Interdisciplinary Research Design
Interdisciplinary Foundations of Research Design in the Health, Behavioral, and Social Sciences is an interdisciplinary course offered annually in the fall through The Methodology Center at Purdue (MCAP). Available to graduate students and advanced undergraduates, the course explores foundational principles of research design across the health, behavioral, and social sciences.
How do researchers make valid causal inferences or develop accurate behavioral forecasts? What standards should be used to evaluate the measurement of key concepts? What does it mean for a finding to be statistically significant? The course engages these and other core questions that span disciplines and research traditions.
“Just as important, however, is training in the principles for setting up research projects in the first place. What is a good ‘blueprint’ for a research study? How do we make a valid causal inference or a good behavioral forecast? What are the standards for evaluating the measurements of key concepts for a research study? What does it mean for a finding to be ‘statistically significant?’ These are the kinds of questions we will be exploring in the class, which are common across so many disciplines.”
— Dr. James McCann, Professor of Political Science and Co-Director of MCAP
Jeremy Foote, assistant professor in the Brian Lamb School of Communication, and Donna Xu, associate professor in the School of Nursing, are the instructors of record. They will be joined by 13 different MCAP-affiliated faculty members throughout the semester representing ten academic departments.
Students will consider themes in research design that span the social, behavioral, and health sciences. Then on Thursdays, social science-oriented students will meet in one group and health science-oriented students in another to discuss the applications of research methods in their respective disciplines. Student interested in the social science section should enroll in COM 682 and those interested in the health science section in NUR 599.
At the end of this course, students will be well prepared to enroll in the AMAP Graduate Certificate program, which is the only interdisciplinary research training certificate available for graduate students seeking to develop advanced skills covering the wide breadth of methodological approaches used in the behavioral, health, and social sciences.
For more information, contact:
The Methodology Center at Purdue (MCAP)
mcap@purdue.edu