The lectures start in Week 3 (October 1st). 

I assume  for most students this is the first semester of  their study programme. Everyone has at least a wide topic of their dissertation. Some have topics that lead directly to econometric projects, some have topics that lead to questions about behavior of people in business or other economics-relevant contexts. For some topics it may not be clear at present in which of these two directions they would lead. Since a dissertation is often a collection of studies it may just as well lead to both.

Since this course is about social-science research projects that ultimately have people - their behavior, emotions, words etc. - as the source of data and focus of interest I would like each student to browse through current journal articles in their area of interest and find an empirical study which could possibly be a model for a study you might do as a part of your dissertation. A study that makes you think "I would like to be able to do a study like this."

The purpose of this is to generate examples of studies you would like to be able to do. There is no commitment implied by your choice. I will not push you to plan to do such a study. 

Please, bring the study with you to the first lecture.

Also, this would be a good time to quickly browse through the textbooks for this course. I have not yet finally decided which to use and I would like to discuss it  during the first lecture. All of them are informally available online or in some or other edition in the MU libraries. Just see if you like the language and tone and to what extent is approaches the topic of research from your particular background.