success in this course. There are two required books for this course: Johnson,
Janet Buttolph and H.T. Reynolds. 2012. Political Science Research Methods, 7
th.
RESEARCH METHODS IN POLITICAL SCIENCE University of Pittsburgh Political Science 0700 (class number 21093) Tuesday/Thursday 9:30am-10:45am 105 Lawrence Hall Spring 2012 Professor: Jennifer Nicoll Victor, Ph.D. Email:
[email protected] Office: 4613 W.W. Posvar Hall, Department of Political Science Office Hours: Wednesdays 10:00am – 12:00pm Course Website: http://courseweb.pitt.edu (on Blackboard, use your Pitt e-mail login) Teaching Asst.: Andrea Aldrich,
[email protected] Office Hours: Mondays 2:00pm – 4:00pm, 4600 Posvar Hall, graduate student carrels I. Course Description This course provides an introduction to scientific inquiry applied to the study of politics. The main emphasis of this course is to introduce political science majors to key analytical concepts used in political research. In this class we will examine the logic of scientific inquiry, research design, and quantitative methods, especially basic statistics. The course explains how to approach social scientific questions and explores the value, and challenges, of applying rigorous methods to questions about politics. II. Course Goals This course is designed to meet two primary objectives. The first goal is for students to become critical consumers of social science, especially as it is used in everyday life. This means that students will learn to evaluate the presentation of data (such as polls, surveys, or summaries of data) and determine the credible inferences that can (and cannot) be drawn from them. The second goal is for students to develop the basic skills necessary to engage in qualitative and quantitative social scientific inquiry. III. Course Requirements and Graded Evaluation There are four graded requirements for this course, described below. Grades will be calculated on a non-curved typical A-F scale where, 77-79 C+ 67-69 D+ < 60 F 97-100 A+ 87-89 B+ 73-76 C 63-66 D 83-86 B 93-96 A 60-62 D80-82 B70-72 C90-92 AWeekly Short Quizzes (20%) Every Tuesday, beginning Jan. 17, we will start class with a short quiz that is 1-3 questions long. The 13 quizzes will review material, concepts, or techniques covered the prior week in reading and lectures. They are intended to help you review material and gain practice with key concepts. Each student’s lowest three quiz scores will be dropped.
1
Homework Assignments (25%) Students will complete a series of five homework assignments that will be made available on Courseweb. The specific instructions and due dates for the assignments will be made available on the website, and are designed to help students practice skills learned in class and to demonstrate their competence with these skills. Midterm Exam (20%) There will be one in-class midterm examination on Thursday, March 1. This is the only date to take the exam. If you do not come to class on this day or you arrive after the first person to complete the exam has finished, you will not be allowed to take the exam. Final Exam (35%) This will be an in-class exam covering material from the entire course (comprehensive). The exam will be in-class on Wednesday, April 25 at 12:00pm – 1:50pm. This time has been designated by the University and cannot be changed; it is the ONLY date and time to take the exam. If you do not come to class on this day or you arrive after the first person to complete the exam has finished, you will not be allowed to take the exam. IV. Missing and Late Work If you are aware that you will miss an exam or assignment due date you must notify the instructor at least two days prior to the due date or exam date. Make-up exams are conducted at the instructor’s discretion and are granted only in extraordinary circumstances. Make-up exams will be closed-book essay exams. Late assignments will have scores reduced by 5 percent for each day the assignment is late. I will waive the score reduction for a verified illness (bring a doctor’s note) or a verified family emergency (you must provide documentation). V. Student Responsibilities A. Class Attendance and Participation. Learning is an active, rather than passive, exercise. Accordingly, every student is expected to attend class as well as be prepared to ask questions about and comment on the readings. You need to complete the daily reading assignment prior to the class meeting. You will be much more successful in this class if you attend regularly, take notes, pay attention, and participate. B. Readings. As is the case with attendance, keeping pace with the reading is essential to succeeding in this class. It is your responsibility to obtain copies of the readings prior to the date we will discuss them in class. I will do everything I can to make this task easier for you. You will be much more successful in this course if you complete the assigned readings and take notes on them. C. Cheating, Plagiarism, and Academic Integrity. Students in this course will be expected to comply with the University of Pittsburgh's Policy on Academic Integrity (available at: http://www.pitt.edu/~provost/ai1.html). Any student engaged in any academic misconduct will receive an F on the offending exam or assignment. Egregious violations will result in an F grade for the course and will be reported to the appropriate Dean’s office. These violations include cheating on an exam, using someone else’s work as your own, and plagiarizing the written word. Plagiarism (using someone else’s words or ideas without providing credit or citation) is a serious offense. If you have any questions at all about what constitutes cheating, plagiarism, or academic misconduct, please ask the instructor.
