INST 381: Quantitative Research Methods for International Governance and Politics Section 2 (Online)

The University of Mississippi
Fall 2020 * Instructor: Dr. Gang Guo * e-mail: gg at olemiss dot edu * Office hours: by appointment

Course Overview

This undergraduate online lecture course is a general introduction to the basic features of the research methods used in the scientific study of politics and policy around the world. The course starts with a broad overview of the social science approach to the study of global politics and policy, noting especially the distinctions between qualitative and quantitative research and between normative and positive theories. After the brief overview, the course will specifically focus on quantitative research methods. It combines abstract discussions of the important concepts, strategies, and processes of research design with hands-on experiences of searching for, collecting, cleaning, processing, and analyzing real-world data on global politics and policy. It concludes with students completing independently a small research project from beginning to end on a topic in global politics and policy of his or her own choosing, based on what has been learned during the semester.

This course is especially suitable for students at the Croft Institute for International Studies because:

1. The course has a substantive emphasis on contemporary real-world issues in global politics and policy. The concepts, strategies, processes, and techniques are illustrated by actual examples and real data, and the underlying theories and substantive issues are those that international studies majors are interested in and care about.
2. Students can apply the concepts and methods learned in this course to other social science research projects that international studies majors often deal with in their course work or senior theses.

Course Objectives

By the end of the semester, students should be able to conduct their own independent research on a topic in international governance and politics by using appropriate scientific research methods. This includes designing a research project, reviewing relevant literature, developing a theory, formulating hypotheses, collecting data, conducting analyses using basic statistical techniques such as linear and logistic regression, interpreting the outputs, presenting the findings, and critically evaluating their own research and that conducted by others.

Course Structure

This is an online course where most of the activities will be on Blackboard. It is essential for students to complete the required reading materials, online quizzes, and homework assignments for every week.

Course Materials

We will be using the SPSS statistical software.

For installation instructions, please log on to http://my.olemiss.edu, click on "Search", "Research Software", and then "SPSS".

Additional reading assignments may be added throughout the semester. Most of them are contemporary examples of social science research on important topics in global politics and policy, and they will be discussed on Blackboard.

Course Grades

Grades for this course are distributed as follows: online quizzes 25%; homework assignments 35%; research presentation 10%; final research paper 30%.

The weekly assignments are in the textbook at the end of each chapter. They normally contain a mixture of multiple-choice and open-ended questions. Later in the semester the assignments will include computer exercises as well. Students are required to complete the assignment every week for the corresponding chapter and turn it in by Friday. Assignments that are turned in late without a reasonable excuse or assignments that show signs of cheating will be graded zero. Students are encouraged to meet online regularly to study course materials together. However, the completed assignment every week should demonstrate independent effort, *not* teamwork. Each student will be conducting an independent research project and complete a research presentation and a final research paper. There is a rough outline on Pages 235-237 of the textbook that you may follow generally in writing your final research paper. The research presentation should be uploaded on Blackboard by Tuesday, November 17th. The final research paper should be uploaded on Blackboard by Monday, November 23rd.

Course Schedule