GOVT 10 Quantitative Political Analysis
This course will provide students with useful tools for undertaking empirical research in political science and will help them to become informed consumers of quantitative political analysis. The course will first consider the general theoretical concepts underlying empirical research, including the nature of causality, the structure and content of theories, and the formulation and testing of competing hypotheses. The course will then employ these concepts to develop several quantitative approaches to political analysis. Students will be introduced to two statistical methods frequently used by political scientists, contingency tables and linear regression. By learning to systematically analyze political data, students will gain the ability to better conduct and evaluate empirical research in both its quantitative and qualitative forms. Because of the large overlap in material covered, no student may receive credit for more than one of the courses GOVT 10, ECON 10, MATH 10, PSYC 10, QSS 15 or QSS 45, or SOCY 10 except by special petition to the Committee on Instruction.
Instructor
Costa, Crabtree, Ferwerda