Political Science 30: Political Inquiry
Fall
2007: Prof.
Lecture:
M/W noon-12:50pm, Center Hall 119
Office
Hours: 369 Social Science Building, 2-4pm Wednesdays
Final:
Thursday, December 13, 11:30am-2:30pm
Why
do political scientists call themselves scientists? What can we learn about the world of politics
using the tools of scientific inquiry?
This course will introduce you to the basic principles of research
design, and show you how they are applied to real data by real researchers in
the real world to answer really important questions.
We
will explore a wide range of methods, including experiments, statistical
analysis of large data sets, and qualitative case studies. The readings combine textbook explanations of
the methods with examples of how they are put into practice. Through a set of homework assignments, you
will be asked to conduct your own analysis of a question of your choosing,
using a dataset that we will provide. In
order to work with the data, you will learn how to operate a statistics program
(SPSS) which is used by scholars and practitioners in both the social and
natural sciences. The two primary goals
of the course are:
1. To
provide you with analytic tools that will help you understand how political
scientists do research.
2.
To
improve your ability to pose and answer research questions on your own.
Required
›
Phillip H. Pollock, III, The Essentials of Political Analysis, Second Edition, CQ Press, 2005, and
Phillip H. Pollock III, An SPSS Companion
to Political Analysis, Second Edition, CQ Press, 2005.
These
two books are available as a package at the Bookstore, and both are
required. Students who have PCs – rather
than Macs – can also buy these books packaged with SPSS Version 14.0 for
Students, the software we will be using.
If you do not want to purchase the software, or if you are a Mac user,
you can use SPSS at the Solis Hall 105 Computer Lab for free.
› The other reading assignments are
contained in a Reader, available for purchase from AS Soft Reserves (in the old
› The course webpage, located at http://weber.ucsd.edu/~tkousser/PS30.htm,
will contain information such as homework assignments, lecture slides, data,
and course announcements.
Course
Assignments
›
45% Three Homework Projects
(15% each)
›
30% Final Exam (Thursday,
December 13th, 11:30am-2:30pm)
›
15% Midterm Exam (Monday,
October 29th, in class)
›
10% Section Attendance and
Participation
Sections: The course will include two weekly
lectures and one discussion section.
Please complete all readings and be prepared to discuss them in section
each week. Students are responsible for both
the information presented in class and in the readings, so please attend
regularly.
Exams: There will be an in-class midterm on
Monday, October 29th, as well as a final exam on Thursday, December
13th. The final will be
comprehensive, but will feature topics from the second half of the course more
prominently. All exams will be closed
book, and composed of identifications, short answers, math problems, and
essays. Since the emphasis of
statistical questions will be on understanding and interpretation, calculators
will not be permitted (or needed).
Grade
Changes and Extensions:
All requests for grade changes must be made formally to your TA, within one
week of getting back your assignment or test.
Requests must be typed and double spaced, and review of a grade may
result in either a higher or lower grade.
Extensions on assignments and make-up exams will only be granted in
cases of documented illness or family medical emergencies. Please contact your teaching assistant as
soon as possible if you need to request one.
We will return your assignments in a timely fashion in section, and you
are responsible for picking them up in section to confirm that we did in fact
receive and grade them.
Assignments: Each student will be required to turn
in three homework assignments at dates to be announced. The assignments will be a combination of
problem sets and portions of a research project based on the analysis of a
dataset. You must select one of the
provided political science data sets to work on in the first assignment, and
the last assignment will consist of your 2-3 page report. The report will be graded on both substance
and style. Each student must do his or her
own exercises alone, subject to university regulations prohibiting plagiarism
and cheating. NOTE: If you are a
political science major, you must take this class for a LETTER GRADE, not
pass/no pass.
Lecture Notes How do I read them?
If you don't have Microsoft Power Point, you can read and print these slides by going to the Microsoft website and downloading their Power Point Viewer. If you copy this link into your web browser: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?amp;displaylang=en&familyid=d1649c22-b51f-4910-93fc-4cf2832d3342&displaylang=en and click on download in the upper right corner, you should be all set.
If you want to print six slides per page to spare some trees, then when you are on the print menu, just select "Handouts" in the "Print What?" area, and you can print many per page.
SPSS Datasets
Reading
Assignments
- Monday, October 1. Research
Methods: Putting the Science in
Political Science
- No reading assigned.
- Wednesday, October 3. The Grammar of Causal Theories.
- Pollock, The Essentials of Political Analysis, Introduction (pp. 1-5)
and Chapter 2 (pp. 28-47).
- Monday, October 8. The Fundamental Problem of Causal Inference
- Earl Babbie, The Practice of Social Research, pp. 72-77.
- Associated
Press, “How Grade
Delay Affects Children,”
- Associated
Press, “Math Adds
Up to College, Report Says.”
