The use of surveys to measure attitudes, behaviors and program outcomes has become widespread in social research, market research, customer experience and user experience research (CX and UX), evaluation, politics, and media. In this class, students will learn how to write effective survey instruments, collect survey data, and create visualizations of their results for applied research projects. Course topics will include identifying variables, conceptualization, index and scale construction, visual questionnaire presentation, piloting, testing for validity and reliability and survey administration. A special emphasis will be placed on the uses of survey data for Customer and User Experience (CX and UX) Research. Students will be trained to write surveys using Qualtrics and analyze data using SPSS.

Customer and User Experience Research are tools that organizations use to gain insights about their customer experience and the usability of their products, platforms and services. The key to excelling in this work is to understand people and this is why social science training is an asset for job seekers in these fields. This course will cover the language, logic and practices employed by market researchers to study human experiences of various kinds, such as customer, user, employee and brand experience. Industry relevant readings will focus on the ways that organizations can harness the power of knowledge about the customer journey and other human experiences to achieve their goals. They will also learn about many of the methods Customer and User Experience Researchers employ such as traditional techniques like survey research and focus groups, but also many newer strategies like diary/camera studies, card sorting and desirability studies. Students will be trained to add value both to for-profit organizations for maximizing return on investment as well as non-profits for enhancing community, changing social policies or delivering public services. Developing a customer centric mission is a key objective of most modern organizations. By taking this course students will learn to use research to achieve that objective in an evidence based fashion.

The Research Practicum is the capstone experience for the Master of Arts in Social Research and Analysis. It is expected that students will use the knowledge they gained from other courses in the program to construct their own independent applied research project, ideally with an outside reader such as a professional from a company or an organization or a professor outside of their program. The practicum will enable the student to engage in applied social research involving primary data collection, secondary data analysis, data analytics, or a related methodology. Students should get faculty supervisor’s approval of placement before the course begins.

In this course students will learn about the basic forms of social statistics and their applications in social scientific research. Sociologists use statistical tools and methods to measure elements of social reality and make empirical generalizations about populations. Statistics can be used to analyze many forms of social phenomena such as the rate of divorce, the frequency of homicide, the prevalence of school bullying, the likelihood of becoming unemployed, and more. In this class, the logic behind basic statistical operations will be explored and students will become skilled at both carrying out statistical analyses and interpreting what they mean. They will also be trained to use computer applications such as SPSS to analyze their data.

This course introduces students to the school as an institution of social control and social change. Topics for class exploration include the social organization of schools, social roles of students, teachers and other school personnel, the functions of education, inequality and issues in education surrounding race, class, gender and sexuality. Special attention will be placed on current issues in education, such as the debate over the Common Core, and the continued funding of Head Start. Public policies in education will also be covered, with particular focus on federal and state laws such as No Child Left Behind, Race to the Top, The Individuals With Disabilities Education Act, and New Jersey’s Anti-Bullying Bill of Rights.

In this course students will engage in a current sociological analysis of poverty and social welfare policy, with an emphasis on the United States. Class readings and discussions will consider how poverty is defined, measured and conceptualized. Theories on why poverty exists and the dilemmas associated with efforts to alleviate its harms will also be covered. Issues concerning common categories of the poor such as the aged, the disabled, the unemployed, the working poor, and families in poverty will be given specific attention. American social welfare policy will also figure prominently in the course material. Class readings and lectures will cover both the legislative aspects of social welfare and also a number of issues surrounding welfare eligibility determination and service delivery. Poverty and public health care will also be discussed from a global perspective.

This course will teach students how to apply the sociological perspective to the human aging process. Aging will be conceptualized as both an individual and a collective experience that has widespread implications for both the present and the future of all societies. The transient nature of that experience will be a recurring emphasis in each of the major themes of the course. Class reading and discussions will focus on topics such as ageism and the media, informal caregiving, age-related inequality, population aging, nursing home utilization, and Social Security reform. These and other related topics will be analyzed within the context of the theories and methods that make up the sociological subfield known as Aging and the Life Course.

This course will introduce students to the social constructionist approach to health, illness, disability, and medical knowledge. Social constructionism is a dynamic sociological paradigm because it enables us to understand the ways that society creates (or constructs) human conditions, scientific “facts,” and even knowledge itself. Using this perspective, it becomes easier to identify the roles played by social structures and powerful stakeholders in the ordering and distribution of healthcare and healthcare systems. Students taking this course will become aware of the social origins of health and illness; the demographic aspects of morbidity and mortality; and the associations between health, gender, race and socioeconomic status. They will also become engaged in the debates surrounding health care reform in America.