2
D. Students with Disabilities. If you have a disability for which your are or may be requesting an accommodation, you are encouraged to contact both your instructor and Disability Resources and Services, 140 William Pitt Union (412) 648-7890/(412) 383-7355 (TTY), as early as possible in the term. DRS will verify your disability and determine reasonable accommodations for this course. All discussions with me regarding disabilities are confidential. VI. Teaching Strategy While lectures are important because they help to distribute necessary information and facts, they are not usually the most effective way to learn information. For this reason, we will do a variety of activities in the classroom. Students will be expected to participate in class discussions and work together in critical thinking groups. I hope that the variety of educational stimuli will help students to absorb more information. However, a certain amount of lecturing is necessary. VII. Required Materials The reading assignments are chosen to buttress and expand on the analytic foundation laid in class. Please notify the instructor about problems obtaining the readings as soon as possible. The following materials are required and can be found at the campus Book Center. You are strongly encouraged to obtain copies of these texts and read them; doing so is critical to success in this course. There are two required books for this course: Johnson, Janet Buttolph and H.T. Reynolds. 2012. Political Science Research Methods, 7th ed. Washington, DC: CQ Press. ISBN 978-1-60871-689-0 Pollock, Philip H. III. 2011. A STATA Companion to Political Analysis, 2nd ed. Washington, DC: CQ Press. ISBN: 978-1-60871-671-5 Students will also need to acquire access to that statistical software, STATA (version 10 or higher). Your version of STATA should be either SE or Intercooled, but do not acquire “small STATA,” as its memory limitations will be too small to be useful for our purposes. STATA is available to students for a $5 fee via Pitt Software distribution and computing (for details see http://www.technology.pitt.edu/software/for-students-software/stata-st.html.) Students will also need a USB flashdrive on which to store datafiles that will be required for class assignments. VIII. Course Schedule and Reading Assignments Th, Jan. 5
Introduction to the Course (1) IS POLITICAL SCIENCE REALLY A SCIENCE?
Tu, Jan. 10 & Th, Jan. 12 Readings:
Studying Politics Scientifically (2) Johnson and Reynolds Chs. 1-2 Noel, Hans. 2010. “Ten Things Political Scientists Know that You
3
Don’t,” The Forum, 8(3), Article 12. Available on Courseweb. Tu, Jan. 17 & Th, Jan. 19 Readings:
Generating Hypotheses (3/4) Johnson and Reynolds, Chs. 3 & 4
Tu, Jan. 24 Readings:
Generating Measures (5) Johnson and Reynolds, Ch. 5
Th, Jan. 26 & Tu, Jan. 31 & Th, Feb. 2 Readings:
Research Design & Experiments (6, 7, & 8) Johnson and Reynolds, Ch. 6 Brady, Henry, David Collier, and Jason Seawright. 2010 “Refocusing the Discussion of Methodology” in Rethinking Social Inquiry, Brady and Collier, eds. Seawright, Jason and John Gerring. 2008 “Case Selection Techniques in Case Study Research.” Political Research Quarterly, 61(2): 294-308.
THE BASIC TOOLS OF INFERENCE Tu, Feb. 7 & Th, Feb. 9 & Tu, Feb. 14 Readings:
Sampling, Inference, Observations & Records (9, 10, & 11) Johnson and Reynolds, Chs. 7, 8, 9
Th, Feb.16 Readings:
Surveys (12) Johnson and Reynolds, Ch. 10
Tu, Feb. 21 & Th, Feb. 23 & Tu, Feb. 28 Readings:
Descriptive Statistics (13, 14, & 15) Johnson and Reynolds, Ch. 11 Pollock, Chs. 1-3
Th, Mar. 1
Midterm Examination
Mar. 5 – 9
NO CLASS. SPRING BREAK
Tu, Mar. 13 & Th, Mar. 15 & Tu, Mar. 20 Readings:
Hypothesis Testing (16, 17, & 18) Johnson and Reynolds, Ch. 12 Pollock, Chs. 4-6
Th, Mar. 22 Tu, Mar. 27 &
Cross-tabulations and Correlations (19, 20 & 21) Johnson and Reynolds, Ch. 13 (pp. 428-480)
4
Th, Mar. 29 Readings:
Pollock, Ch. 7
Tu, Apr. 3 & Th, Apr. 5 & Tu, Apr. 10 Readings:
Regression (22, 23, & 24) Johnson and Reynolds, Ch. 13 (pp. 481-521) Pollock Ch. 8
Th, Apr. 12 & Tu, Apr. 17 & Th, Apr. 19 Readings:
Multivariate Analysis (25, 26, & 27) Johnson and Reynolds, Ch. 14 (pp. 527-568) Pollock, Ch. 9
Wednesday, April 25 at 12:00pm – 1:50pm
Final Exam
5
