1. Communications 200 or Journalism 200 is required.
2. Students must either be (A) Communications majors, (B) officially declared a minor in broadcasting, speech, journalism/pr, or communications, or (C) in a University program having C300 as a requirement or an elective.
3. Students should have a working knowledge of the Internet and e-mail. Explanations and course updates will be sent to your e-mail address periodically, so you should expect to check your e-mail at least three times a week if not more.

COURSE OBJECTIVES

1. Students will learn basic research methods used by mass media and communication researchers.
2. Students will learn to evaluate public opinion polls, media ratings services, Internet & World Wide Web information and other types of reports published/broadcast in the mass media.
3. Students will learn to calculate, analyze, interpret and report basic statistical information for technical reports and news.
4. Students will conceptualize, execute and summarize an actual survey of college students.

TEXTBOOK

Rubenstein, S.M. (1995). Surveying Public Opinion. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.

COURSE INFO

Course Info provides an array of tools for the student to use in C300. Included are lecture notes, access to surveys and quizzes, a communication suite to contact instructors or other students, and a personalized Web page to help the instructors and other students get to know who you are.

Note: When an abundance of information is available, the student has every opportunity to obtain their preferred grade. However, the student must still A) access the information, B) decide which information is best suited to the problem at hand, and C) apply the information to the problem. The Web notes will help the motivated student prepare for evaluations. However, the unmotivated student will not be able to sleep on the Web notes and learn the material through osmosis.

Syllabus Index:  PREREQUISITES || COURSE OBJECTIVES || TEXTBOOK || COURSE INFO || TRACKING YOUR GRADES || GRADING || EXTRA CREDIT || CLASS PARTICIPATION || EVALUATIONS: midterms, final, lab exams, quizzes, group project || MAKE-UP POLICY/DEADLINES || LABS || FEEDBACK || ACADEMIC HONESTY || INCLEMENT WEATHER POLICY || DISABILITIES NOTE || DIRECTIONS TO INSTRUCTORS OFFICE

GRADING

Grades are earned through class participation (50 points) and evaluations (950 points). There are 1000 points possible. Grades are assigned on the following scale:

 

EXTRA CREDIT

Extra credit is available on some exams in the form of bonus questions. However, the best way to improve your grade is to study and learn the material.

TRACKING YOUR GRADES

By using Course Info, you have the opportunity to track your grade. Though Course Info indicates how grades are faring, it is not the gradebook used for your actual grade. Each instructor has his own gradebook due to some limitations within Course Info.

For example: Course Info tracks the grades to the practice quizzes and surveys as well as the quizzes. This averages into your overall grade as far as Course Info is concerned. However, the instructors do not use these grades when compiling your class grade.

CLASS AND GROUP PROJECT PARTICIPATION 50 points

Class participation implies that students attend class, participate in discussions concerning survey research and statistical analysis, and participate in class feedback surveys and the group project. Lecture materials are available via Course Info for those times you are unable to attend class. However, you should treat class time as your opportunity to have instructors clarify concepts you don't understand.

Attendance — Attendance will be kept daily. If you're not in class, you're missing quizzes, lectures and other elements of the educational experience. Multiple absences will have a negative effect on your grade. Missing the mid-term or final will result in a failing grade in the class.

When you must miss class, be sure to notify your instructor via e-mail or in person. Failure to provide such notification will result in an unexcused absence. If you have four or more unexcused absences, don't expect to pass the class.

Tardiness — Due to the intense nature of this course, students are required to be in class when class begins. Two tardies will be considered the same as one absence. If you are more than 10 minutes late, please do not come to class. Tardiness interrupts the flow of the class. Please adjust your schedule to assure you're in class on time. If you cannot make the class on time, you can get the notes off the Web.

Group participation — Students will periodically conduct anonymous evaluations of group member participation in the class project assignments. Each group member will be rated on a 10-point scale where 10 indicates exceptional participation and 1 indicates a lack of participation. The top and bottom ratings will be dropped, and an average of the scores will be made. If there is no discrimination among the ratings given by an individual, that rating will be dropped.