- Mike Schleeter, “Restrictions Miss
the Point,” San Francisco Chronicle,
- Reuters, “Young Drinkers More Likely to Turn
Out Alcoholic,”
- New
York Times, “You
Gotta Believe,”
- Wednesday, October 10. Experiments:
Isolating a Causal Factor by Randomly Assigning It.
- Stanley *Milgram, “Some Conditions
of Obedience and Disobedience to Authority,” Human Relations, 1965.
- Donald R. Kinder and Shanto
Iyengar, News That Matters, The
- Monday, October 15. Quasi-experiments: Good Enough for Social Science.
- Donald T. Campbell et al., “
- Wilma Rule, “Women’s
Underrepresentation and Electoral Systems,” PS, 1994.
- Jared Diamond, “A Natural
Experiment of History,” pp. 53-66 of Guns,
Germs and Steel, W.W. Norton and Company, 1999.
Part II. Describing and
Collecting Data
6.
Wednesday,
October 17. Measurement I: We Know a Good Measure
When We See It
- Pollock, The Essentials of Political Analysis, Chapter 1 (pp.
7-25).
- Robert D. Putnam, “Tuning in,
Tuning Out: The Strange Disappearance of Social Capital in
- Monday, October 22. Measurement II: Quantifying and Describing
Variables.
- Pollock, The Essentials of Political Analysis, Chapter 3 (pp. 51-74).
- Pollock, An SPSS Companion to Political Analysis, Chapters 1-2 (pp.
5-23).
- Wednesday, October 24. Drawing a Sample
- Pollock, The Essentials of Political Analysis, Beginning of Chapter 5
(pp. 102-107).
- Michael Kagay, “A Sample of a
Sample,” New York Times,
- Lynda Gledhill “Poll on State
Budget: It’s All in the Asking,”
San Francisco Chronicle,
9.
Monday,
November 5 Midterm, in class.
10. Wednesday, November 7. Drawing a Good Sample and Surveys
in the Real World
- Jim Rutenberg, “Report Says
Problems Led to Skewed Surveying Data,” New York Times,
- Michael Traugatt, Ben Highton, and
Henry Brady, A Review of Recent
Controversies Concerning the 2004 Presidential Exit Polls, The
National Research Commission on Elections and Voting, 2005.
Part III. Testing
Causal Hypotheses
- Wednesday, November 14. Probability Theory and the Magic of the Normal
Distribution
- Pollock, The Essentials of Political Analysis, another part of Chapter
5 (pp. 109-120).
- Monday, November 19. Exploring
Causal Relationships.
- Pollock, The Essentials of Political Analysis, Beginning of Chapter 6
(pp. 130-139).
- Pollock, An SPSS Companion to Political Analysis, Chapter 3 (31-46).
- Stephen Knack and Martha Kropf,
“Who Uses Inferior Voting Technology?” PS, 2002.
- Monday, November 26. Linear Regression I: Scatterplots and Regression
Lines.
- Pollock, The Essentials of Political Analysis, Chapter 7 (pp.
154-175).
1. Wednesday, November 28. Linear Regression II: Interpreting Regression Coefficients.
- Pollock, An SPSS Companion to Political Analysis, Chapter 8 (pp.
133-148).
- Helmut Norputh “From Primary to
General Election: A Forecast of the Presidential Vote,” and “As New
Hampshire Goes (in January)…” PS,
October 2004 and January 2005.
- Monday, December 3. Isolating Causal Factors by Using Tables and
Charts.
- Pollock, The Essentials of Political Analysis, End of Chapter 4 (pp.
87-100).
- Pollock, An SPSS Companion to Political Analysis, Chapter 5 (75-95).
- Wolfinger and Rosenstone, Chapter
2 of Who Votes? Yale University
Press, 1980, especially Tables 2.4, 2.5, and 2.6.
- Wednesday, December 5. Qualitative Research Design.
- King, Keohane and Verba, Designing Social Inquiry,
- Clem Miller, “Walnut Growers and
Poultrymen,” Members of the House:
Letters from a Congressman, Ed. John Baker, Simon and Schuster, 1962.
- Dreze and Sen, “
Just
in case you are curious, here is the lecture that we missed because of the
fires. It will NOT be on the final: How Sure is Sure? Quantifying Uncertainty in Tables.
Readings
for it: Pollock, The Essentials of
Political Analysis, More of Chapter 6 (pp. 139-144), Pollock, An SPSS Companion to Political Analysis,
Chapter 7 (pp. 119-127).
Using
SPSS
If you did not purchase the SPSS application, you can use it in Solis 105 (I will give out the door entry code in class on 7/17 and 7/19), or any of the following campus computer labs (you can look up the door entry codes by going to http://acs.ucsd.edu/, then clicking on “Account Lookup Tool.”).
UCSD Computer Labs with SPSS:
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