write research proposals. How to formulate a research question; how to integrate theory and field site; and step-by-step proposal writing.
1-3 units, Aut (Beliso-DeJesus, A), Win (Beliso-DeJesus, A)

ANTHRO 93*
Pre-field Research Seminar - For Anthropology majors only; non-majors register for 93B. Preparation for anthropological field research in other societies and the U.S. Data collection techniques include participant observation, interviewing, surveys, sampling procedures, life histories, ethnohistory, and the use of documentary materials. Strategies of successful entry into the community, research ethics, interpersonal dynamics, and the reflexive aspects of fieldwork. Prerequisites: two ANTHRO courses or consent of instructor.
5 units, Spr (Inoue, M)

ANTHRO 93B*
Prefield Research Seminar: Non-Majors - Preparation for anthropological field research in other societies and the U.S. Data collection techniques include participant observation, interviewing, surveys, sampling procedures, life histories, ethnohistory, and the use of documentary materials. Strategies for successful entry into the community, research ethics, interpersonal dynamics, and the reflexive aspects of fieldwork.
5 units, Spr (Kapur, C)

ETHICSOC 77*
Methodology in Ethics: Translating Theory into Practice - (Same as PHIL 77.) Ideally, social policies are informed by ethical thought and reflection, but doing good in the world requires the active translation of moral theory and political philosophy into action. What kinds of empirical data are relevant to social decision making, and how should they be collected, evaluated, and integrated into normative analysis? What assumptions about human nature are in play? How should diverse cultural values be addressed? Case studies from biomedical science, business, and government.
4 units, not given this year

ETHICSOC 133
Ethics and Politics of Public Service - (Same as POLISCI 133.) Ethical and political questions in public service work, including volunteering, service learning, humanitarian assistance, and public service professions such as medicine and teaching. Motives and outcomes in service work. Connections between service work and justice. Is mandatory service an oxymoron? History of public service in the U.S. Issues in cross-cultural service work. Integration with the Haas Center for Public Service to connect service activities and public service aspirations with academic experiences at Stanford. GER:DB-SocSci
5 units, given next year

HISTORY 299X
Design and Methodology for International Field Research
1 unit, Spr (Kollmann, N; Roberts, R)

HUMBIO 82A*
Qualitative Research Methodology - Goal is to develop knowledge and skills for designing and conducting qualitative research studies including purposes, conceptual contexts, research questions, methods, validity issues, and interactions among these facets. Each student designs a qualitative research study.
3 units, Win (Wolf, J), Spr (Wolf, J)

INTNLREL 199*
Honors Research: Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law in Developing Countries - Restricted to students in the CDDRL option of the International Relations honors program. Goal is to prepare students to do research and/or fieldwork to complete their thesis research. Main currents in democracy and development literature concerning how economic growth and democratization are related; how the rule of law supports these processes in countries undergoing change. Student presentations of thesis questions; student groups develop research problems and designs. May be repeated for credit.
3-5 units, Spr (Stoner-Weiss, K)

INTNLREL 200A*
International Relations Honors Field Research - For juniors planning to write an honors thesis during senior year. Initial steps to prepare for independent research. Professional tools for conceptualizing a research agenda and developing a research strategy. Preparation for field research through skills such as data management and statistics, references and library searches, and fellowship and grant writing. Creating a work schedule for the summer break and first steps in writing. Prerequisite: acceptance to IF honors program.
3 unit, Spr (Drori, G)

LINGUIST 197*
Undergraduate Research Seminar - Research goals and methods in linguistics and related disciplines. Students work on a small project to define a focus for their linguistic studies and prepare for honors research. Presentations; final paper.
2 units, Win (Clark, E)

PSYCH 196*
Contemporary Psychology: Overview of Theory, Research, Applications - Capstone experience for juniors and seniors that bridges course work with research opportunities. Lectures representing the department's areas: social, personality, developmental, neuroscience, and cognitive psychology. Faculty present current research. Discussions led by advanced graduate students in the field represented by that week's guest. Students write research proposals. Small grants available to students to conduct a pilot study of their proposed research. Limited enrollment. Prerequisite: consent of instructor. GER:DB-SocSci
3 units, Aut (Clark, H)

