INTRODUCTION TO POLITICAL METHODOLOGY

Catalog description

Prerequisite: Required for all POLS majors. Quantitative reasoning intensive course (Q1).The focus of this course is not politics per se, but rather how we go about studying politics. Class sessions begin with an examination of contending approaches to the study of politics, establishing a broad conceptual framework for the analysis of political events in the U.S. and internationally. A great deal of the course will focus on statisticalanalysis and the use of the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS). The broad goal is to enable students to critically appraise the causal analysis and methodological design of social scientific arguments, formulate well-considered hypotheses, and present arguments in a clear and methodologically rigorous manner utilizing quantitative statistical analysis.Faculty: J. AVERY