Political Science 328/Public Policy 503

Course Syllabus

Fall 1999

MWF 9:00-9:50 a.m. in 786/793 SWKT

Instructor: Jay Goodliffe

Office: 752 SWKT

Phone: 378-9136

e-mail: goodliffe@byu.edu

Contents:

Office Hours

Objectives

Prerequisites

Approach

Requirements

Expectations

Readings

Computer Classes

Class Time

Schedule

Office Hours

I will hold office hours on Monday and Wednesday afternoons 1:00-3:00. I am also available at most other times if you make arrangements with me. I encourage you to come by for any reason whatsoever.

You should check your email regularly (as well as this syllabus web page) for updates, announcements, corrections, etc. You are responsible for any announcements made in class even if you did not attend. I suggest that you exchange phone numbers and/or e-mail addresses with other students in the class.

Objectives

This course explores the fundamental concepts of research design and empirical analysis, with a heavy emphasis on econometrics.

This course is designed to help you

• Understand the concepts that form the foundation of statistics.
• Become an excellent consumer of quantitative arguments (particularly statistical arguments).
• Become a competent regression analyst, able to utilize statistical techniques and quantitative data to support your own arguments.
• Explain quantitative and analytical results to a regular person.

Prerequisites

PlSc 200 is a prerequisite for this course. PlSc 200 teaches basic statistical concepts, as well as writing and research techniques. This course builds on those concepts and assumes you know those techniques. Please see me if you have not already had PlSc 200.

Approach

Given the small class size, this will not be a rigidly structured course. I welcome your input in determining what subjects we discuss, and how and when we cover them. There are some topics that we must cover, but others are flexible.

The course will be run primarily as a lecture. However, I actively encourage questions, interruptions, cries for help, protests of disbelief, etc. You will never be penalized for participating--even when this takes the form of vague complaints like, "I've got no clue why we are doing this stuff!" I urge--indeed, I expect--you to take advantage of the chance to talk with me during office hours.

Requirements

All assignments are due at the beginning of class on the day designated in the course schedule. If you cannot make it to class, please leave the assignment with the department secretaries (in the Political Science office--745 SWKT) before class begins. I will deduct 20 points per day (including weekends) for late assignments (on a 100 point scale). That said, I am a reasonable person; if you anticipate a problem with submitting an assignment when it is due, speak to me before the assignment is due so that we can try to work out an alternative arrangement.

Weekly Assignments

To understand statistics, you must use statistics. To facilitate understanding, there will be weekly assignments that may include any or all of the following:

• summary and critique of articles that use statistics
• statistical problems
• analyzing data and interpreting statistical results

You may work together on these assignments (in groups of two or at most three), but you must write up your answers separately. If you do not learn how to analyze or solve problems on your own, you will have difficulty on the exams and research project. Generally, weekly assignments will be distributed on Wednesdays at the end of class.

Exams

There is a midterm and final exam. These are both take-home exams that you will have one week to finish. They will require you to solve problems similar to those in the weekly assignments. You are not allowed to consult with anyone on these take-home exams (except the instructor). The final exam will cover material for the whole semester. The final exams may be picked up in the Political Science office (745 SWKT) after they are graded. The exams will be discarded at the end of the Winter 2000 semester.

Research Project

Students will write and present a paper on a topic of their choosing. The project will allow you the opportunity to apply the skills that we will develop in this class to actual data and problems. You may pursue any topic of your choice, subject to instructor approval. (Of course, one requirement is that you have the necessary data.) There are a number of deadlines that must be met, noted on the course schedule.

I strongly recommend that you consult with me through all phases of your research. I may be able to help you select a feasible topic, find data, or comment on your statistical model.

Proposal

Turn in a (no longer than) one-page proposal outlining the research question you wish to address, and how you plan to address it. Discuss why the research question is interesting, and possible data sources.

Outline

Turn in a (no longer than) two-page outline of your paper sketching out the argument you plan to make and/or hypotheses you will test, and how you will do it. Include a list of sources whose work you build on. Also list where you have obtained your data.

Preliminary Analysis

Turn in a (no longer than) four-page paper that gives a more detailed outline of your paper. This should also include a detailed description of your statistical model (including what variables you use) and some relevant descriptive statistics for your data.