STS 190*
Junior Honors Seminar -For juniors intending to pursue honors in STS or a related discipline. Goal is to identify a research problem and identify key components of honors research and thesis writing such as literature reviews, methodologies, theoretical frameworks, and writing standards.
3-4 units, Win (Slayton, R)

URBANST 123
Approaching Research and the Community - How experience with community organizations provides a starting point for developing community-based senior theses or independent research projects. Principles and practice of doing community-based research as a collaborative enterprise between academic researchers and community members; how academic scholarship can be made useful to community organizations. Guest speakers from community organizations, faculty, and alumni of the Public Service Scholars Program.
2 units, Aut (Cotterman, K)

The Standard Error of Regressions

McClowskey argues that the standard error of regressions is to confuse statistical significance with practical significance. Given a large enough sample, the slightest variation will be considered statistically significant.

McClowskey and confederates read 182 papers in the American Economic Review and, from each paper, asked 19 questions:

1. Does the paper use a small number of observations, such that statistically significant differences are not found at the conventional levels merely by choosing a large number of observations?

2. Are the units and descriptive statistics (means for instance) of all regression variables included?
They should be so the reader can judge importance.

3. Are the coefficients reported in elasticity form, or in some interpretable form?

4. Are the proper null hypothesis specified?
"The only results that leads to a definitive conclusion is a rejection of the null [...] rejecting the null does not imply that the alternative hypothesis is true: there may be other alternatives which would cause rejection of the null."

5. Are coefficients carefully interpreted?
Suppose the dependent variable is weight and the large coefficient is on height, while the smaller coefficient is on exercise. "Neither the physician nor the patient would profit from [...] offering the overweight patient in effect the advice that he's not too fat, merely too short for his weight.

6.Does the paper refrain from reporting meaningless statistics?

7.Does the paper goes in a crescendo culminating at statistical significance?
This should not be the ultimate and crucial test.
...

11. Does the paper avoid sign econometrics?
Te sign is not economically significant unless the magnitude is large enough to matter.

12.Does the paper discuss the size of the coefficients?

The standard error in regressions is confusing statistical significance with importance. Ironically (an fortunately) statistical significance has been valued at its cost: "essentially no one believes a finding of statistical significance [...] My statistical significance is a finding; yours is an ornamented prejudice."
Tu put it another way, no economist has achieved scientific success as a result of a statistically significant coefficient. Massed observations, clever common sense, elegant theorems, new policies, sagacious economic reasoning, historical perspective, relevant accounting: these all have led to scientific success. The quest for statistical significant must be replaced by the attention to the scientific question: How large is large?

Economic Writing by Donald McCloskey

"Writing resembles mathematics. If mathematics is a language, an instrument of communication, so too is language a mathematics, an instrument of thought"

"...Churchill, a politician of note who wrote English well, knew how to handle [...] the editor who meddled with a preposition-ended sentence: This is the sort of impertinence up with which I will not put.

The rule of clearness is not to write so that the reader can understand, but so that he cannot possibly misunderstand."

McCLoskey advices to have cards 4x6 and a dictionary at hand.The cards should be used to record atomistic ideas: Do not let the insight of a moment pass, do not commit ideas to memory. He recommends reading sentences out loud: "try to imitate some way of speaking that Dennis or Maynard had." Also, pick someone for whom to write.

"To overcome academic prose you have first to overcome academic pose" (Mills, 1961)

"Writing would be better if more of us saw economics as a way of organizing thoughts and perceptions about economic life rather than as a poor imitation of physics" (Solow, 1984). There is nothing unscientific in self-depreciating jokes about the sample, and nothing unscholarly in dry wit about the failings of intellectual opponents."

English achieves coherence by repetition, repeat and your paragraphs will cohere. Use structure (AB)(BC)(CD), not linking words like indeed, furthermore, therefore, we leave this to ciceronian latin and colloquial Greek.

Elegant variation is invariably inelegant

The most important rule of rearrangement is that the end of the sentence is the place of emphasis

Never request the reader to look back, don't distract him footnotes.

Secret codes use the principle that translation is often easier in one direction than the other. A reads finds it harder to translate abstractions down into concrete examples than to translate examples up into abstract principles. Consequently, much economic writing reads like a code. Be concrete. Authors think in concrete ideas. Ironically, these are usually encoded it in symbols only for the reader to decode it.