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This semester, students in a sociology research methods course are supplementing their class readings and discussions with practical and ethical insights from real-life researchers working in the public, private, nonprofit and academic sectors.
“By fusing the course with a speaker series, I felt I could give students a more robust and practical understanding of the ethical and intellectual complexities that accompany social research,” explained Clara Rodríguez, Ph.D., professor of sociology, who designed and is teaching the course. “By having practitioners of research methods at their disposal, students receive a firsthand account of research applications that offers far more than any textbook example can.”
With the help of a faculty challenge grant from the Fordham College at Lincoln Center dean’s office, Rodríguez created the course’s supplemental speaker series. While preparing the course, Rodríguez recalled former students telling her how often they were able to use the skills they developed in the course both in their postgraduate studies and professional careers. With this approach, students could craft and conduct their own semester-long research projects based on the advice and cautionary tales they heard from seasoned researchers. As an extra exercise, Rodríguez felt it was important for the students to take ownership of the speaker series. Thus, students contacted the speakers, facilitated their participation and generated event publicity—all of which gave them a practical lesson in networking and conference planning.
“All standards of professional ethics for survey researchers rest on belief in the importance of survey research,” said Jack Ludwig, senior methodologist and director of research for the Gallup Organization, who spoke to the class on Dec. 4. He added, “Surveys provide an unusually detailed and rich kind of information that we really can’t obtain, in many cases, in any other way. … [Ethics is] a discipline that survey researchers really must impose on themselves if their surveys are to reach their potential of helping people in the society in the ways that they really can.”
In discussing the importance of sound ethical conduct in survey research and polling, Ludwig noted how skewed questions and “ethical lapses” can compromise the integrity of any research undertaking. All survey research, he emphasized, should be rooted in a sense of profound responsibility toward respondents, clients and the audience.
Other guest speakers in the class included Mary Mattis, senior program officer at the National Academy of Engineering; Jackie Bruskin, research program leader for the Consumers Union; and Jonathan Logan, director of the Lewis Mumford Center for Comparative Urban and Regional Research. During these talks, students were able to learn about topics such as the use of technology in research, consumer report research methodologies and the use of research in advocacy.
Throughout the semester, Rodríguez emphasized the importance of ethics in all aspects of the students’ research undertakings. In their own research projects, students had to comply with Fordham’s Institutional Review Board protocol, which requires a strict adherence to ethical standards and protects the rights of human subjects involved in research. This is the same protocol used by Fordham faculty members when conducting their research.
Senior sociology major Cheryl Thill said that the speaker series component added a great deal to her understanding of the ethics and intricacies of social research.
“The speakers were well chosen and illustrated things that we were learning in the class, which was great,” said Thill. “Hearing it from a real-world perspective made me think about how important what we are learning is and how it can be put into practice.”
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Fordham Professor Clara Rodríguez, Ph.D., and Jack Ludwig, senior methodologist and director of research for the Gallup Organization
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