- Winter 2022
Syllabus Description:
Zoom link to lectures, Tuesdays/Thursdays 1:00-2:20, https://washington.zoom.us/j/99672481674
Zoom link to section AA, Fridays 12:30-1:20,
https://washington.zoom.us/j/97518103728
Zoom link to section AB, Fridays 1:30-2:20,
https://washington.zoom.us/j/98980204141
Zoom link to Professor Smith's office hours, Mondays/Wednesdays 5-6pm, https://washington.zoom.us/j/5054996338
Zoom link to Nela's office hours and sign-up sheet, Tuesdays 3-5pm, https://washington.zoom.us/j/97610392942
The full syllabus here
Smith's grading scale here
Schedule of Topics and Assignments (Readings will be posted and linked on Canvas):
Tuesday, January 4 Introduction to the course (recording) (slides)
Thursday, January 6 The science in political science (recording) (slides)
Readings/videos:
Molly Ott, Introduction to Scientific Inquiry & Social Science Research
Kelsey Piper, How Bad Research Clouded Our Understanding of Covid-19
Friday, January 7 An introduction to R (recording) (material)
Tuesday, January 11 Theories, models, and causation (recording part 1) (recording part 2) (slides)
Readings/videos:
Stefan Götze, A Brief Guide for Developing a Research Question
Armin Trost, Research Question & Hypothesis
Thursday, January 13 The challenges of demonstrating causation (recording part 1) (recording part 2) (slides)
Readings/videos:
Tulia Falleti and Julia Lynch, Context and Causal Mechanisms in Political Analysis
Friday, January 14 Importing and cleaning datasets in R (recording AA) (recording AB) (material)
Tuesday, January 18 Conceptualization and measurement, part 1 (recording part 1) (recording part 2) (slides)
Readings/videos:
none for today (section assignment due at 8:00 PM)
Tuesday, January 18 Section assignment #1, due at 8:00 PM
Thursday, January 20 Conceptualization and measurement, part 2 (recording part 1) (recording part 2) (slides)
Readings/videos:
Measuring Attitudes Likert Scales
Friday, January 21 Merging datasets, creating variables in R (material) (Section AA recording) (Section AB recording)
Tuesday, January 25 Open-book, take-home midterm exam due at 8:00 PM
(note: the exam replaces our regular class session)
Thursday, January 27 Sampling (recording part 1) (recording part 2) (slides)
Readings/videos:
Molly Ott, Quantitative Sampling (Links to an external site.)
James Clear, Fooled by Randomness by Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Friday, January 28 Graphing in R (material) (recording AA) (recording AB)
Tuesday, February 1 Sampling; surveys and survey research (see Pantopo Recordings on the left for the recording) (slides)
Readings/videos:
Armin Trost, Survey Design part 1
Armin Trost, Survey Design part 2
Thursday, February 3 Surveys and survey research (see Pantopo Recordings on the left for the recording) (slides)
Pew Research Center, Questionnaire Design
Seth Stephens-Davidowitz, The Secrets in Our Google Searches
Friday, February 4 Graphing in R (material) (recording AA & AB)
Tuesday, February 8 Surveys and survey research; descriptive and inferential statistics (see Pantopo Recordings on the left for the recording) (slides part 1) (slides part 2)
Readings/videos:
none for today (section assignment due at 8:00 PM)
Tuesday, February 8 Section assignment #2, due at 8:00 PM
Thursday, February 10 Descriptive and inferential statistics (see Pantopo Recordings on the left for the recording) (slides)
Readings/videos:
Molly Ott, Inferential Statistics (Links to an external site.)
Friday, February 11 Developing skills in R (material)(recording AA)(recording AB)
Tuesday, February 15 Hypothesis testing and inferential statistics (see Pantopo Recordings on the left for the recording) (slides)
Readings/videos:
Scott Alexander, The Phrase "No Evidence" Is a Red Flag for Bad Science Communication
Thursday, February 17 Correlation and bivariate regression (see Pantopo Recordings on the left for the recording) (slides)
Readings/videos:
Brandon Foltz, Linear Regression: The Very Basics (Links to an external site.)
Brandon Foltz, Linear Regression, Algebra, Equations, and Patterns
Friday, February 18 Descriptive statistics and difference of means tests in R (material)(recording AA)(recording AB)
Tuesday, February 22 Bivariate regression and multiple regression (See Panopto recording on the left for the recording) (slides)
Readings/videos:
Brandon Fultz, Multiple Linear Regression: The Very Basics
Brandon Fultz, Multiple Linear Regression: Data Preparation
Thursday, February 24 Multiple regression (See Panopto recording on the left for the recording) (slides)
Readings/videos:
none for today
Friday, February 25 Correlation, bivariate regression, and multiple regression in R (material)(recording AA)(recording AB)
Tuesday, March 1 Experiments, part 1 (See Panopto recording on the left for the recording) (slides)
Readings/videos:
none for today (section assignment due)
Tuesday, March 1 Section assignment #3, due at 8:00 PM
Thursday, March 3 Experiments, part 2 (See Panopto recording on the left for the recording) (slides)
Readings/videos:
Saloni Dattani, Why Randomized Controlled Trials Matter and the Procedures that Strengthen Them
Brandon Fultz, ANOVA, A Visual Introduction
Friday, March 4 Linear regression with interaction term in R (material)(recording)
Tuesday, March 8 Natural experiments, the comparative method, and case studies (See Panopto recording on the left for the recording) (slides)
Readings/videos:
none for today (article review assignment due)
Tuesday, March 8 Article review assignment, due at 8:00 PM
Thursday, March 10 What can go wrong in published research (See Panopto recording on the left for the recording) (slides)
Readings/videos:
Andrew Gelman and Eric Loken, The Garden of Forking Paths: Why Multiple Comparisons Can be a Problem, Even When There is no “Fishing Expedition” or “p-hacking” and the Research Hypothesis Was Posited Ahead of Time
Friday, March 11 Data visualization graphs; survey experiment example; review (material)(recording)
Wednesday, March 16 Open-book, take-home final exam due at 8:00 PM