Level: Undergraduate from different disciplines (Cap: 24 students max)
Course description: This course introduces students to the core concepts and technical foundations of research design in political science. It emphasizes the process of working with data, formulating empirically testable and falsifiable theories, and conducting analysis using statistical software (STATA). Main topics include: descriptive statistics, probability distributions, hypothesis testing, concepts of correlation and causality, bivariate inferential techniques, multiple linear regression, and logistic regression.
Course objectives:
To equip students with the ability to understand and critically assess research designs used in academic and policy-oriented literature, and to formulate meaningful, empirically answerable questions in political science.
To guide students in translating general statements into precise research questions and then into testable hypotheses.
To develop students’ understanding of various methodological approaches for testing hypotheses and evaluating which strategies are most appropriate for specific research questions.
To enable students to effectively integrate research design with statistical tools to conduct rigorous empirical analysis.
To guide students through foundational concepts in statistics for social science research, including descriptive statistics, inferential statistics, and causal inference.
Level: Undergraduate from different disciplines (Cap: 40 students max)
The Public Policy covers the basic concepts about how policy is made, or not made. In this course, you will:
Develop a strong understanding of policy actors and how policy issues emerge, gain traction, find a place on informal and formal agendas, and are adopted and implemented, or rejected.
Learn the process by which policy alternatives are developed.
Be able to analyze policy issues as they evolve, with practical implications.
We also cover the controversies in contemporary American public policy in the news, along with examining primarily longstanding areas of policy debates.
This course consists of three modules:
Module I: Exploring Public Policy. Introduces the basics of public policy and the key actors and institutions involved in the policymaking process
Module II: Analyzing Public Policy. Focuses on theories, frameworks, and tools for analyzing policy development, implementation, and change
Module III: Main Public Policy Areas. Provides an overview of six major policy domains (i.e., economy and budget, healthcare, welfare and social security, and environmental policy). For each area, we will discuss: (1) government intervention, (2) problem definition, (3) key stakeholders, (4) major policy developments, and (5) obstacles to policy change. In exploring each area, we will consider the extent to which each manifests theories of the policy process in practice and illustrate the process of policy analysis.
This course introduces students to the workings of American Government. In this course, you will:
Learn about American political institutions, such as the Presidency, Congress, and the Supreme Court.
Discover how the average American participates in government by covering topics such as voting, public opinion, and the media.
Explore why Americans seem to have increasing dissatisfaction with their government and attempt to explore the role that you as U.S. citizens and residents can take in improving democracy in America.
Especially, Teaching Assistants in this course will help you go over all contemporary, breaking news through New York Times, Washington Post and any other media outlets related to our discussion topics of the weeks.