Political Science Methods
Fall 2008
Instructor: Dr. Scott H. Huffmon
Office: 344 Bancroft Hall
Telephone: x4669 (323-4669 from off campus)
e-mail: huffmons@winthrop.edu
web page: http://faculty.winthrop.edu/huffmons/
Office Hours: Tuesday 10am – 11am, Wednesday 1pm – 2:30pm, and by
appointment
Course Description
and Objectives
The purpose of this course is to train students how to
analyze political phenomena in a rigorous and scientific manner. This knowledge requires an understanding of
two different components: research design and statistics. In the first component, students will learn
how to discriminate between theories, pose proper research questions, construct
a relevant hypothesis, make valid causal inferences, operationalize
concepts, and test their hypotheses. The
latter component offers the student a “statistical toolbox” to use as s/he
pursues the scientific study of all things political. This component covers quantitative topics
such as central tendency and dispersion, measures of association, and
regression analysis. By the end of this
course, hopefully, the student should have mastered the basic requirements to
begin conducting, comprehending, and critiquing research in political science.
Required Texts
The following books are required:
Schacht, Steven P., and Jeffrey E. Aspelmeier.
2005. Social And
Behavioral Statistics: A User-Friendly Approach.
Coleman, Andrew and Briony Pulford. 2006. A Crash
Course in SPSS for Windows: Updated For Versions 10, 11, 12, and 13 (Third
Edition) Blackwell Publishing
Grading
Course grades will be calculated as follows:
Poll 10%
Homework 15% SPSS
Homework
Data Report 20%
Annotated Bibliography 15%
Midterm Exam 20%
Data Report: The Data Report will
be a 12 - 15 page paper (including graphs and tables; double-spaced with 1 inch
margins and a 12 point Times New Roman font, there will be no “headers,” you
will use a title page, bottom-center pagination, and an upper-lefthand corner staple [no “paper covers”]) that gives a
detailed research report of a particular data set. This will included
charts, graphs, and tables of data regarding your selected variables as well as
some statistical analysis regarding the relationships between variables. Graphs, charts, and tables must not be
“oversized.” I will provide a data set
from a survey conducted by a previous Scope & Methods class in SPSS and
give each student a "codebook" for the data. Your Data Report is due by the beginning of
class Friday, November 14th.
Papers will be penalized one full letter grade if it is not received by the
beginning of class on the due date AND one full letter grade for each day
late it is received thereafter. (What matters is when I get the
paper....not when you slide it under my door...give it to the Administrative
Specialist....put it in my departmental mailbox...)
Download Data Here (SPSS format)
Download Codebook Here (.pdf
format)
Example 1: of report with graphs from
simple report
Example 2: of use of graphs from larger research paper
Example 3: An Actual Data Report from a Previous Class
Annotated Bibliography: You
will complete an Annotated Bibliography of 20 articles from peer-reviewed scholarly
journals (i.e. the kind in the JSTOR database).
The bibliographic citations should use APSA
Citation Style. The Annotation is
more than a mere summary and must be no fewer than 200 words for each
article. More information about
creating an Annotated Bibliography may be found at the following websites:
http://owl.english.purdue.edu/handouts/general/gl_annotatedbib.html
http://www.lc.unsw.edu.au/onlib/annotated_bib.html
http://www.wisc.edu/writing/Handbook/AnnotatedBibliography.html
http://library.ucsc.edu/ref/howto/annotated.html
The Annotated Bibliography is due by the beginning of class Wednesday, October 8th. Papers will be penalized one full letter grade if it is not received by the beginning of class on the due date AND one full letter grade for each day late it is received thereafter. (What matters is when I get the paper....not when you slide it under my door...give it to the Administrative Specialist....put it in my departmental mailbox...)
