Core Social & Behavioral Science
The College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences offers a series of college-wide foundation courses in social science theory, statistics, computer-aided statistics, quantitative research methods and qualitative research methods. These courses may be required or listed as options. Check the foundation course requirements in the specific major.
Core Social and Behavioral Science Courses
CSBS 196. EXPERIMENTAL COURSE. 1-5 Credits.
CSBS 197. WORKSHOP, SHORT COURSE, CONFERENCE, SEMINAR. 1-5 Credits.
Workshop
CSBS 296. EXPERIMENTAL COURSE. 1-5 Credits.
Experimental
CSBS 310. FOUNDATIONS OF SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES THEORY. 5 Credits.
Pre-requisites: completion of the general education core course requirements in the social sciences as specified in this catalog or permission of the instructor.
This course is intended to expose the philosophic choices and historical constraints that underlie all of the social and behavior sciences. In terms as simple as possible, we explore foundational alternatives (which may include idealism vs. materialism, individualism vs. holism, structure vs. agency, value neutrality vs. social critique) and the impact of history on the social and behavioral science. By emphasizing the controversiality and diversity within the disciplines, and the social contexts that shape them, we encourage students to discover sharply critical perspectives on the social and behavioral theories that claim to tell us how the world works.
CSBS 320. STATISTICS FOR THE SOCIAL SCIENCES. 5 Credits.
Pre-requisites: MATH proficiency required; MATH 121 recommended.
Introduces the theory and procedures underlying the use of statistics in the social sciences. During the first half of the class, methods are presented for organizing distributions, summarizing their key properties, conveying the relative standing of individual scores in distributions, and measuring relations between pairs of variables. Commonly used procedures for testing hypotheses in the social sciences are presented in the second half of the class.
CSBS 321. COMPUTER AIDED DATA ANALYSIS. 4 Credits.
Pre-requisites: CSBS 320 or equivalent.
Introduces the use of SPSS running on personal computers for analyzing data in the social sciences. Topics include basic tasks such as entering and transforming data. Procedures covered include obtaining summary statistics of single variables, graphing variables organizing multivariate data, testing hypotheses with t-tests, the analysis of variance, regression, and selected nonparametric tests. Fundamentals of factor analysis and discriminant function analysis are introduced.
CSBS 395. INTERNSHIP. 1-15 Credits.
Experimental.
CSBS 396. EXPERIMENTAL. 1-5 Credits.
CSBS 399. DIRECTED STUDY. 1-5 Credits.
Directed Study
CSBS 496. EXPERIMENTAL COURSE. 1-5 Credits.
CSBS 498. SEMINAR. 1-5 Credits.
CSBS 499. DIRECTED STUDY. 1-5 Credits.
Directed Study.