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PA551/552 : Analytic Methods in Public Administration I & II
Fall 2003 (CRN 14350) / Winter 2004 (CRN TBA)
Instructor: Masami Nishishiba, Ph.D.
OfficeUrban Center Room 670Q
Office Hours: By appointment
Phone(503) 725-5151
or
COURSE MEETING DATES
Dates: Oct 3 & 4, Nov 7 & 8, Dec. 5 & 6
Jan 9 &10, Feb. 6 & 7, March 5 & 6
Times: Fridays 6-9 p.m.
Saturdays 9 a.m.- 5 p.m.
COURSE DESCRIPTION
This course is designed to help you become an informed and critical consumer of social science research related to public administration, and to be able to design and conduct simple but effective research projects. Topics of interest include the uses of social research, relationship between theory and research, different types and approaches in research, quantitative vs. qualitative research, data collection, statistical data analysis and how to read and write the research report. A major part of this course is conducted in facilitated discussions and individual projects.
COURSE OBJECTIVES
By the end of this course, you will learn to:
- Formulate a clear research question, and identify the research question in an article
- Design and implement a research project using a variety of methods
- Read, evaluate, and interpret an academic or applied research report
- Understand, explain, and apply basic research concepts
- Conduct statistical data analysis, including t-test, ANOVA, Chi-square, and regression.
Assigned Textbooks
Thomas, A. R., & Smith P.J. (2003). Spotlight on Social Research. Boston, MA: Allyn and Bacon.
Jaeger, R. M. (1990). Statistics: A spectator sport. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Babbie, E., Halley, F., & Zaino, J. (2003). Adventures in Social Research: Data Analysis Using SPSS 11.0/11.5 for Windows. (5th Ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Pine Forge.
Jason Newsom’s Stats Notes, Web Lectures.
Assignments
1. Article Analysis Paper ( Outline of the article Due 11/8/03, Analysis paper due 12/6, 5-6 pages, Double spaced)
Find an empirical article (i.e. on that uses data) that matches your own interests. Ideally, it would match both your substantive interests and your methodological preferences. But you might consider an article that matches your substantive interest even though you would prefer to use other methods. Or you might consider a match to your desired research methods even though the article is not on your preferred substantive topic.
Begin your paper with a brief (one paragraph) statement of why you chose this article. How it is related to your interests? How closely is this article related to both the substantive interests you want to pursue and the methods you wish to use in your own work?
Then, the body of your paper should evaluate the article using the “basic elements” of a research report. For each of these elements, you should consider both: 1) how well the authors cover this basic element, and 2) how relevant their approach is to your own interests.
Introduction
Do the authors(s) provide a clear goal or problem statement, early in the article? Is there a problem with multiple goal statements? How do the author(s) inform the reader why they were doing the study?
Background
How do the author(s) justify the importance of their research problem? do they assume that readers already understand the importance of what they are doing, or do they need to ‘educate’ the readers about this problem? Will you be able to assume that readers already understand the importance of what you will be doing.
Methods
How do the author(s) justify the choice of data collection and data analysis techniques? Are these methods simply taken for granted because they are the usual practice in this field, or do the author(s) provide explicit arguments about why these methods are well suited to this problem? For your own interests, would you need to offer justifications for your preferred methods, or would your audience unquestioningly accept them? With regard to data collection, do the author(s) collect the data or use existing sources of data? Could you use a similar approach to data collection for your interest? With regard to data analysis, do the author(s) consider these techniques either new or innovative in this field? Would you be able to use similar techniques for your interests?
Results
Do the results really match the original goal statement? Are there some things that are either left our or that get added in during the reporting of the results? Did things work out the way that the author(s) expected, and if not, why not? In what ways would this results section be a useful model for your own work?
Conclusion
Do the author(s) systematically compare the research results with the original goals, as stated in the earlier part of the article? How well do you feel the author(s) did in meeting their original goals? Do the author(s) “stretch” their conclusions beyond what their results actually justify? For your own interests, would you be satisfied if you were able to reach similar conclusions? What do you want to be able to say at the end of your research?
Finish your paper with a brief (one paragraph) summary of how this article compares to your own interests. Which aspects of its substance and methods most closely match what interests you? Which aspects of your own work would be most different?
