Foundations of Political Research
POL 10170 Foundations of Political Research
Monday 9.00-10.00 and Wednesday 9.00-10.00.
All information about the course can be found in the syllabus.
The core textbook is Babbie's The Practice of Social Research, which can also be accessed electronically through UCD Library.
For the data project, you will need the following resources:
Overview of variables in the data set
Original data and codebook (Look up any variables you use in your assignment in the questionnaire!)
Web site to generate charts: Teaching Charts.
Template for the essay
| 18 Sep | What is political science research? | slides | |
| 30 Sep | Counting or interpreting? | slides | |
| 25 Sep | Know what you’re talking about | slides | |
| 27 Sep | Using library resources (Sandra Dunkin) | (slides on Brightspace) | |
| 2 Oct | Reading and writing political science research | slides | video on how Generative AI can write video on some issues around Generative AI |
| 4 Oct | Example: Kenyan media, violence reporting and crisis response (Caitriona Dowd) | (slides on Brightspace) | article |
| 9 Oct | Looking at a variable: Graphs for single variables | slides | video on levels of measurement video on misleading axes |
| 11 Oct | Looking at relations: Graphs for two variables | slides | |
| 16 Oct | Lab: Using the online graph interface | ||
| 18 Oct | Example: Who voted yes in the marriage referendum? | slides | article |
| 23 Oct | Testing relations: Graphs for three or more variables | slides | video on proportional ink video on common causes and control variables |
| 25 Oct | (continued) | ||
| 6 Nov | Theories and hypotheses | slides | |
| 8 Nov | Coding text | slides | |
| 20 Nov | Experimental designs | slides | |
| 22 Nov | Historical and comparative research | slides | |
| 27 Nov | Survey design: Who and what to ask? | slides | |
| 29 Nov | The ethics of doing research and review session | slides | quiz |