empirical-methods

Homepage for 17-803 "Empirical Methods" at Carnegie Mellon University

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Learning Goals for 17-803 Empirical Methods

The following gives an overview of the (high-level) learning goals of 803. All learning goals are roughly written in a form “after taking this class, the student should be able to …”.

• Summarize and interpret a body of literature on a particular topic; identify gaps in the literature; write a literature review
• Formulate and motivate research questions
• Understand what research designs and research methods are available for empirical research
• Compare the suitability of different research designs and research methods in different scenarios; explain the relative strengths and weaknesses
• Design empirical studies for different purposes (e.g., evaluating a tool, understanding a phenomenon); choose appropriate methods and defend the choice
• Combine research methods in a mixed-methods design
• Collect and analyze qualitative and quantitative data
• Design interview protocols and user surveys
• Code qualitative data
• Mine data from online repositories
• Run statistical tests and interpret results
• Build, validate, and interpret regression models
• Draw conclusions from empirical data
• Present results verbally and in writing