Annotated Bibliography Grade Form
Example of a REAL Annotated Bibliography from PLSC 350
You must take both papers to the
writing center for evaluation and revision prior to turning it in to me. I receive a note from the writing center
whenever a student from one of my classes takes a paper there for help; if I do
not receive a note from the writing center I will deduct 5 points from the
grade for that paper. You WILL have
to submit BOTH papers to turnitin.com, so unless you want a zero for the paper
and academic prosecution, plagiarism is not advised. Papers not submitted to turnitin.com will not be graded. The procedures for using turnitin.com
will be explained in class.
Poll: The class will be conducting a telephone poll. This semester, the poll will occur in
October. Your grade on this will be based on your overall contribution to the
completion of the project. You will either
be expected to get a certain number of completed interviews --or
work a certain number of shifts (depending on which survey you work)-- over a
two and a half week period. Based on the
average number of completions per shift from previous semester, this should
take roughly 3 - 5 hours over a two and a half week period. During these two and a half weeks, you will
have no take home homework. Sounds easy,
doesn’t it? It is. However, every semester, several students
fail to achieve the completion goal.
Why? Two reasons: (a) they don’t
sign up for enough shifts and (b) they skip shifts. When the end of the project rolls around,
they scream that it was too much and an impossible task…despite the fact that
nearly all of their classmates did it with no trouble. (I had two students get 50 and 42
completions, respectively, one recent semester when I offered to let them do
extra calling for extra credit) Many
students have done it before. If you
find yourself unable to do it, there will be only one person to blame (hint: it
isn’t me). If you have some legitimate medical condition ( for example: deafness, severe speech
impediment, etc.) that would prevent you from participating in this aspect of
the class, you may write a 10-15 page paper on polling instead. You may be required to work evening or
weekend “shifts” during this time period in order to achieve your required
number of completions. IF YOU CANNOT DO
THIS THEN YOU CANNOT COMPLETE THE REQUIREMENTS OF THIS CLASS. The
only way to get an “A” on the poll is to get all of your completions. If you end up with even one fewer than the
total number of required completions, the best grade you can receive on
the poll is an 89. If you must miss a shift, you must notify the SBRL
Operations Manager BEFORE the beginning of the shift. Failure to do so
without an excellent reason will lower your grade one full letter grade for
each occurrence. Arriving late (more than 5 minutes) to a shift twice
without a valid excuse (or three times whether any or all have a valid excuse)
will lower your grade one full letter grade.
Why do we do a poll? The answer
to this question is two-fold: (1) a poll quite neatly encapsulates the research
process. We form hypotheses to test
theories, create questions to test these hypotheses, conduct a scientific
sample, field the research, collect data, and analyze the results. It is a wonderful way to get real world, hands-on research experience.
(2) as an institution,
This syllabus may be revised throughout
the term.
Students with
Disabilities
Winthrop University is dedicated to providing access to
education. If you have a disability and need accommodations, please
contact Gena Smith, Coordinator, Services for Students with Disabilities, at
323-3290, as soon as possible. Once you have your Professor Notification
Form, please tell me so that I am aware of your accommodations well before the
first {test/paper/assignment}.
Class announcements will be made via the class listserv. If you have an active winthrop.edu email
account, you should be automatically added to the listserv, otherwise you must
add yourself to the listserv. You are
EXPECTED to regularly check your email for class announcements!
Announcements made over the listserv are considered "official" class
announcements. If you are not on the class listserv, go HERE for instructions on how to sign up (the
course designator to sign up is: PLSC350001).
Academic Misconduct
Academic misconduct will not be tolerated.
Winthrop’s Conduct Code
defines academic misconduct as:
”Academic misconduct includes but is not limited to providing or receiving
assistance in a manner not authorized by the professor in the creation of work
to be submitted for academic evaluation including papers, projects, and
examinations; presenting, as one's own, the ideas or words of another for
academic evaluation without proper acknowledgment; doing unauthorized academic
work for which another person will receive credit or be evaluated; and
presenting the same or substantially the same papers or projects in two or more
courses without the explicit permission of the professors involved. In
addition, academic misconduct involves attempting to influence one's academic
evaluation by means other than academic achievement or merit. More explicit
definitions of academic misconduct specific to certain academic disciplines may
be promulgated by academic departments and schools.