Presentation

All students will present their research during the last week or two of class. The presentation's technical level should be geared toward a generic public servant--you will have to explain what your statistical results mean. There will be a strict time limit, and you should be prepared to answer questions from the class and instructor.

Paper

The paper's technical level may be higher than the presentation's. However, you should still explain what your statistical results mean in layman's terms. In grading the paper, I will consider how well you have used material from the course, how well you have used statistical analysis to test your hypotheses, if the analysis is actually correct (numerical accuracy and correct interpretation), how well you use charts and graphs, logic and organization of the paper, and the usual grammatical and spelling concerns. The papers may be picked up in the Political Science office (745 SWKT) after they are graded. The papers will be discarded at the end of the Winter 2000 semester.

Expectations

I include the following information from the BYU 1999-2000 Undergraduate Catalog which guides how I grade and determine workload:

"The grade given in a course is the teacher's evaluation of the student's performance, achievement, and understanding in that subject as covered in the class. The following adjectives indicate the meaning of the letter grades:

A	Excellent
B	Good
C	Satisfactory
D	Minimum passing
E	Unacceptable

"Hence, the grade A means that the student's performance, achievement, and understanding were excellent in the portion of the subject covered in the class.

"There are prerequisites that qualify students to be admitted to the more advanced classes offered by a department. A senior has added experience, understanding, and preparation and, consequently, progresses in courses that would have been impossible when the student was a freshman. The level of performance, achievement, and understanding required to qualify for each grade that carries credit (any grade other than E, UW, I, IE, or WE) is higher in a more advanced class than in those classes that precede it, and the student is prepared to work at this higher level" (p. 34).

"The expectation for undergraduate courses is three hours of work per week per credit hour for the average student who is appropriately prepared; much more time may be required to achieve excellence" (p. 32).

(See here for the graduate version.)

Readings

There is one required book that is available for purchase at the bookstore (or Amazon, Barnes & Noble, bigwords, or any number of on-line bookstores) :

• Damodar N. Gujarati. 1995. Basic Econometrics, 3^rd edition. McGraw-Hill.

The Gujarati text will also be used for the second semester of the statistics sequence (Public Policy 504: Data Analysis II/Political Science 539R: Econometrics). I have placed Gujarati on reserve at the Lee Library.

There will be other readings available to photocopy in the Department of Political Science office (745 SWKT) mailboxes in a box marked "PlSc 328 Readings." All readings should be read before class for full understanding of the subject material.

There is another statistical book that is available for purchase:

• Peter Kennedy. 1998. A Guide to Econometrics, 4^th edition. MIT Press.

The Kennedy book has a different approach than most statistics texts: in each chapter it discusses a set of concepts qualitatively, then the same concepts quantitatively, and finally discusses the minutiae of those concepts. (The 2^nd edition, published in 1985, is on reserve at the library.)

There are two additional statistical books on reserve at the library. I would be happy to recommend other texts if you find these inadequate.

• Larry Gonick & Woollcott Smith. 1993. The Cartoon Guide to Statistics. HarperPerennial.
• Gerald Kranzler and Janet Moursund. 1995. Statistics for the Terrified. Prentice-Hall.

Although the title may discourage the serious reader, the Gonick & Smith book is an excellent introduction to statistics, particularly for those who find statistics dull and opaque. It also has the distinct advantage of being correct, even in the details (which is not always the case with such books). The Kranzler and Moursund book is somewhere between Gujarati and Gonick & Smith.

Computer Classes

Most Fridays will be spent in the FHSS Computer Lab on the 1^st floor. We will learn how to do basic statistics in a spreadsheet program, and how to do basic and advanced statistics in Stata. I expect all students to have a working knowledge of the Windows operating system (i.e., what backslashes mean, how to use a mouse, how to use pull-down menus, etc.). If you do not have such knowledge, take some time to get familiar as soon as possible. It will not only benefit you in this class, but all others. Of course, if you are already familiar with spreadsheets and statistical programs, this will also help you.

Please arrive in the Computer Lab (105 SWKT) before class starts in order to start up the computer and have everything ready to go when class starts.

Class Time

Class starts at 9:00 a.m. I realize that this is early. Please arrive on time to class so that we may end on time.

Schedule (subject to change)

Note: G=Gujarati; K=Kennedy.

Jay Goodliffe's home page

This page is http://fhss.byu.edu/polsci/courses/fall98/328s001.htm