Research Methods

I teach an introductory research methods course for doctoral students at the University of Michigan, Ross School of Business (and a shorter version at other schools).  The most recent syllabus is available here.

The course introduces students to research methods commonly used by social scientists to study people, organizations, and markets. It is suitable for all doctoral students, regardless of their stage in the program or area of study. We cover quantitative methods from various fields and empirical contexts. 

Students learn to formulate interesting research questions, construct novel theoretical arguments, derive testable hypotheses, design empirical studies, visualize data, and use econometric techniques. 

The course is framed with Robert Merton's "3 fragments", which is my favorite sociology article of all-time: 

1. Establish the phenomenon.

2. Specify ignorance.

3. Strategically select an empirical context. 

In collaboration with students, I developed two sets of guidelines for empirical research that I offer for all researchers as works-in-progress (suggestions welcome):

(1) Numerical Narrative: How to tell stories with data, using primarily descriptive statistics and data visualizations to motivate multivariate analyses.

(2) Empirical Etiquette: How to describe and report empirical analyses with transparency, so readers can draw clear inferences.