Introduction to Sociological Research Methods

This course was delivered in the summer session of 2025 and was the second course for which I served as primary instructor. This class is an important part of the sociology major requirements at UCLA and is widely considered among students to be one of the most difficult courses in the department. I wanted the course to be structured in a way that mirrored what other instructors in the department were delivering to maintain some continuity, so we spent three weeks on quantitative research and three weeks on qualitative research. In each of these units, students worked together in groups to complete a small-scale original research project. For the quantitative research project, students designed and administered a survey and analyzed the data using basic statistical concepts. For the qualitative research project, students designed and administered an interview protocol and coded the data. For both projects, students wrote a report on their findings. The greatest challenge of the course was the brisk pace: students completed two research projects, sat for exams, and wrote research reports in a short six weeks. Even so, evaluations point to a difficult class that gave students a solid foundation for continuing their studies in sociology.