Unit 1: Coming up with a suitable thesis research question and finding data to answer it (materials for the other course units are accessible from the course homepage).
Week 1: Introduction to the course
8/20: What will you be doing
in this course?
And some materials you will find useful during the
term:
Do not print out or read
too closely the materials listed immediately below, since
there probably will be modest modifications to the
assignment documents between now and when they are
assigned (including changes to due dates). Nevertheless,
the assignments are linked here so that you have a way to
find all of the major assignments for the term in one
place:
The course's big deliverables:
Thesis assignments:
Thesis assignment 4: A draft of the thesis section that describes your hypotheses, survey data, and main variables (you will be required to attach a codebook to the end of the assignment; you will create with this template ).
Professional Development Assignments (these may be modified, so don't print them out ahead of time):
Prof. assignment 1: Your mentor meetings (Specifics and grade rubric will be distributed by email)
Week 1, 8/22: What is a thesis, and
what kind of topics work well for a thesis project given
the time and resource constraints of this class?
Please do these reading/review assignments before we meet for class on Thursday:
Read carefully: "Components of a Research Paper"
(one page). Watch the video, too. Pro tip: On
the gear icon at the bottom of the video player,
increase the playback speed. For this speaker, 2x
speed will work fine. I want you to be familiar with
the concepts and definitions in the paper. Your
thesis--and most social science articles--do not have
a "literature review" section, but instead review the
literature in the "front end" of the paper.
Read: a research article that focuses on this question: "Do Political Science Majors Succeed in the Labor Market?" The password to unlock any encrypted documents you come across on my website is: icecream (most documents won't require a password unless they are copyrighted material or if they are an article I have under review at a journal). As you read, try to map the parts of this essay onto the "components" reading above. Note that one of the reasons why this article would not work as a traditional political science research paper is that it lacks any theory or hypotheses about why we would expect political scientists to "succeed" at rates that are lower or higher than students with other majors.
Review quickly: Thesis assignment #1, preliminary version , which is due Sunday, September 1, at the start of week 3.
Carefully review and print out so you have it handy as a reference guide: A handout on how use to make the most of Google Scholar.
Do Google Scholar searches on a couple of topics that strike you as potential research questions. Remember, your thesis topic will need to focus on public opinion (or elite opinion if you can find a suitable dataset for this) on an issue that is obviously relevant to your major. Students using this course for the INR capstone must focus on an international topic related to that major's coursework. Political scientists must focus on a topic that is clearly political or policy related.
In your Google Scholar searches, try supplementing your topic-specific search terms with "public opinion," "attitudes," "data" and "regression," and you probably will be find more research that uses statistical methods similar to what you will be using for your project.
Per the handout about Google Scholar linked above, you do not need to find an especially large number of articles on your topic to get your project going; start your work by finding just one or two journal articles that are highly relevant to your topic. Once you have a few great sources, you use Google Scholars' "cited by" and "related" searches for those articles.
Week 2 (classes on 8/27, 8/29--Identifying
a suitable thesis topic and locating public opinion data
for your project.
Remember that you need to keep working on Thesis assignment #1 (which asks
you to identify a potential research question or two); it
is due electronically this coming Sunday at 10 pm (we will
be talking about your topics the following class, so bring
a hard copy of the paper to class to submit on Tuesday).
At the start of Tuesday's class, we will verify
that you have the necessary technology in place as you
begin to look at datasets for potential projects. It would
be unusual if there aren't some small issues here and
there, and it will be helpful to get any technological
kinks worked out before you need to start using SPSS.
Please attempt to install and properly configured
before Tuesday's class (i.e., this is part of your
homework). This may take a while (or just a few
minutes if all goes well and you already have Google Drive
or the equivalent working on your computer).
Download and install SPSS
on your personal computer (you need to be working on
a Mac or PC). Important: if you already
have a SPSS and a license on your computer from a
previous semester, uninstall that program. You
want to start with a fresh install and new license so
that you have the latest version of SPSS and so your
program license doesn't expire during the the
semester.
Why do you want to put this program onto your own
computer? While you have access to SPSS on some
university computers, you will find it much more
convenient (and essential if you have to quarantine at
any point) to run SPSS on your own laptop. HPU has a
site license that will allow you to use an
individual-version of the program on your own computer
all semester at no cost.
To install (or need to reinstall the program at some
point after class), here are the instructions to
download a copy of SPSS and then a 6-mo license from
HPU’s IT office:
How to Install SPSS 29.02 for Windows
https://highpointuniversity.service-now.com/help?id=kb_article&sys_id=3d24327adbab44d02bd0f1396896195b
How to Install SPSS 29.02 for Mac
For both PCs and Macs, you download the program first and then the enter the license code. The fastest way to do this is to open the text file with the license code and copy that user-specific code before you download and install SPSS.
When you install the SPSS program, you will
have to activate the license. When you get
to this point in the installation process, check
the option indicating that you have an
"individual user" license. After a couple of
clicks, you will paste your license code in (i.e.,
the one you copied earlier) and click the "add"
button. From there, you may have to click through
some more OKs to complete this process.
