POS-3713 - Mailer Fsu - Florida State University

COURSE TOPICS, READING ASSIGNMENTS AND PROBLEM SETS(WITH TENTATIVE DATES)Note: By 5:00 p.m. on the day prior to a class, all documents that students are expected tobring to class the next day will be posted at the course’s Blackboard site in the contentarea, “Stuff to Bring to Class.” The documents posted will typically include a lecture outline,questions to think about prior to the class, and/or figures or tables that will be referenced in thelecture. Any other important announcements relevant to the class session will be posted in thesame content area; students are expected to check this content area prior to each class and beaware of information posted there.Tues, Aug. 30Thur, Sept. 1illustrateTues, Sept. 6Thur, Sept. 8Tues, Sept. 13Thur, Sept. 15Tues, Sept. 20Thur, Sept. 22Tues, Sept. 27Thur, Sept. 29Course PreviewIntroduction to Political Science ResearchREAD: K&W, chapter 1, and Wright, Erikson and McIver article.(Note: this is a study I will draw on periodically topoints made in lectures. Do not be concerned that there areparts of this article that you may not understand; by the endof the semester, you should be able to understand nearly allanalyses. The one exception is the section on pp. 993-996on “LISREL Analysis.” This section relies on a statisticaltechnique, LISREL, that is beyond the scope of this class.However, by the end of the semester, you should be able tounderstand the logic of this section at a general level,despite the fact that you will not be able to understand thetechnical details.)Introduction to Social Science Research, cont’d.Theory BuildingREAD: K&W, chapter 2.Theory Building, cont’d.Explanation and CausalityREAD: K&W, chapter 3.Explanation and Causality, cont’d.FIRST MIDTERM EXAMResearch DesignREAD: K&W, chapter 4.Research Design, cont’d.4