LOWER-DIVISION GENERAL EDUCATION NEW COURSE PROPOSAL, FOR AREA D
POLITICAL SCIENCE 102: THE PRACTICE OF POLITICAL RESEARCH
This course is intended to introduce political science majors to the fundamentals of scientific research
as they are employed in the discipline; it is the second of a proposed two-course introduction to political science for lower-division majors (the other course is PSCI 101:Contemporary Explorations Of Politics and Power). This course will consider the nature of systematic research generally, the distinctive practice of such research in the social sciences, the particular research problems of the social sciences, and basic analytical and statistical tools used in such work. Both theory and practice will be considered for virtually all these topics. Representative research problems in several subfields of political science will serve as a springboard for the exploration of these questions.
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Criteria for General Education Courses (Item A)
1. PSCI 102 is an exploration of the diverse methodologies through which political scientists grapple with the many and diverse questions of interest in the political realm. Among these, certainly, are important questions of technological and ecological development. PSCI will address these questions from numerous perspectives -- indeed, the multiplicity of perspectives from which such exploration is possible is, in some ways, the point of this course. In this course, students will be exposed to analytical and investigative approaches to the study of key issues in politics, including the issues of race, class and gender as these relate to power, the allocation of resources, and political systems.
2. The central focus of PSCI 102 is the systematic study of political phenomena: that is, how our understanding of the political realm can be enhanced by systematic investigation. Central to that end, of course, is an emphasis on the developing and sharpening students’ powers of analysis and reasoning. A variety of analytical skills will be emphasized in the course, including both qualitative and quantitative analysis. An overarching theme of the course, in fact, is the notion that systematic, rigorous investigation of political phenomena may entail either quantitative or qualitative analysis (or even both), and that the choice of one versus the other hinges on the nature of one’s research question and data, rather than on the “superiority” of either perspective.
In short, then, the application of scientific principles of investigation, analysis and reasoning, interdisciplinary exploration of complex problems, the application of modern technology in this exploration -- all of these are core to the systematic study of politics, and thus will take center stage in PSCI 102.
3. The primary graded component of PSCI 102 will be the written and oral presentation of a piece of original research. As such, this project alone will easily meet the All-University Writing Requirement; further, the research will be required to conform to disciplinary standards and formats, and writing proficiency will be an important aspect of the evaluation of this research project.
Multiple perspectives on issues such as race, class and gender will form a central element of both the students’ introduction to the several methodological approaches in political science, and of their own research effort. Such issues are core to the domain of politics, and thus much of the scholarly focus in the field has been devoted to them. A survey of research approaches used in the discipline, then, will certainly include consideration of how various methodologies have been used to explore those questions.
Criteria for Social Sciences (Item B)
Content
As noted, the point of this course is to introduce students to various analytical perspectives through which questions about politics may be illuminated. Inherent in this effort, then, is exposure to multiple disciplinary (and, often, interdisciplinary) theories and methodologies. The course essentially proceeds simultaneously along both substantive and methodological grounds, exploring both “what we know” about matters such as race, class and gender, but also “how we know what we know” -- the means by which we assess the impact of individual and aggregate-level variables on sociopolitical issues, institutions and systems. Because they are central to much of the study of politics, investigations into race, class and gender will be under scrutiny for both method and substance. Furthermore, these themes will be addressed from national, international, comparative and theoretical perspectives, just as they are within the field.
In addition, the course will convey a good bit of the intellectual history of political science, and in the process students will become acquainted with the development of the discipline, and with the paradigms and disputes that have shaped its growth. In this way, students will become familiar with the background for, and current state of, controversies and debates within the field.
Basic Skills
Various faculty members will teach this course, and thus the particular skills emphasized will likewise vary. Common to the delivery of this course across all faculty members, however, will be the following:
Writing style: the format and style of the research paper must conform to disciplinary standards. Instruction in APA style, as well as in the art of technical writing, will be animportant part of the course.
Literature review: in order to conduct pertinent research, obviously, students must be familiar with at least some of the work to date on their question. Techniques of searching and reviewing the literature will receive early focus in the course.
Oral communication: students will present their research orally, in a conference-like setting, prior to the final written submission of their projects.
Critical thinking: as they evaluate previous research and conduct their own projects, students will be continually engaged in critical assessment of these efforts. In addition, an important component of the multi-methodological approach of the course is the realization that each approach has strengths and weaknesses; students will be urged throughout to critically assess the benefits and drawbacks of various methods as applied to different questions.
Technology and Information Literacy (Item C)
The collection and interpretation of evidence will be a central component of students’ efforts as they design and execute their research in this course, and computer technology in various guises will be a vital part of this endeavor. First, as they collect data students will be expected to take advantage of the ever-expanding scope of resources now available through a variety of computer-accessible information sites, utilizing not only the Internet but various other electronic database and retrieval possibilities as well. Additionally, the quantitative component of the course will require the use of a computer-based statistical program (SPSS) to analyze data they have collected.
Evaluation and Assessment (Item D)
As outlined above, the core evaluative component of the course will be the oral and written presentation of a piece of original research, in which students apply one or more of the methodological techniques studied in the course to a question of interest within a field of political science. In this way, assessment will scrutinize (a) their written work, for content as well as proficiency with discipline-appropriate standards of style and language; and (b)oral communication. This two-pronged approach to student evaluation is consistent with the means by which ideas are conveyed within the discipline.
In addition, instructors will likely employ additional assessment techniques, including examinations and short assignments.