Topic outline

  • Social Enquiry Methods

    Prev Next

    • Welcome everyone to Social Enquiry Methods (HUMS 2043) at UniSA Online. My name is Dr Paula Rowe and I am the Online Course Facilitator for the Bachelor of Psychological Science and Sociology degree. I will be your primary teaching contact for this course along with the online tutoring team, who you can contact by using the tabs above or through the course forums. You should also use the Course Outline as a primary reference for all academic queries.  



      In this course, we will study the importance of social research in the context of social professions, and we will learn the stages and methods involved in designing social research.

      Course Objectives: 

      On completion of this course, students should be able to:

      • CO1. Analyse how research is relevant to evidence based practice in the human services.
      • CO2. Critically assess research reports and academic literature
      • CO3. Conduct and write a literature review
      • CO4. Compare introductory qualitative and quantitative research methods and their applicators
      • CO5. Understand and implement research design and analyse findings

      The course is designed to scaffold your learning through the weekly content. As such, you will find several non-graded formative activities in each week that could be in the form of discussion forums or quizzes in which you can test your knowledge and receive feedback from the teaching team. Whilst NOT compulsory, I would highly recommend in engaging with them so that you are better prepared for your graded assessments.

      IMPORTANT TO NOTE: the major assessment in this course is worth 60% of the total grade. In order to do well, it is vitally important to engage with the material on a weekly basis and complete all of the continuous assessment pieces that will build towards the major assessment in a logical and sequential fashion. I will explain the importance of this in great detail in the first zoom meeting. 

      The textbook for this course is:

      Neuman, WL 2014, Social research methods : qualitative and quantitative approaches, 7th edn, Pearson Education Limited, Harlow: Essex.


    Prev Next