What are the makings of good research in youth development? How do our methods help us more clearly measure what matters in settings for youth? This course will provide an introduction to applied social-science research methods and design. Students will engage a hands-on semester research project while learning the foundations of ethics, method, and design for research in the field of youth development.

The course covers descriptive and inferential statistics. Students learn to identify the type of data, select appropriate statistic and graphical methods, analyze data, and interpret the results. Specific methods include the t-test, chi-square test, correlation, simple linear regression, one-way ANOVA, and repeated measures ANOVA. Calculations are done by hand and with statistical software.

This course addresses the history, organization, finance, governance, leadership and symbolism of athletics as a key part of the political economy of the contemporary university. With student athletes as a primary unit of analysis we will review the history of intercollegiate athletic competition, the symbolic role of athletics in society and the future of athletics on post-secondary campuses.

What does it mean to educate in and for a multicultural society? Using the U.S. as a case study, this interdisciplinary course looks at the ways in which education is shaped, enacted, and experienced by diverse communities both locally and globally. By exploring diverse knowledge bases that contribute to a multicultural society, students will critically examine educational practices and policies to reimagine the purposes and goals of education.

This introductory statistics course covers descriptive and inferential statistics for application in the health and social sciences. It provides a systematic development of the concepts, principles, and tools of statistics with an emphasis on representation, analysis, and drawing conclusions from authentic data grounded in the health and social sciences.

With a team, you will design and implement an innovation to address a community issue facing youth. You will become an expert in the issue, and develop the skills needed to 1) assess a social issue, 2) evaluate and integrate multiple perspectives on social issues, 3) collaborate with a diverse team of stakeholders to design and implement an innovation to address a social issue, and 4) assess and revise an innovation to improve its effectiveness.Prerequisite: YSI major

This survey course introduces several prominent theories of child development and explores the related empirical research. Emphasis is placed on applying developmental principles to parenting and professional practice. Major topics include: the historical basis of child study, the life cycle, maturational milestones, diversity in development, cognitive, emotional, moral development, and biological foundations.

Inequalities persist at every level of education. Throughout this course we will study innovations designed to address these disparities. We will investigate the process by innovations are designed and will critically assess the efficacy of a wide range of innovations. The course will feature numerous guest speakers involved in innovation design and implementation, including leaders in the private, educational, and government sectors.

Most college students have spent 16,000+ hours in educational settings. That's a lot of time devoted to learning new information. This course addresses questions such as: Why does learning take so long? What really happens inside the brain? What keeps people motivated to learn? Are some environments better than others for learning? What societal conditions impact learning? Are people similar or different in the way they learn?

Education policy has taken center stage in a variety of national, state and local debates such as teacher evaluation, universal pre-K, school accountability, and charter schools. These are issues around which there is often contentious debate, much of which is polarized and simplistic. This class will explore a few current education policy debates through the lenses of conceptual models and empirical evidence.