Students

Please note: This title has recently been acquired by Taylor & Francis. Due to rights reasons, any multimedia resources will no longer be available.

Learning Objectives

Upon completing these chapters, you will be able to:

  • Explain how different types of social research are used.
  • Describe the ethical issues associated with political research.
  • Identify the reason for the erosion of Presidential informational superiority.
  • Summarize the reasons presidents have added leverage in foreign affairs.
  • Describe how party identification could be predicted--according to Converse's theory.
  • Define quantitative research.
  • Explain the most important thing in choosing a topic.
  • Describe what yields elegant results.
  • Define what makes theory-oriented research important.
  • Describe the advantages of formal procedure for designing research.
  • Identify ways to look at choosing topics and developing theories.
  • Specify the field of development theory.
  • Discuss some of the challenges associated with using the English Language in political research.
  • Examine the appropriate use of multidimensional words in political research.
  • Explain what reliability is and why it is important in social science research.
  • Discuss how validity defines the quality of social science research.
  • Compare and contrast random and nonrandom errors and their impact on social science research.
  • Describe the steps social scientists take to ensure the accuracy of their research.
  • Understand the importance of precision in measures.
  • Discuss the importance of precision in measurement.
  • Explain what causal relationships are and why they are significant to social science research.
  • Describe how we can eliminate alternative causal interpretations.
  • Describe the relationship between causal relationships and effective research design.
  • Identify effective research designs for social science research.
  • Understand the importance of using varied designs and measures.
  • Explain the importance of creativity in research design.
  • Discuss the principle of controlling for the variable.
  • Compare and contrast the different types of sampling methods.
  • Identify problems associated with censored data.
  • Explain why a researcher should not select along a dependent variable.
  • Explain the criteria for selecting a good case study.
  • Explain the reasoning behind selecting case studies for examining the relationship between independent and dependent variables.
  • Understand the principles of statistical inference and statistical measurement.
  • Explain how levels of measurement affect statistics.
  • Describe some of the different ways of working with data.
  • Describe the measures of relationship for ordinal data.
  • Describe the measures of relationship for nominal data.
  • Compare and contrast logit and probit analysis.
  • Describe multivariate analysis.
  • Explain some of the issues related to statistical analysis methods.
  • Explain the procedure for calculating probability.
  • Define statistical inference.
  • Discuss the principles of hypothesis testing.
  • Discuss the role of significance testing.
  • Explain the relationship between polling and significance tests.
  • Discuss the uses and limitations of significance testing.
  • Describe the importance of statistical inference.

Weblinks

All links provided below were active on website launch. However, due to the dynamic nature of the Internet, links do occasionally become inactive. If you find a link that has become inactive, please try using a search engine to locate the website in question.

  • Language Tip of the Week
    June Casagrande, author of Grammar Snobs are Great Big Meanies. This site offers a useful language, usage and style tips on a weekly basis.
  • Dave's ESL Café
    Professor Dave Sperling This site offers a wide range of resources for students and teachers of English as a second language, including language learning resources, job postings, and discussion forums.
  • MLA Style
    This page includes a description of Modern Language Association (MLA) style guidelines for documenting a research paper with a link to frequently asked questions about the style.
  • CMS Style
    This site includes a description of Chicago Manual of Style (CMS) guidelines for documenting with a comprehensive Q&A section.
  • Research and Documenting Sources
    Purdue University Online Writing Lab This section of the Purdue University OWL offers guidelines for finding, evaluating, and documenting sources, as well as advice on writing research papers.
  • Internet Public Library
    University of Michigan School of Information This site offers an interactive tutorial on identifying the argument of an essay.
  • Librarians' Index to the Internet
    The Library of California Created and maintained by librarians, this site offers a searchable annotated subject directory of Web resources that have been selected and evaluated.
  • American Memory
    Library of Congress This site offers links to the digital versions of selected holdings relevant to American history and culture, including photographs, manuscripts, rare books, maps, and recorded sound and moving pictures.
  • NYPL Digital Gallery
    New York Public Library This site offers access to more than 275,000 digitized images from the collections of the New York Public Library. You can search collections or browse by topic to find illustrations, photographs, posters, maps, and manuscripts.
  • The New York Times
    This online version of the The New York Times includes searchable archives.
  • Online Writing Lab
    Purdue University A well-respected online resource, this site features handouts with examples of the writing process, from planning and drafting to proofreading.
  • Writing CSU Writing Guides
    The Writing Center at Colorado State University This site offers a wide range of resources for students and teachers of English as a second language, including language learning resources, job postings, and discussion forums.
  • Identifying the Argument of an Essay: A Tutorial in Critical Reasoning
    Dr. Frank Edler, Metropolitan Community College This site offers an interactive tutorial on identifying the argument of an essay.