Postgraduate Training in Politics and Policy: Research Methods follows on from PTPP: Research Design offered by CAP.  The course is designed for students in politics, public policy and international relations (students from other social sciences may take the course with the agreement of their supervisors and course convenors).  It will introduce various techniques that doctoral students might need to adopt in the course of their Phd research.  The course consists of 18 2.5 hour sessions taught in a lecture-format but with extensive discussion with students.  Students must take at least 12 of the 18 sessions to complete the course, which enables students to take only those sessions most applicable to their own research.  However, students are encourage to come to all sessions to learn about techniques outside of their own needs.

Together with PTPP Research Design this course will comprise elements 1, 3 and 4 of the CASS Coursework Program [& Graduate Certificate in Research Methods] for politics and international relations students.

Teachers on the course will be drawn from across politics and public policy from within SPIR and the Crawford School of Economics and Government

• To gain a comprehensive introduction to research methods for research students in politics, public policy and international relations
• To learn how to make critical evaluations of methodological issues and problems in empirical and theoretical research
• To gain a basic knowledge of commonly used methodological tools in political science research
• To situate their research within the broader aspects of their discipline
• To learn what fellow students to learn are researching and gain a supportive and caring research culture

Set essay explaining the research methods student will adopt in answering his or her thesis research question (6000wds)(100%)

There will be set reading for each session provided online plus recommended background reading

2.5 hours per session plus 5 hours background reading per session

Enrolment in HDR program.

POGO8196: Research Design (Corequisite)

Gary King, Robert O. Keohane and Sidney Verba Designing Social Inquiry  Princeton University Press, 1994

Henry E. Brady and David Collier eds Rethinking Social Inquiry: Diverse Tools, Shared Standards Rownan and Littlefield, 2004

Andrew Gelman and Jeronimo Cortina A Quantitative Tour of the Social Sciences Cambridge University Press, 2009

Bent Flyvbjerg Making Social Science Matter Cambridge University Press, 2001

Raymnd Geuss The Idea of Critical Theory, Cambridge University Press, 1981

James D. Morrow Game Theory for Political Scientists Princeton University Press, 1994