400021 SE Research Design (2013W)

The goal of this course is to jump-start students with their dissertation proposal. Such a proposal is a research outline that delineates the doctoral thesis project, including the motivation for research question(s), the survey of the relevant theoretical and empirical contributions, the development of a theoretical framework, the specification of the methodology and planned empirical analysis. You should be prepared to address the following questions: What makes that an interesting question? Is it an important question? What contributions would this question and the answers make to the scholarly literature? What strategies are there to answer your research question(s)?
This course should help students to see the trade-offs involved in choosing a particular research design in their research projects. Consequently students are expected to develop own ideas about potential research questions and actively participate in those seminar-style meetings that are organized within this lecture course.
Prepare the readings in advance so that you can come to class with particular questions in mind. You will learn primarily by reading and then discussing the material with your instructor and classmates. The more actively you participate in the discussions the easier it will be to comprehend the new material and the more fun we will have working on this together. The readings will be provided in advance. There will be also some take-home assignments that should motivate you to put to work the material we discussed in class.