Transcript Political Research and Statistics

Political Research and Statistics
8/28/2012
Readings
• Bring your cd's and a flash drive to class on
Thursday
• Pollack Textbook
– Introduction
– Ch: 10 Thinking Empirically, Thinking
Probabilistically
– Ch: 1 The Measurement of Concepts (6-13)
OPPORTUNITIES TO DISCUSS
COURSE CONTENT
Office Hours
• The University Requires faculty hold 5 hours a
week
• I hold 14 hours a week
Office Hours
• When
– Monday, Wednesday and Friday 11-1
– Tuesday and Thursday 8-12
– And by appointment
• Where
– Doyle 226
• Phone – 428-1294
• Email- [email protected]
ABOUT THE CLASS
Important things from the Syllabus
• Attendance
• Homework
• The Paper
About the Computers
• Use them for class, not
for personal business
• If you can only use
them for evil, turn them
off.
The Textbooks
The Textbook
• 4th Edition (older editions
are different but similar…)
The Workbook
• 4th Edition (older editions
will not work)
We need to cover a lot of ground
• This is the only
methods/stats class for
POLS and ENSP
• It counts for your
computer class
• Math is not hard, if it
was you wouldn’t be in
college
Course overview
In this class we cover the essential statistics used
in the social sciences
• The goal of this course is to prepare you for a
career in the social sciences or a related field.
• The class begins with research design and
culminates with multivariate regression.
Course Overview
• Methodological proficiency is ascertained in
three ways
– computer competency assignments
– statistical computation and interpretation homework
– in-class examinations.
• The Class culminates with a semester length
research paper in which you formulate and
empirically test a hypothesis using the
appropriate methodology.
CLEARLY STATED LEARNING
OUTCOMES
Course Learning Objectives
1. Students will learn the research methods
commonly used in behavioral sciences and
will be able to interpret and explain empirical
data.
2. Second, as this course fulfills the
Computational Skills portion of the University
degree plan, students will achieve
competency in conducting statistical data
analysis using the SPSS software program.
Course Learning Objectives
3. Students will learn the basics of polling and be
able to analyze and explain polling and survey
data.
4. Students will learn the basics of research design
and be able to critically analyze the advantages
and disadvantages of different types of design.
5. Students will be able to use the statistical tools
learned in class to test a political research
hypothesis and present these results in a
research paper.
THINKING ANALYTICALLY IN THE
SOCIAL SCIENCES
We focus on empirical research
• actual objective
observation of political
and social phenomena.
• Things that can actually
be measured
The Opposite of Empirical is Normative
• judgments about what
should be.
• The answers depends
on who is answering the
question.
• Normative statements
are unscientific.
THINKING SCIENTIFICALLY
What is a Social Science
• The application of
empirical research in
which the researcher
adheres to certain welldefined principles for
collecting, analyzing
and evaluating political
information
• Examples
–
–
–
–
–
Psychology
Sociology
Economics
Political Science
Public Policy
What is Science?
• It has to do with the
way questions are
formulated “Political
Research”
• And Tests these through
a set of rules and forms
“and statistics”
The Goal is Scientific Knowledge
• Study society scientifically and empirically
• Develop answers to questions about society
MAKING KNOWLEDGE SCIENTIFIC
Objective
• We Look at things without bias
• What is wrong with
this survey?
Balanced
• Good research examines the question from
more than one point of view
Evidence
• Good Research is
Supported by Evidence
• The 50 million
uninsured Americans
for example
Scientific Knowledge is Non-Normative
• Based on What We
Think
• The pepsi challenge
Subject to Empirical Verification
• Nixon-Kennedy Debate
• Top Party Schools
• If you can’t
measure/prove it, it
isn’t scientific
knowledge
Generalizable
• Applies to more than one case
• Covers a wide range of phenomenon
• Presidential Prediction models are coming out
Scientific Laws in the social sciences
• Why so few?
• Unit of analysis
• What we study
GOOD AND BAD RESEARCH
Good Social Science Research
• Pertains to the
discipline
• Significant
• Simple
Bad Social Science research
• Not-germane to the
discipline
• Normative
• Based on discrete facts
• Who won the 2008
Election?