Class Scientific Research Methodology

The syllabus of this course is comprehensive: it seeks to standardize previous knowledge in this area, so it approaches research methodologies from a quantitative and qualitative perspective (not forgetting the comparative historical method). It also addresses scientific writing and academic fraud.

Contents

• Science, scientific knowledge, common sense
• Paradigms and methodologies: quantitative and qualitative
• The research process
• Hypotheses, variables, nature and measurement levels
• Types of designs and research processes
• Survey and interview
• Quantitative methodologies and data analyse: the importance of descriptive and inferential statistics.
• Statistical packages for data processing: SPSS
• Sampling: quantitative and qualitative samples
• Qualitative methodologies: their importance.
• Free observation and participant observation
• The life stories
• The comparative method and comparative historical analysis
• The importance of document analysis,
• Content analysis
• Scientific writing
• The APA Rules
• Strategies for disseminating scientific results

Critical reviews of scientific articles will be included with special focus on the methodology used.

Box-Steffensmeier, J. M., Brady, H. E., & Collier, D., eds. (2008). The Oxford Handbook of Political Methodology. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Della Porta, D. e Keating, M., eds. (2008). Approaches and Methodologies in the Social Sciences. Cambridge: CUP.

McNabb, D. (2010). Research Methods for Political Science: Quantitative and Qualitative Approaches. New York: ME Sharpe.