Category Archives: Uncategorized
Research Findings Too Good to be True
The level of popular acceptance of same-sex marriage has increased dramatically in recent years, but remains low in many areas. What if same-sex marriage proponents sent gay canvassers into neighborhoods to persuade opponents of gay marriage to change their potential … Continue reading
Learn (and Teach) by Doing
Learning by “tinkering” has caught on at San Francisco’s Tinkering School. The idea is to enhance education by having children learn by carrying out projects. For example, have students form a construction crew to create a small cardboard city. Or … Continue reading
Measurement Validity for Twitter?
Twitter messages are being used increasingly to track public mood and interests. Social media and Big Data enthusiasts–and those of us who care about measurement validity–will be interested to know that a new investigation provides evidence of the validity of … Continue reading
Big Data, Technology, and Teaching
Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee’s New York Times bestseller, The Second Machine Age: Work, Progress, and Prosperity in a Time of Brilliant Technologies (W. W. Norton) argues that we are at an inflection point of exceptional change in society due … Continue reading
The Census in Afghanistan
Conducting a census is a challenge for any government, but imagine how those challenges are multiplied as the current government in Afghanistan makes a new effort to conduct a national census. It’s not just the continued threat of violence in … Continue reading
Why teach research methods?
It is in their first research methods course that students learn how to “think like a social scientist.” It’s pretty rewarding to help them on this road. Teaching research methods also gives us a chance to draw on our own … Continue reading
Researching in a Social World 