Overview of course and course work. The course covers topics in epistemology, research design, design based research and mixed method approaches.

Go over course outline, web syllabus, texts/readings, expectations about preparation and workload, assessment, academic honesty policy.

Key terms: paradigm (worldview), epistemology, ontology, axiology, rhetoric, methodology, research design, and measuring humans, concepts, constructs and variables. Terminology Document

Research approaches as combination of worldview, research designs and methodologies.

Optional:

Steve Harrison, Phoebe Sengers, and Deborah Tatar. 2011. Making epistemological trouble: Third-paradigm HCI as successor science. Interact. Comput. 23, 5 (September 2011), 385-392. DOI=10.1016/j.intcom.2011.03.005

How to write a research question (Creswell Ch 7)

Quantitative, qualitative, mixed-methods and associated methodologies (Creswell Ch 8, 9, 10)

Logic: inference, deduction, induction, abduction, cycles of research (inductive-deductive)

Types of data: quantitative, qualitative, subjective, objective

Research Ethics
Special guest presentation from SFU's Research Ethics Boards.

The Govrnment of Canada TCPS 2 online tutorial on research ethics is to be done outside of class time.

• individually, identify a structure/phenomena, people, activity, technology, context, factor (IV), construct (DV)
• write a research question on the board
• have partner critique it
• decide how would you answer the research question, what data would you collect, method, etc.

Submit a one page document addressing research ethics for your research area. TBD.