B) On Methodology

Charles Crothers gave the aims of this section as 1) giving the student a smattering of research skills and 2) outlining the appropriate conditions under which these skills can be used, 3) giving guidelines in the literature so that students know where to look to increase their research skills.

The main student criticism of the methods was the artificial, contrived and non-relevant nature of the pracs, which the staff did not deny.

The students gave the opinion that in order to be motivated about pracs, they had to be involved. In order to be involved, they had to be 'doing' or utilizing their research skills in a problem that was relevant to them, i.e. they wanted to collect their own data in some useful piece of research. The saff pointed out ethical problems of primary data gathering, using the survey or questionnaire method which Sosc 301 is presently studying. They were also bound by university regulations concerning disturbing the public by unleashing untrained researchers on them. Two problems arose concerning theory and methods together.