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Introduction to the Web-Based Study Site The Student Study Site has been created for students and instructors using Russell K. Schutt's Investigating the Social World: The Process and Practice of Research, Sixth Edition. This study site should be a valuable resource that both students and instructors can use in tandem with their textbook to enhance understanding of key concepts and facilitate class discussions. The Web-Based Student Study Site contains a variety of student resources including E-flashcards, Web quizzing for students, recommended Web sites for further research, and research articles related to teaching and learning. CHAPTER SPECIFIC RESOURCES Web Quizzing The web quiz for students provides multiple choice and true/false questions to enhance students' understanding of the material. Answers are provided for each of the questions. Short answer quiz questions are also included for each chapter. Flash Cards The E-Flashcards are a tool for students to enhance their understanding of key terms outlined in the chapters. E-Flashcards may also be used as a study tool for exams and quizzes. Chapter Articles Full text research articles are presented by chapter so that students can identify the key topics covered. Links to the journals in which the articles were originally published are provided. Web Exercises The web exercises are taken from the textbook, providing students with the URLs to link to the resources discussed in the each question at the end of each chapter. GENERAL RESOURCES Web Resources The Internet is a powerful learning tool and can be used as a supplement to course material. The Web resources provided on this study site have been listed by chapter to correspond with topics and headings. A brief annotation describing the resources available on each web site is provided. Interactive Exercises These exercises are designed to help students master the key concepts and terminology introduced throughout the text. The exercises review various topics. Questions are based on real research examples, so when you practice with the exercises you will be learning more about the social world as well as improving your understanding of methodological concepts. Datasets and Documentation There is no better way to learn than by doing! The data sets on the study site give you an opportunity to experience some of the thrills (and, let's admit it, a few of the frustrations) of actually analyzing data about important social research questions. The data sets can be used at three points in the course: (1) if you carry out the SPSS exercises at the end of each chapter in order to learn more about related issues; (2) as a supplement to learning quantitative data analysis as you study Chapter 14 [highly recommended if you are assigned that chapter]; (3) whenever the spirit moves you to investigate some interesting social research question that was addressed by one or more questions in these data sets. In addition, if you want to extend your knowledge of statistics, you can use one of the datasets as you work through the statistics tutorials on this website. Most of the data sets are subsets of the General Social Survey (GSS). The GSS2006x version is designed just for the SPSS exercises and the SPSS appendix in this text. The GSS2006chapter14 version allows you to replicate the analyses in chapter 14 of Investigating the Social World. The GSSTUTORIAL version contains all the variables used in the supplementary online SPSS tutorials. The other data set is from the International Social Survey Programme (ISSP) in 2002 and includes all variables used for the exercises in Chapter 12. You will need to have access to the SPSS program (or a comparable statistical package that can "read" SPSS data files) in order to use these data sets. All of the subsets of the GSS2006 dataset and the ISSP2002 dataset can be run with the SPSS Student program (of course, they also will work with the complete version of the SPSS program). If you have downloaded the complete GSS2006 file, or already have access to it, please be aware that there are some recoded variables in the GSS2006 subset files that do not appear in the original GSS2006 file. In order to carry out all the exercises in ISW, you must use the GSS2006 subset files on this website. You can review the list of variables in the three mini versions of the GSS2006 that are used in the text or the tutorials, and the variables in the ISSP2002 mini version, by opening the corresponding Word files on this website. Your university computer lab may have the complete SPSS program. Alternatively, if you purchased the version of the text that includes the SPSS Student program, you have the SPSS Student Program for use on any Windows-compatible computer. You can also purchase and download SPSS and the SPSS Student program, or explore other purchase options, including the SPSS Graduate Pack, at http://www.spss.com/vertical_markets/education/online.htm You can obtain complete documentation for the GSS2006 dataset is available from the National Opinion Research Center (NORC) at http://www.norc.org/GSS+Website/. Information about the ISSP2002 is also available from NORC at http://www.gesis.org/en/services/data/survey-data/issp/modules-study-overview/family-changing-gender-roles/2002/. Statistics Tutorials The statistics tutorials provide a step-by-step, hands-on guide to using SPSS to generate basic statistics. Students can perform all analyses in the tutorials with the special file from the 2006 General Social Survey, GSS2006TUTORIAL, that is available on the Study Site. This file contains a selected sample of 1500 cases from the GSS so that it can be used with the Student Version of SPSS, as well as with the standard version. Searching the Web A set of PowerPoint slides are included to give students basic information on how to use the web. Additional Appendices Appendix F: How to Use a Statistical Package Appendix G: Annotated List of Web Sites Acknowledgments and Thanks A number of people need to be acknowledged and thanked for their hard work in developing the material on this Study Site. Thanks to Russ Schutt, whose dedication and perseverance has made the book and ancillary materials into detailed, thorough, and learning-friendly products. Also, thanks to Eric Tranby who developed the web quizzing. Finally, our heartfelt thanks to Melissa Ranalli at VPG Integrated Media for her help in producing this Student Study Site.
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