“If you could learn only one thing in graduate school, it should be how to do scholarly research” (Garry King)
 
The primary purpose of this class is to make you a sophisticated consumer of diverse empirical research as well as enable you to become a producer of advanced work in the social sciences. Specifically, this means you should be able to locate, evaluate and critique methodological approaches across the social sciences, as well as identify interesting questions, formulate strategies for answering them, have the methodological tools with which to conduct the research, and understand how to translate these findings into work that can be published.
 
With an emphasis on how to approach political/policy science research, the class is structured in the following manner. We will begin with a brief introduction to the research process and its basis in the philosophy of science before moving on to aspects of concept formation (positivist and constructivist) and its operationalization. We then look at aspects of causal inference – a critical aspect of empirical research – before turning attention to approaches and techniques for data collection and analysis – from both, qualitative, quantitative and observational perspectives. The class ends with an outlook to the methodological frontier (i.e. mixed methods, causal process observation, field experiments) and the practicalities of writing and presenting your research.
 
This is a demanding class but one that should reward you handsomely – from academic and practical perspectives - in your future endeavours as long as you do the assigned readings, exercises and participate actively in class.
 
Please note:
• If you intend to take POGO8035 Research Project (6 units) in Semester 2, you must take POGO8096 (6 units) or an equivalent course on research methods.
• Students taking this course should not expect that they can master statistical methods and software by taking this course. Those who intend to use statistics should take, at least, one additional course on statistics or econometrics offered elsewhere.