POLI 364: Methods of Political Research

The course will introduce students to inductive and deductive methods; research designexperimental, Non-experimental (e.g. case study) design etc: formulating a research question or problem, and explaining or defining the problem – independent and dependent variables, etc; conceptual definition and operationalisation; units of analysis; formulating hypotheses, types of hypotheses. Methods of Survey Research. Computing methods- developing computer-based skills. Problems of measurement – reliability, validity; levels of measurement- nominal, ordinal, interval and ratio will be dealt with.