EVALUATIONS

You will have several opportunities during the semester to demonstrate your comprehension of concepts covered in readings and class discussions.

• QUIZZES:  50 points
  
  There are seven quizzes worth 10 points each. You may drop or skip two quiz grades. Quizzes are given on the honor system. If you score from 8 to 10, you will receive full credit (10 pts) for the quiz. If you score below 8, you will receive no credit.
  
  Quizzes are available from 8 am on Wednesdays through 8 am Thursdays via Course Info. NO make-up quizzes will be allowed. Missed quizzes result in a grade of zero. If you miss a quiz, you can drop that grade. After the second missed quiz, the zeros will count toward your grade. Those people choosing not to take a quiz are guaranteed to make a zero.
  
  Practice quizzes are available Monday afternoons, on which you should practice until you are SURE you can score well on the regular quiz. Work on the practice quizzes so you can request help on anything you don't understand. You can catch us during office hours or by scheduled appointment. And as always, e-mail for clarifications.
  
  IMPORTANT: If you're taking a quiz on some aspect of statistical hypothesis testing, make sure you're on a PC with SPSS. Also, when taking a quiz via Course Info, you may sometimes encounter problems due to the Course Info server. Take precautions against the following problems:
  1. If you attempt to upload the answers multiple times, Course Info may bomb and you will be unable to complete the quiz. So, only hit submit ONCE!!! If you're worried about it, write down your answers as you take the quiz, then send an e-mail to the instructor with your answers in them.
  2. If you accidentally leave the course site or close the browser window, you will be unable to complete the quiz. So keep the browser window open and don't switch pages after you've opened the quiz.
  3. If you take a long time to complete the quiz, the ISP may be boot you off after X-number of minutes of inactivity. So complete the quiz in a timely fashion.
      
• GROUP PROJECT:  400 points
  
  This course is designed to provide experience in planning and executing survey research from beginning to end. The group project assignments will help you make connections between the various steps in the process.
  
  Each student will be assigned to a group consisting of about five members. Each student will be required to contribute to group papers, help develop a survey questionnaire, interview a quota sample of students, and interpret data from the questionnaire by testing hypotheses using descriptive and inferential statistics. Learning the steps for statistical hypothesis testing in a group setting provides the individual student the opportunity to practice for the lab exams and final exam.
  
  Each group project assignment requires synthesis and analysis of concepts learned from the readings, lectures and lab sections. Each assignment will be graded for contribution, content and style (spelling and grammar).
  
  There are two due dates for each project report. Reports submitted through Course Info's student drop box on or before the draft due date will be read by the instructors, who will make suggestions for improvements that can be incorporated in the final paper. The draft due date is optional, but final papers must be turned in by the deadline.
  
  In order for an assignment to be accepted either as a draft or in the final form, it must adhere to the following standards:
  1. The assignment must be turned in on time.
  2. The assignment must be free of mechanical errors (spelling, grammar, AP style).
  3. The assignment must be submitted as a Microsoft Word document, RTF document or ASCII text document. Documents submitted in any other format will not be accepted.
  4. The assignment must be completed.

  If the draft does not meet the previous criteria, it will not be evaluated. If the final assignment does not meet the previous criteria, the group grade for that assignment will suffer.
  
  The breakdown of the group project follows. Exceptional work by a group may be posted for others to see. Links are to examples from Fall 2001, but the content may change as appropriate for the Spring 2002 course:
   

  1. Finding and Evaluating Polls (40 points) — This assignment involves finding and evaluating news polls and survey research on the Internet.
  2. News Release (60 points) — This assignment involves analyzing data from the dataset gathered by the C300 students in Fall 2001, and writing a news release based on the results.
  3. Report of Student Issues (60 points) — This assignment is based on a literature review and unstructured interviews with the UT community.
  4. Writing a Questionnaire (40 points) — This assignment involves drafting a questionnaire to be used for the final project.
  5. Final Group Project (200 points) — This assignment involves gathering data from the UT community (25 pts), the correct coding of the data (25 pts), analysis of the data, writing a news release (50 pts), and writing a technical report explaining the results of hypothesis testing (100 pts).

