Foundations of Political Research
POL 10170 Foundations of Political Research
Monday 9.00-10.00 and Wednesday 9.00-10.00 through Virtual Classroom on Brightspace.
All information about the course can be found in the syllabus.
The core textbook is Babbie's The Practice of Social Research. His The Basics of Social Research can also be used.
| 28 Sep | What is political science research? | slides | |
| 30 Sep | Counting or interpreting? | slides | |
| 5 Oct | Know what you’re talking about | slides | |
| 7 Oct | Example: Who voted yes in the marriage referendum? | slides | article |
| 12 Oct | Looking at a variable: Graphs for single variables | slides | video on levels of measurement video on misleading axes |
| 14 Oct | Looking at relations: Graphs for two variables | slides | |
| 19 Oct | Lab: Using the ggplotgui interface | ||
| 21 Oct | Testing relations: Graphs for three or more variables | slides | video on proportional ink video on common causes and control variables |
| 2 Nov | Reading and writing political science research | slides | article |
| 4 Nov | Experimental designs | slides | |
| 9 Nov | Theories and hypotheses | slides | |
| 11 Nov | Survey sampling | slides | |
| 16 Nov | Example: Development projects and corruption in Tanzania | slides | article |
| 18 Nov | Coding text: Qualitative approaches | slides | |
| 23 Nov | Coding text: Quantitative approaches | slides | |
| 25 Nov | Example: Power relations in the Kremlin | slides | article |
| 30 Nov | The ethics of doing research | slides | |
| 2 Dec | Review session | quiz |