Quantitative Research Methods in Political Science
© Colin Whelan 2013
THE BASICS
• POL
•I
201: Research methods in political science
am Colin Whelan
• cew6@sfu.ca
• Tentative
office hours: Tuesdays 12:30-2:15 (after class) or by appointment • Labs
start week 2
FORMAT OF THE COURSE
• Labs
• Homeworks
• Quizzes
• Exams
R
•R
is the statistical software we will use in this course
• Instructions
syllabus
to download and install it are included in the
• It
is a difficult software to learn but I use it for two main reasons: • It
is free
• It
forces you to understand what you are doing
KELLSTEDT AND WHITTEN
• The
main textbook for the course
• Readings
• Make
• There
are not too long, generally easy to read
sure to read thoroughly though!
are readings for week 1 and 2 (sorry!)
• For
week 1: Focus on 1.3; and 2.2-2.4
• The
rest is important; but is mainly good background info
• First
quiz next week!
SOME VOCAB
•
Research Question: an empirical question about why or how some phenomenon varies
•
•
•
Research questions should be general
Research questions should be about all relevant cases
Notice that we are studying variation. Variation can be over time or across different cases.
•
Each case is a unit of analysis
•
We measure the concepts as variables
VARIABLES
•
Variables require some variation in the concept of interest
•
If our unit of analysis is people, than species is not a variable; if it were animals, species would be a variable
•
Variables map a concept to a measurement, we call this operationalization •
For any research question we differentiate between:
•
The Dependent Variable; and
•
Other Independent Variables
VARIABLES EXAMPLES
We use the term variable to refer to both the concept in theory, and the measurement of the concept in our dataset.
Here are some examples:
Concept
Measure
Economic status
GDP per capita
Ideology
left-right scale
Rights and freedoms
POLITY IV
Policy preference
A Likert scale
TWO EXAMPLES
DO VOTERS GET MORE
CONSERVATIVE AS THEY AGE?
Source: 2008 Canadian Election Study
DO