Politics V53.0800                                                                        Professor Youssef Cohen

New York University                                                                   TA Sunny Kaniyathu

 

 

 

 

 

Doing Political Science:

Quantitative Methods in Political Science

 

 

 

Description

 

            This course is an introduction to the use of quantitative methods in the study of politics.  It begins with a review of the basic elements of scientific thinking and their application to the study of politics.  Next students will be introduced to probability theory and statistics with a view to testing hypothesis about political events.  Students will also learn how to use the statistical software STATA to organize and analyze data.

            A good command of high-school algebra is necessary.  Students are encouraged to brush up on their knowledge of basic algebra.

           

           

 

Requirements

 

Students will be graded on the basis of homework assignments, a midterm and a final in-class exam.  Assignments, midterm and final will be weighed equally, each making up a third of the final grade.

 

 

 

Texts

 

Neil A. Weiss, Elementary Statistics (Addison-Wesley, 2002)

Articles can be found in www.jstor.org

 

 

 

Schedule and Course Outline

 

THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD

 

January 22

 

Introduction

 

 

January 27, 29

 

The Scientific method

Terence Ball, "From Paradigms to Research Programs." American Journal of Political Science, 20(1): 151-177

 

 

 

 

 

DESCRIPTIVE STATISTICS

 

February 3, 5

           

            Frequency Distributions

Measures of Central Tendency and Dispersion

            Weiss, Chapter 2, 38-56 and 71-82

            Weiss, Chapter 3, 88-116

           

 

February 10, 12

 

            Contingency Tables

                        Weiss, Chapter 12, 550-554

                        J. Johnson and R. Joslin, Political Science Research Methods, 325-336 

                        Class Notes

 

 

February 17, 19

 

            Bivariate Regression

                        Weiss, Chapter 4, 146-171

                        K. Hoover and T. Donovan, The Elements of Social Scientific Thinking,113-126

 

 

February 24, 26

 

            Bivariate Regression and Correlation

                        Weiss, Chapter 4, 171-193

 

 

 

 

PROBABILITY THEORY

 

March 3, 5

 

            Introduction to Probability

            Probability Distributions

                        Weiss, Chapter 5, 196-233

 

 

March 10, 12  

 

            Review and Midterm Exam

           

 

March 17, 19

 

            Spring Break

 

 

 

 

 

March 31, April 2

 

            Binomial Distribution

                        Weiss, Chapter 5, 233-255

 

 

April 7, 9

           

            Normal Distribution

                        Weiss, Chapter 6

 

 

April 14, 16

 

            Sampling and Sampling Distributions of Sample Mean

                        Weiss, Chapter 7

 

 

 

 

INFERENTIAL STATISTICS

 

April 21, 23

 

            Confidence Intervals

                        Weiss, Chapter 8

 

 

April 28, 30

 

            Hypothesis Testing for One Population Mean

                        Weiss, Chapter 9

 

 

May 5

 

            Intro to Inferential Methods in Regression

                        Weiss, Chapter 14, 606-622