Applied Research Mixed Methods

Catalog description

Public policy scholars and practitioners have a wide variety of methodological tools at their disposal. Yet, it can be challenging to determine which techniques are best equipped to answer particular research questions, as well as how to fruitfully combine distinct methods. Gaining a familiarity with the discipline’s vast methodological “toolkit” is essential to building the knowledge and skills necessary to engage in political and social research— for scholars, policymakers, and practitioners. In this course, students will explore the principle methodological approaches employed in political inquiry—encompassing experimental, quantitative-statistical, and qualitative techniques—and examine how these tools may be productively “mixed” to make descriptive and causal inferences about political phenomena. In addition to learning to evaluate and critique distinct methodological approaches, students will “learn by doing” and gain experience applying various techniques to answer specific research questions. To provide the necessary technical skills for applied research, the course will introduce students to software programs that are commonly used for quantitative and qualitative research. Students will apply the skills and techniques in the context of a semester-long research project, which will include formulating a research question, developing a research design, and engaging in original empirical research (including data collection and data analysis). The project could form the basis of a graduate-level thesis or article manuscript prepared for submission to a peer-reviewed publication.