I will prosecute cases of academic misconduct to the fullest extent of
university policy, and that can mean expulsion from the university. Obviously, any student caught cheating or
plagiarizing, in any manner, on an exam or assignment will receive a zero for
that assignment in addition to academic prosecution. Additionally, I
reserve the right to award the student an "F" in the course for ANY
act of academic misconduct if I feel it is warranted. This is in addition
to academic prosecution by the Dean of Students.
**ADDITIONALLY, the
Department of Political Science has it's own policies on plagiarism and
academic misconduct: Poli
Sci Statement on Plagiarism In the immortal words of Brad Hamilton:
"Learn it; Know it; Live it!"**
Class Policies:
Please provide a respectful learning environment for your fellow students. Repeated tardiness, cell phone disruptions, reading materials unrelated to the course (such as the student newspaper), and use of communication technologies (e.g., web browsing/ IMing/ texting during class) during class will adversely affect your grade.
Attendance Policy: Beginning with the third time a student is declared absent, the student will lose a full letter grade for each absence. Any student caught IMing, texting, or browsing the web will be declared “Absent” for that class. Since I don’t take roll, this is the only way to be declared absent.
Please arrive at class on time and switch off all pagers, cell phones, and alarms during class. The only exceptions to this rule are if you have children or an emergency family situation (e.g. family member in surgery). For these circumstances, you may leave your phone on vibrate and you must leave the class to answer a call.
I do not provide lecture notes for students under any circumstances.
Grade Appeals: If you wish to dispute a grade on a particular assignment for any reason other than an obvious arithmetic error on my part, you will need to type a one-page explanation of your position and turn it in, along with the original graded assignment, at least one week after the assignment is returned to you. I will then consider your appeal and make a determination.
Appeals must be submitted in hard copy format; no appeals submitted via email will be considered.
For appeals regarding your final grade in the course, please consult the Student Handbook and Catalog for procedures.
General Education
PLSC 350: Scope & Methods of Political Science fulfills the University’s a number of Winthrop’s General Education program goals: by requiring you to read, write, and speak standard English (1.1); by requiring you to learn and utilize quantitative skills (2.1, 2.2, 2.3, 2.4); by requiring you to use critical thinking, problem-solving skills, and a variety of research methods (3.1, 3.2, 3.3, 3.4, 3.5); by enabling you to understand scientific knowledge and its methods of acquisition (5.1, 5.2, 5.3, 5.4); and by enabling you to examine problems, issues, and choices that confront citizens of the world (7.2). For more information of General Education Goals, go to: http://www.winthrop.edu/universitycollege/GenEd/GNED%20Goals.htm
October 24: Last day to withdraw from the course with a grade of "N."
Order of Topics Covered
|
Topic |
Readings |
|
Introduction & Theory Building |
Shively 1 & 2 |
|
Accuracy & Precision |
Shively 4 & 5 |
|
Research Design, Literature Review, Empirical Observation, & Intro to Polls |
Shively 6 & outside reading |
|
Polling Methods |
outside reading |
|
Intro to Statistics & Basic Math |
Schacht 1 & 2 |
|
Descriptive Statistics |
Schacht 3 |
|
Central Tendency |
Schacht 4 |
|
Dispersion |
Schacht 5 |
|
Z Distribution |
Schacht 6 |
|
****Midterm Exam**** |
|
|
Probability |
Schacht 7 |
|
Confidence Intervals |
Schacht 8 |
|
Hypothesis Testing |
Shively 9 & Schacht 9 |
|
ANOVA |
Schacht 11 |
|
Correlation & Simple Regression |
Shively 7 & Schacht 10 |
|
Other Types of Research |
outside reading |
|
****Final
Exam**** |
|