1. What are reliability and validity? Be able to explain in words and using the bullseye target approach.
2. What are some methods for testing reliability?
3. Give at least six different instruments for collecting data.
4. The four measurement scales for data are nominal, ordinal, interval, ratio. Explain what they mean using examples.How does the instrument determine the statistics used to analyze the data?
5. Read the article: The Trouble With Testosterone. Make sure you know the answers to the questions.
6.. What are some threats to internal validity? Check the article on the website.
7. Read the article 'The Chemistry of Love'. What does this article suggest about human behaviour? Do you agree with these implications?
8. What is the verstehen position ? What claims does it make about the social sciences? Look over the questions in the article on the website.
9. Who is Alan Sokal? What did he do? What implications does this have for postmodernists? What implications does this have for all academics? Be familiar with the questions from the article.
10. Why should we study history?
11.How does revisionist history play a role in the writing of history? Use Louis Riel and the article on US national parks to answer this question.
12.What qualities do we expect of a historian? (Accuracy, Imagination, Evidence from a variety of sources, Use science, Eliminate cultural biases).
13. Is there cause and effect in history?
14. Know the article and the questions on 'Yali's Question' from the book, Guns, Germs and Steel. It is on the website.
15. How has technology affected history?
16. Do you see progress in history?
17. Can one talk meaningfully of a historical fact? If not, does it follow that all version of history are acceptable?
18. About whom is history written? Are the lives of some groups more important than others?
19. Comment on the quote, " It is impossible to write ancient history because we lack source materials and impossible to write modern history because there are too many sources."