COURSE OUTLINE AND READING LIST FOR POLI 443: APPLIED POLITICAL RESEARCH

DEPARTMENT OF POLITICAL SCIENCE

 SCHOOL OF SOCIAL SCIENCES

COLLEGE OF HUMANITIES

Course:            POLI 443                                                  Semester: 1st (August) 2015

Instructor:       Prof. A. Essuman-Johnson                   Course Title:    Applied Pol. Research

Class Hours:    15:30 –17:20 Tuesdays Grp A             Lecture room: JQB 14 Grp A 

                         17:30 –19:20 Fridays Grp B                  JQB 19 Grp B

Office:             Political Science Dept.                           Email: essumanj@ug.edu.gh

Course Description

The course seeks to provide students with the statistical skills that enable them to analyze data for political analysis. The broad topics to be treated in the course of the semester would include (i) Descriptive statistics for univariate data analysis (ii) Measuring relationships, Testing Hypothesis and Bivariate data analysis and (iii) Multivariate data analysis.

Texts

The required texts for this course include the following:

1.         Murray R. Spiegel (1972) Theory and Problems of Statistics (Schaum’s Outline Series) New York, McGraw Hill.

2.        Janet B Johnson & Richard A, Joslyn (1986) Political Science Research Methods, Congressional Quarterly Press, Washington.

Requirements and Grading

The course assumes students have passed UGRC Numeracy and POLI 344 and have a knowledge of SPSS. The course will be examined as follows:

Continuous Assessment:         30%

End of Semester Exam:           70%

Total                                      100%

Week 1 Tuesday & Friday Aug. 18 & 21

Introduction: Discussion of course objective, class regulations, and miscellaneous issues.

SPSS Review

Week 2 Tuesday & Friday Aug. 25 & 28

Introduction: Review basic knowledge of test of hypothesis: test for the normal distribution.

Week 3 Tuesday & Friday Sept. 1 & 4

Contd. Test of hypothesis: test for the normal distribution.

Week 4 Tuesday & Friday Sept. 8 & 11

Test of hypothesis: test for the student t distribution.

Week 5 Tuesday & Friday Sept. 15 & 18

Bivariate Data Analysis: Cross tabulations.

Week 6 Tuesday & Friday Sept. 22 & 25

Multivariate Data Analysis: Cross tabulations

Week 7 Tuesday & Friday Sept. 29 & Oct 2

Multivariate Data Analysis: Percentage Tables.

Week 8 Tuesday & Friday Oct. 6 & 9

Difference of Means Test

Week 9 Tuesday & Friday Oct. 13 & 16

Analysis of Variance (ANOVA)

Week 11 Tuesday & Friday Oct 27 & 30

Multivariate Data Analysis: Linear Regression Analysis.

Week 12 Tuesday & Friday Nov. 3 & 6

Contd. Multivariate Data Analysis: Multiple Regression Analysis

Week 13 Tuesday & Friday Nov. 10 & 13

Teaching ends.

Week 14 Tuesday & Friday Nov. 17 & 20

Revision Week.

Week 15 Mon. Nov. 23 - Dec. 12

End of semester exams.