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Introduction to Economics
Introduction to What Is Economics? What you’ll learn to do: explain what economics is and why it’s important This section introduces the fundamental assumption of economics, scarcity—that is, that the resources we need are limited—and the associated implicat...
2- Survey Questionnaire
Why Should I Care? Your Questionnaire can sink the scientific validity of your project. There is a right way, and a very wrong way to question your surveyed population. Sampling Typically done on large populations. Sample size magic number is 1,000 responde...
9 – Case Study
Why Should I Care? If you wish to study business, or any other applied field of study such as law, or medicine, much of the “how-to” knowledge comes from the accumulation of real-life events. Each “case” can help to build your knowledge base, design your play...
8 – Available Data
Why Should I Care? Many – if not most – researchers are producing reports based on data that was collected by someone else. This is convenient because it saves time and money. But it is also tricky because there may be gaps or errors in the data that the end-...
7 – Content Analysis
Why Should I Care? Humans produce a lot of content. Are you a content creator? This is even a full-time job for many people. There are obvious messages, but also hidden meanings, to media that we are exposed to every day. There is a scientific way to analyze ...
6 – Unobtrusive Measurement
Why Should I Care? There are hidden messages and meanings in landmarks, and objects that cannot speak. They have a story to tell if we know how to listen. Definitions Indirect Methods: The study of human activity without the implication of humans in the obs...
5 – Field Work
Why Should I Care? Some of the best social science comes from field work, but many people are not convinced because it is often exploratory, or descriptive, work. Definitions Field work: Research that involves studying social phenomena as they occur in the...
4 – Experiment
Why Should I Care? Controlling the social environment to conduct science is prone to ethical issues. But doing it right produces great science. Definitions Experiment: A study where techniques are used to isolate, control, and manipulate the major variables...
3 – Survey Interview
Why Should I Care? You would rather spend more time with respondents to dig into a topic. You prefer to reduce the size of the sample. You don’t mind open-ended questions. You want to get to the bottom of things. Objects of Measurement Interviews are about ...
1- Survey
Why Should I Care? Surveys are very common. However, many are not done well. There are many traps most people don’t know about that reduce their scientific validity. Definitions Survey: the act of measuring objects or phenomena. Social survey: a research ...
Introduction to Economic Systems
Introduction to Economic Systems What you’ll learn to do: describe and differentiate between major different economic systems In a society, the economic system answers three fundamental questions: What do we produce? How do we produce it? For whom d...
General Information
Why the Manual? We feel that students need some hands-on practice when learning to conduct social science projects. Since there were no textbooks out there that do that job, I decided to write something simple and relatively affordable for students. You will...
Table of Contents
Table of Contents Part 1 – General Information Why the Apparatus? Acknowledgements Who is Charles-Albert Ramsay? How to write an email to your instructor Part 2 – The Research Methods 1 – Survey 2 – Survey Questionnaire 3 – Survey Interview 4 – Expe...
Putting it Together
Putting It Together: Economic Environment Synthesis In this module, you learned about the fundamental economic principles that affect the environment in which businesses operate. Understanding the economy is like getting the weather forecast be...
Introduction to Economic Stages
Introduction to Economic Stages What you’ll learn to do: identify and explain the four stages of an economy, and describe their impact on business operations In this section, we will consider the economy over time and introduce the concepts of the economic c...
Introduction to the Health of the Economy
Introduction to the Health of the Economy What you’ll learn to do: describe how economists evaluate the health of an economy With a nominal GDP of over $20 trillion in 2018, the United States is the world’s largest economy (China was #2 at over $13 trillion)...
Introduction to Equilibrium
Introduction to Equilibrium What you’ll learn to do: explain market equilibrium, surplus, and shortage In this section, we’ll put the two fundamental pieces of the economic puzzle—supply and demand—together and see how the two laws interact in market situati...
Introduction to Supply
Introduction to Supply What you’ll learn to do: explain the law of supply So far, you’ve learned about the role of demand in economics—which is the consumer side of the story. In this section, you’ll learn about the producer side of economics to see what fac...
Introduction to Demand
Introduction to Demand What you’ll learn to do: explain the law of demand Imagine that the price of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream decreases by 25 percent during the next summer. What do you think will happen to the amount of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream that people wil...
1 – The Proposal
The research project may need to be presented to a review board for academic or financial considerations. In this case you would be required to provide a proposal. This is a short text (max 800 words), where you map out what you would do if you got the green l...