Scaffolding Assignment #2
SOC/ANT 400: Research Seminar in Sociology & Anthropology
By now, each of you has a preliminary research question. As I discussed in class on Week 8, your research question should help focus your research for the rest of the semester as well as your final papers.
There is no reading assignment for next week. For your homework assignment please complete the following questions. The homework assignment is due the night before our meeting is scheduled: either on Monday, Nov. 14, or Wednesday, Nov. 16, by midnight, depending on whether our meeting is on Tuesday or Thursday. YOU SHOULD UPLOAD YOUR COMPLETED ASSIGNMENT USING THE LINK I POSTED IN THE WEEK 10 READINGS & ASSIGNMENTS FOLDER ON BLACKBOARD:
Write your preliminary research question.
HYPOTHESES: Take a few moments to sit down with your research question and come up with a few hypotheses, or educated guesses of possible answers to your questions. Write a paragraph stating a few (3-4) possible answers to your research question. Also include WHY you think these might be possible answers to your question. Try to come up with 3-4 possible answers; and try to go beyond what seems obvious to you. For now, it is not important to get the “right answer.” The purpose is to get you thinking about your research question and to flag things that you might look out for as you do your research.
You will be conducting in-depth interviews with two respondents from a particular population in order to help you answer your research question. What population or category of people should your respondents belong to in order to help you best answer your question?
Finally, review the power point presentation for Week 8, especially the slides on interviewing tips. Write at least 15 open-ended questions that you will use in your interview, keeping your preliminary research question in mind. Try to group the questions into 2-3 themes or areas related to your research question and/or to the “hypotheses” you came up with in your answer to Question 2 .
