Section 2 Course & Project Overview
2.1 What will ECN 310 do for you?
- provide education in, and tools for, research;
- give you context and background for econometrics courses (ECN 422 or ECN 521/522);
- engage you in research experiences;
- connect you to mentoring so you can take advantage of the full range of research opportunities offered by the Economics Department;
- provide recommendations to faculty offering research opportunities, including our economics distinction and B.S./M.A. programs;
- help you think about research-related education and career paths.
2.2 Course objectives: what you will do in ECN 310
- Learn the steps involved in conducting economic research;
- Utilize economic theory to frame analysis of research questions;
- Become familiar with simple statistics and apply to economic analysis;
- Select a research question of interest, write a literature review and formulate a hypothesis;
- Collect, clean, visualize and analyze relevant data using descriptive statistics;
- Interpret results, draw conclusions, communicate findings, and document the research process.
2.3 What is economic research?
Remler & Van Ryzin’s definition:
- “A social and intellectual activity that involves systematic inquiry aimed at accurately describing and explaining the world”
Primary research (our focus), aims to establish new facts and reach new conclusions to create knowledge
- That is, it pushes out the frontier of what is already known
- It is heavily influenced by the perspectives of the researcher
The process of research…
- involves the collection, organization, and analysis of information
- is fundamentally creative
- requires critical thinking
- is iterative, non-linear, less straightforward than a lot of coursework
- is a social and intellectual activity that involves systematic inquiry aimed at accurately describing and explaining the world.