  Group projects are graded to different standards than an individual project would be. A group project should reflect the combined efforts of group analysis, discussion and explanation of the examined issue. The assignments are designed to be learning experiences for every member of the group. There are problems with group projects, e.g.:

  1. Students can't volunteer to learn for someone else.
  2. Students doing little or no work won't learn from the project assignment.
  3. It's not fair for people to get grades for work they didn't do.
  4. If students allow others to get credit for their work, they won't be recognized, i.e. in the "real world," someone else will get the raise or promotions for work they've done.

  To insure that each student participates in the project, each member will periodically evaluate everyone in their group. Working in groups does not necessarily mean that you always have to arrange for times when everyone can meet at the same time and place. If fact, it’s often best for group members to work on assignments individually or in subgroups.
  
  New technologies make it easy for students to communicate and share work. It’s quite easy to do such things as hold asynchronous discussions on the CourseInfo discussion board, post drafts and make suggestions for improvement. Also, e-mail makes it easy to share drafts and assemble sections of papers. Of course, when group projects are assembled this way, it’s essential to edit them carefully to assure consistency of style and quality of editing.
  
  Adequate provisions have been made for group meetings during the regularly class meeting times. Of course, you may arrange for meetings at other times, but if you use class time and new technologies well that should not be necessary. If your group decides to meet outside of regularly scheduled class times, you should try to schedule things so everyone can participate. But if that’s impossible, you should use the technologies to make sure that everyone is involved and does his or her fair share.
  
   

• LAB EXAMS:  (100 points each) 200 points
  
  Each student is required to attend lab sessions, held on Fridays in room 309 (or after break for Tuesday night students). During these sessions, you will learn about statistics, data analysis and interpretation. By the end of the semester, you will have (1) a working knowledge of the SPSS computer program, (2) the ability to test hypotheses, (3) the knowledge of statistical tests to analyze relationships between/among variables, and (4) the necessary tools to execute the data analysis for a social science research project.
  
  You will demonstrate your proficiency at operating SPSS under lab circumstances through two lab exams covering statistical hypothesis testing and data manipulation. Lab times and policies are discussed below.
  
  Essentially, the lab exams will give a list of hypotheses to test using a specified data set. Students will not only be required to answer questions based on output from running SPSS on the computer, they will also have to decide what statistical tests to run. The lab exams will cover Statistical Hypothesis Testing, Data Entry, Data Recoding, Data Selection and Missing Cases. It is HIGHLY recommended that students take advantage of practice exams to prepare for the actual exams.
  
   
• MIDTERM EXAM:  100 points
  
  Questions on the midterm exam focus on the assigned readings, lectures, class discussions, SPSS and homework. Questions come in several formats: true/false, matching, multiple choice, short answer, problem-solving (including computerized data analysis) or a combination. The exams build on the concepts and ideas presented throughout the course (i.e, they are COMPREHENSIVE).
  
   
• FINAL EXAM:  200 points
  
  This cumulative exam will be administered during finals week. Questions follow the format of midterm exams and quizzes. Students should focus on the material that you DON'T know. Final exam material comes from the following:
  
   
  1. practice quizzes
  2. quizzes
  3. Web notes {focus on book chapters, and lectures & essays on the Web note Index page}
  4. Practice lab exam

  Section	Final Date	Final Time
  1 - Miller	Friday, May 3	2:45-4:45 P.M.
  2 - Sitton	Thursday, May 2	8-10 A.M.
  3 - Sitton	Tuesday, May 7	5-7 P.M.