Related Titles

Understanding Political Science Research Methods using SPSS: A Manual with Exercises

www.routledge.com/9781138850675

Bundled with Understanding Political Science Statistics: www.routledge.com/9781138855755

Understanding Political Science Research Methods using Stata: A Manual with Exercises

www.routledge.com/9781138850682

Bundled with Understanding Political Science Statistics: www.routledge.com/9781138855748

These manuals walk students through the procedures for analysis in SPSS and Stata and provide exercises that go hand-in-hand with online data sets. The manuals complement Understanding Political Science Statistics: Observations and Expectations in Political Analysis, by Peter Galderisi, making them easy to use alongside the book in a course or as stand-alone guides to using the statistical software.

Filled with annotated screenshots from SPSS version 22 (but compatible with all versions, including the student version) or Stata version 12 (but compatible with all versions, including Stata Small), readers are guided through standard processes replete with examples and exercises to ready them for future work in political science research.

Understanding Political Science Research Methods: The Challenge of Inference

Maryann Barakso, Daniel M. Sabet, & Brian Schaffner

www.routledge.com/9780415895200

This text starts by explaining the fundamental goal of good political science research—the ability to answer interesting and important questions by generating valid inferences about political phenomena. Before the text even discusses the process of developing a research question, the authors introduce the reader to what it means to make an inference and the different challenges that social scientists face when confronting this task. Three themes run through Barakso, Sabet, and Schaffner’s text: minimizing classic research problems to making valid inferences, effective presentation of research results, and the nonlinear nature of the research process. 

Political Science Research in Practice

Edited by Akan Malici & Elizabeth S. Smith

www.routledge.com/9780415887731

Turn the standard research methods teaching model on its head with this innovative approach. Political Science Research in Practice engages students first with pressing political questions and then demonstrates how a researcher has gone about answering them, walking through real political science research that contributors have conducted. Through the exemplary use of survey research, experiments, field research, case studies, content analysis, interviews, document analysis, statistical research, and formal modeling, each chapter introduces students to a method of empirical inquiry through a specific topic that will spark their interest and curiosity. Each chapter shows the process of developing a research question, how and why a particular method was used, and the rewards and challenges discovered along the way. Students can better appreciate why we need a science of politics—why methods matter—with these first-hand, issue-based discussions.