PAD 655: Research Practicum

Credit Hours: 4
Fall 2009
Thursday 6:00 – 9:30 PAC 4A

Instructor:

/ Mark Edgar, PhD, MPH

Office:

/ PAC 328

Office Hours:

/ Mondays 1-4other times by appointment

Phone:

/ 206- 7835

Email:

/

Fax:

Course Description

Students will work under faculty direction on the design of a research project using the material from the first four core courses. Students will select a research question that is productive for both management and policy fields that can be pursued by a research team using both quantitative and qualitative methods. Course Information: Prerequisite: PAD 654.

Course Objectives/Learning Outcomes

Objectives

To develop the skills necessary to complete a research project students will:

  1. Review basic statistical concepts and tests
  2. Build data analysis and management skills using local, state, national and international data sets and SPSS
  3. Complete a community assessment for a county in Illinois including accessing, analyzing and presenting the resulting data

Teaching Philosophy

Active engagement by students and instructor to facilitate an investigation of the key concepts of research design.

Required Text

None

Optional texts

  • Basic Statistics for the Health Sciences, Jan Kuzma, Steve Bohnenblust, Fifth Edition
  • Discovering Statistics Using SPSS for Windows, Andy Field, Second Edition
  • Discovering Statistics Using SPSS for Windows, Andy Field, Third Edition
  • SPSS 17. 0 Guide to Data Analysis, Marija Norusis

Other readings/materials

Access to SPSS either remotely or by license purchase/lease

  • IRB materials (UIS IRB site)
  • Atomic learning tutorials

Course Requirements

Class participation: Active participation in class discussion and exercises is expected. More than 2 absences may result in lost class participation points.

Methods of Evaluation

SPSS Homework assignments5 X 20 points= 100

Accessing/analyzing data1 X 50 points= 50

County profile1 x 50 points= 50

Class participation= 25

Total= 225

Grading

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GRADE
%
A / 93-100%
A- / 90-92%
B+ / 87-89%
B / 83-86%
B- / 80-82%
C+ / 77-79%
C / 73-76%
C- / 70-72%
D+ / 67-69%
D / 63-66%
D- / 60-62%
U / <60%

Page 1 of 3Last Edited on September 3, 2009

Delivery Method

Lecture/discussion

Course Calendar or Schedule

Week
/ Topic / Readings/Assignments
Basics of SPSS /
  • Set up SPSS
  • Complete SPSS Atomic Learning Tutorials
  • Complete SPSS tutorial

IRB Human Subjects /
  • Review IRB materials
  • Complete NIH online training

Introductory Statistics /
  • Statistics and How They Are Used
  • Populations and Samples

Introductory Statistics /
  • Organizing and Displaying Data
  • Summarizing Data

Introductory Statistics /
  • The Normal Distribution
  • Sampling Distribution of Means

Introductory Statistics /
  • One-Sample Significance Testing, Point Estimates, and Confidence Intervals

Introductory Statistics /
  • Two-Sample Significance Testing, Point Estimates, and Confidence Intervals

Introductory Statistics /
  • ANOVA

Introductory Statistics /
  • Correlation and Linear Regression

Secondary Data sources /
  • Review data source sites

Graphical display of data /
  • Using Excel and SPSS to graph data

Profiling a county /
  • Census data

Profiling a county /
  • Heath data

Profiling a county /
  • Other data sources

Profiling a county /
  • Other data sources

Final report

Date Syllabus Prepared:Fall 2009; Revised 12/09

Page 1 of 3Last Edited on September 3, 2009