Public Administration & Policy Inquiry (Research Methods)
Course Description
PA and Policy Inquiry serves as the "methods" course for the MPA curriculum.
However, unlike traditional methods course, this course is aimed at those who
are or soon will be administrators, as opposed to those who wish to be Social
Science Researchers. The course covers the same concepts, same designs, and same
tools, but has a different focus. This course is focused on potential action and
decision making informed by analytical analysis. While the student will be able
to design and understand research set up to provide causal explanation, this
will not be the main focus.
Learning Objectives
- Attain a good conceptual understanding of "statistical" thinking.
- Understand the tools of analytic decision making.
- Be able to understand and work with different types of research designs.
- Be able to use Microsoft Excel for basic statistical operations and analysis
Assignments:
- Statistical Forms of Logic Assignment
- Indicators of Excellence and Satisfaction Assignment
- Frequency Distributions, Graphs and Charts Assignment
- Average, Deviation and Normal Curve Quiz
- Contingency Tables and Chi Square Quiz
- Validity and Sampling Quiz
- Statistical Inference and Hypothesis Testing Quiz
- Linear Regression Quiz
- Research Design Quiz
- Final project - students design a study, conduct the study, analyze the data and present to a
client organization
Grading
- 60% assignments
- 20% final paper
- 10% final presentation
- 10% class participation
Required Materials
(Later in Semester) Statistical Analysis with Excel for Dummies by Joseph
Schmuller
Course Sessions
Introduction to Inquiry and the Forms of Statistical
Reasoning
Introduction of teacher and students. Introduction to the purpose and focus of
the course. Introduction to Nine Major Statistical Ideas.
Categories, Classification, Measurements, and Scales
Nominal, Ordinal, Interval, Ratio
Descriptive Statistics - Textual and Graphical
Representations
Tables, Frequency Distributions, Percentage Frequency Distributions, Cummulative
Frequency Distributions, Bar Graphs, Histographs, Line Graphs, Pie Charts
Descriptive Statistics - Numerical Representations
Mode, Median, Arithmetic Mean, Weighted Average, Means and Medians from Grouped
Data
Analysis of Nominal and Ordinal Data
Construction and Analysis of Contingency Tables, Statistical Aids for
Interpretation, Control Table Analysis
Validity and Sampling
Conclusion Validity, Internal Validity, Construct Validity, External Validity,
Sampling Error, Sampling Distribution, Probability Sampling, Non-Probability
Sampling
Hypothesis Testing and the t-Test
Hypotheses and Statistical Decision Making, Testing Hypotheses with Populations,
Testing Populations with Samples
Linear Regression
Linear Statistical Relationships, Standard Error of the Estimate, The
Coefficient of Determination, The Standard Error of the Slope
Research Design
Research Designs for Description, Research Designs for Explanation
Draft Instrument Design
Project Team Meetings
Pilot Testing and Final Instrument Design
Project Team Meetings
Statistics in Excel
Computer Lab - Data Collection
Data Collection & Analysis Draft
Whole Class Meets - Report & Presentation
Presentation to Client
Final Analysis Due