IPSA-USP
Concepts, Methods and Techniques in
Political Science, Public Policy
and International Relations
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Faculty:
Allyson Lucinda Benton, City, University London, and Centro de Investigación y Docencias Económicas (CIDE) Mexico
Teaching Assistant:
Victor Shin, University of Missouri
This course introduces students to basic principles in the design of political science research projects. The goal is to help students design research projects that can be feasibly completed in BA, MA, or PhD theses, or in an article manuscript.
To achieve this aim, the course covers five topics (listed below). It begins with a discussion of how to choose a research question (or topic) and how to set this question (or topic) within the relevant scholarly literature. Second, the course covers the construction of causal arguments and the identification of an argument’s testable expectations/implications that can be verified empirically. Included in this section is a discussion of the importance of identifying the null hypothesis and alternative arguments.
Third, the course considers the identification and measurement of an argument’s dependent and independent variables, including concept clarification and measurement. This is followed by a discussion of strategies for selecting cases for testing the relationship between the independent and dependent variables under examination. The course ends with a discussion of the variety of types of data from where to obtain variable measures, as well as the variety of methods of (qualitative and quantitative) empirical analysis available to link them. The course does not delve into the mechanics of conducting qualitative or quantitative data analysis; this is done in other courses in the summer program.
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