2. Your research project ( Due 11/8/03, 3 pages, Double spaced)
The purpose of this assignment is to get you started thinking and working on your research proposal/analysis paper.
a) Identify your research interest.
b) Summarize what you know about the topic. If you have any information about the previous research on the selected topic give a brief summary of it.
c) Describe why you think this is an important research topic.
d) Describe what kind of data you think you would gather in order to address your research problem.
3. Stats/SPSS homework (3 entries)
There will be four SPSS homework assignments. Homework assignments will consist of a combination of short answer type questions, computer assignments, and some hand calculation stuff. Homework assignments are due at the beginning of class on Fridays.
4. Stats and Research Concept Quiz (5 Quizzes)
There will be five short open-book quizzes at the beginning of the class on Saturdays. The quiz will include questions on some statistical analysis and key concepts on research design.
5. Final research proposal/analysis paper (Due 3/6/04, No longer than 10 pages, Double spaced).
Based on the research problem you chose at the beginning of the term, you will write up either a research proposal or a data analysis paper. The research proposal should include the following:
1) Overview and summary of your research proposal.
2) Brief background on the topic and significance of the research.
3) Suggested data collection and analysis method you will be using in this research.
4) How would the result of the research disseminated.
5) Potential strengths and weaknesses of your project.
6) Suggested timeline.
If you already have an on-going research project that you would like to use the skills you learned in this course and conduct data collection and analysis, you can writea data analysis paper. The paper should include the following:
1) Overview and summary of your research proposal.
2) Brief background on the topic and significance of the research.
3) Description of data collection method.
4) Description of subjects.
5) Description of data analysis method.
6) Result of your data analysis.
7) The implications of the result.
8) Strengths and weaknesses of your research.
9) Future directions.
Grading breakdown
Article Analysis / 20%Your research project / 10%
Stats/SPSS homework (3 entries) / 30%
Stats/Research concept Quiz (5 quizzes) / 20%
Final research proposal/analysis paper / 20%
Total 100 %
A = 93%A- = 90%B+ = 87% B = 83%B- = 80%C+ = 77%
C = 73%C- = 70%D+ = 67% D = 63%D- = 60%F WHOOPS
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TENTATIVE COURSE SCHEDULE
Following is the general schedule for each session. This, however, is a general guideline, and is subject to revision depending on the course content.
Unit
/ Date / Topics/Readings / Note1 / 10/3 /
- Introduction to class
- Research and the research problem.
2 / 10/4
(Sat) /
- Formulating Research Questions
- Types of Research: Experiments and Survey
Babbie Ch 21
3 / 11/7
(Fri) /
- Using statistical analysis in your research.
- Central Tendency
- Measures of Variability
4 / 11/8
(Sat) / Quiz#1
- Fundamentals of Measurement.
- Issues of Validity
- Statistical Inference
- Confidence Interval
- Hypothesis Testing
Your research project. (Due 11/8)
Select article for article analysis paper.
Outline of the article. (Due 11/8) / Jaeger:
Ch 5, 6,7, 8, 9
Babbie et al.
Ch 1-3
5 / 12/5
(Fri) /
- Inference involving averages.
- T-test
Ch10, 13
Babbie et al.
Ch 4-5
6 / 12/6
(Sat) / Quiz#2
- One-way Analysis of Variance
- Introduction to SPSS
Article analysis paper.(Due 12/6)
SPSS Homework #1 (Due 12/14) / Babbie et al.
Ch6-10
Ch 15
7 / 1/9
(Fri) /
- Two-way Analysis of Variance
8 / 1/10
(Sat) / Quiz#3
- Chi-square statistics
- Correlation
- SPSS demonstration
SPSS Homework #2 (Due 1/18) / Jaeger: Ch 4, 12,15
Babbie et al.
Ch 11
Ch 14
9 / 2/6
(Fri) /
- Single Regression Analysis
- Multiple Regression Analysis
Babbie Ch 17
10 / 2/7
(Sat) / Quiz#4
- A basic principles of statistical analysis.
- Other statistical analysis: A sampler
SPSS Homework #3 (Due 2/15) / Babbie Ch 18, 19, 20
11 / 3/5
(Fri) /
- Reading and writing statistical reports
- Secondary Data Analysis
- Content Analysis
12 / 3/6
(Sat) / Quiz#5
- Historical Comparative Methods
- Fieldwork
- Evaluation Research
Final research proposal/analysis paper (Due 3/6)