Undergraduate Course: Introduction to Political Data Analysis (PLIT08009)
Course Outline
| School | School of Social and Political Science |
College | College of Humanities and Social Science |
| Credit level (Normal year taken) | SCQF Level 8 (Year 2 Undergraduate) |
Availability | Available to all students |
| SCQF Credits | 20 |
ECTS Credits | 10 |
| Summary | This Year 2 course will introduce students to political data analysis using domestic and international data. The course will cover core substantive topics in Politics and international relations, typically exploring one major research question from Politics and one major research question from IR. It will explore how to access relevant data and assess the appropriateness of data. It will provide key skills in quantitative data analysis, including descriptive statistics, cross-tab/contingency tables, measures of association, correlation and regression. These techniques will be used to answer different aspects of the same research question. The course will show how using different types of data and different techniques provide different ways to answer the types of questions typically posed by empirical Politics and IR scholars. Throughout, both the strengths and weaknesses of different approaches will be addressed, as will issues such as validity, reliability and missing data. Lectures will be accompanied by weekly tutorials delivered in a computer lab. |
| Course description |
Part I: Introduction to Data Analysis
Week 1: Introduction to course, objectives, what is political data analysis
Research questions, hypotheses, conceptualisation, operationalisation, variables
The structure of empirical essays/articles
Week: 2: Analysing political data I
Introduction to validity and reliability
Aggregate and individual-level approaches (benefits and limits of each)
Levels of measurement
Tutorial: Introduction to SPSS, inputting data
Week 3: Analysing political data II
Sources of data (qualitative and quantitative)
Accessing data online
Tutorial: Accessing data through European and UK data archives
Part II: (Indicative) How can we account for the success of humanitarian interventions?
Week 4: RQ: How can we assess the scale of humanitarian crises?
The uses and limits of quantitative data in evaluating this RQ
Measures of central tendency and dispersion
Tutorial: Analysing relevant data online through NESSTAR and SPSS
Week 5: RQ: Do humanitarian interventions work? Part I
Data management and assessing data quality
Cross-tab/contingency tables
Tutorial: Frequencies & Cross-tabs in NESSTAR and SPSS
Week 6 reading week
Week 7: RQ: Do humanitarian interventions work? Part II
Visualising data with charts and graphs
Identifying errors in the visual presentation of data
Tutorial: Bar graphs, Scatter plots in SPSS
Week 8: RQ: Do humanitarian interventions work? Part III
Correlation and regression
Addressing the problem of ¿missing¿ data (& where do data come from?)
Tutorial: Correlating continuous variables in SPSS
Part III: (Indicative) Why and how do people vote?
Week 9: RQ: Does gender affect voter turnout?
The uses and limits of quantitative data in evaluating this RQ
Measures of association for nominal and ordinal data
Tutorial: Recoding and computing variables
Week 10: RQ: Does age affect voter turnout?
Testing differences across means
Addressing reliability problems (over-reporting voter turnout)
Tutorial: T tests and ANOVA
Week 11: RQ: Does happiness affect partisan preferences?
Logistic Regression
Addressing validity problems (measuring happiness)
Tutorial: Logistic regression
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Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
| Pre-requisites |
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Co-requisites | |
| Prohibited Combinations | |
Other requirements | None |
Information for Visiting Students
| Pre-requisites | None |
Course Delivery Information
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| Academic year 2015/16, Available to all students (SV1)
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Quota: None |
| Course Start |
Semester 2 |
Timetable |
Timetable |
| Learning and Teaching activities (Further Info) |
Total Hours:
200
(
Lecture Hours 11,
Seminar/Tutorial Hours 22,
Programme Level Learning and Teaching Hours 4,
Directed Learning and Independent Learning Hours
163 )
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| Assessment (Further Info) |
Written Exam
35 %,
Coursework
65 %,
Practical Exam
0 %
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| Additional Information (Assessment) |
A mix of
-Two data interpretation assignments (10%, 15%)
-Essay involving application of data analysis (40%) which constitutes a formative feedback event
-End of semester Take home Exam (35%)
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| Feedback |
Not entered |
| No Exam Information |
Learning Outcomes
Aims
-to introduce students to domestic and international political ¿data¿ and different ways of acquiring it.
-to enable students to develop analytical skills integral to the study of politics and IR, such as understanding and assessing arguments and using evidence.
-to acquire essential quantitative data analysis skills linked to core topics of Politics and IR
-to appreciate the uses and limits of different data analysis methods
Learning outcomes
By the end of the course students will have acquired the skills to
-formulate a research question and hypotheses, identify relevant concepts and variables
-use academic literature to develop research questions and hypothesis
-access, and assess the quality of, data typically used in Politics and International Relations
-analyse data using NESSTAR, as well as input and analyse data using SPSS
-discuss the results of their data analysis as well as present quantitative findings in text, tables and graphs or charts.
-create an empirical academic piece of work with the appropriate structure
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Reading List
Philip H. Pollock (2012) The Essentials of Political Analysis, 4th ed
James M. Carlson and Mark S. Hyde (2002) Doing Empirical Political Research
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Additional Information
| Graduate Attributes and Skills |
Not entered |
| Keywords | Not entered |
Contacts
| Course organiser | Dr Ugur Ozdemir
Tel: (0131 6)50 3990
Email: |
Course secretary | Mr Edwin Cruden
Tel: (0131 6)51 5197
Email: |
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