Once you are done installing SPSS, make sure you can open and run it. To do so, you will need to find and open it. It likely won't be on your programs dock/banner initially. For PC users, you can quickly find and open a program by using the search bar on the bottom banner. For Mac users, you can quickly find a program by clicking on the Spotlight icon (magnifying glass) in the top right-hand corner of your computer. To make things faster in the future, you could create an alias for your desktop
Once you have followed all of the directions above--including uninstalling and reinstalling SPSS if you previously had it on your computer, let Dr. Setzler know by email message if the program will not open. and run. For me to assist, I need to know what is happening--are you getting a specific error message? Also, I will need to know if you are using a PC or a Mac and what operating system you are using (i.e., Windows 10 or 11 for PC users or one of these for Mac users).
Important!: For Mac users only: You need to quickly complete a set of one-time changes to SPSS for Mac's default settings so that your version of SPSS will look and act just like SPSS for PC. Important: You aren't changing any other program or your OS, just your SPSS settings. Open SPSS for Mac in its default mode, selecting the option to open "a new dataset," which opens a blank data editor window. From there, follow this link for instructions on making the necessary changes. Why are you being asked to change the program's defaults? Inexplicably, the default layout of SPSS for Mac looks quite a bit different from the PC version, and the default Mac settings lack SPSS options that are described in most textbooks, my screencast tutorials, and most instructional materials you will find online.
Ahead of class, also make sure that you are using a backup program so that you will save datasets, your thesis writing, and relevant research reports or articles both on your computer and on the cloud. Backing up your thesis work every time you invest time into your project is critical, and a failure to do so can result in a major setback.
For both PC and Mac users, I *strongly* recommend
that you install Google Drive for Desktop and
configure it so that you automatically sync and
backup to the cloud all of the files in your
computer's "Documents" folder every time you make
changes to and save a file your computer.
The main advantages of Google Drive over some other
backup programs are cost related as well as the fact
that you can automatically access multiple previous
versions of a file instead of overwriting the only
version of a backed up file every time you save it.
Also, with Google Drive, you can download the
previous version of a single file rather than
resetting your whole computer back to a previous
state. This ability to access the previous version
of a file will be important if you ever make
mistakes with a document or dataset and save the
file to it before realizing what you have done. I
can't stress enough how important it is that you
have a place on the cloud where you are backing up
your work and doing so in a way so that you can
access an earlier version of files in case you
make a major mistake and need to open a previous
version of a file.
Here are instructions on how to download and
install Google Drive for Desktop (includes
instructions for both Windows and MacOS):
https://support.google.com/a/users/answer/9967896
Also take a look at the instructions on this webpage regarding the steps you to need to take to configure Google Drive so that it will sync the folders and files in your "Documents" folder with the online version of Google Drive. When you configure Google Drive without purchasing additional cloud space (most of you won't need it), you will have a large, but limited, amount of free space to work with. If you are going to be using the free version of Drive, you have the option of syncing your documents folder without also backing up space-hogging photos and videos. You can have Google Drive and other backup programs running simultaneously, so use something else to back-up your photos and video if you are not going to pay for extra storage.
When you set up Google Drive's for Desktop's
configuration, you want to "mirror" rather than
"stream" files. Mirroring a file means that
there will be a copy of your file stored on your
computer and a second, synced-one on the cloud. To
make sure you have this configured correctly, open
the Google Drive for Desktop app. Click on the (1)
gear icon and then (2) preferences and then (3)
"Google Drive Folders from Drive" and check the
"mirror files" option if it is not already
checked.
Once you using Google Drive and have it configured
properly, create a folder for all of your senior
seminar work in your computer's Documents folder.
Finally, verify that Google Drive is configured so that it continuously backs up (i.e., syncs to the cloud) a copy of your entire documents folder or at least your senior-seminar-work folder. To tell Google Drive for Desktop to backup a specific folder, open the program. Click on the (1) gear icon and then (2) preferences and then (3) "My laptop" and then (4) "add folder" and then select the folder you want to back up. If you don't have a huge amount material saved in your documents file, just select the whole folder. At a minimum, back up the folders with your Research Methods work.
In class, the main focus of Tuesday's and Thursday's
meetings is to start looking at some of the websites where you can
find datasets that can be used for thesis project.
There is a lot of detail below, and you are *not* expected
to be closely familiar with all of these websites.
Instead, they are listed here so you have lots of
resources available as you begin to look for data for your
project. Pro-tip:
Put the cart before the horse by using information about
datasets to help you find a suitable topic rather than
the reverse
Everyone should to this exercise ahead of class. Go
to the main website for the Pew Center: https://www.pewresearch.org/
Pew has several research units that focus on topical areas. This is a great place to start if you are looking for data on specific groups or have no idea yet what you'd like to write you thesis on. If you are doing work on foreign countries, for example, you'll want to begin looking for thesis resources in the "Global Attitudes" unit. Take quick look at these Pew Center websites to get a sense about what kinds of topics the various research units at Pew are looking at:
Pew Research Center for the people and the press (domestic studies on issues other than those tackled by Pew's special units): https://people-press.org/
Global issues (includes surveys for many other countries): https://pewglobal.org
Social & Demographic Trends: https://pewsocialtrends.org/
Religion: https://pewforum.org/
Latinos: https://pewhispanic.org/
Internet and new media: https://www.pewinternet.org/
Data for other Pew research units, can be obtained by following this path: Tools and Resources -> Dataset Downloads -> Select Research Area
Because of the organization's quality, its hundreds of surveys, and the range of topics studied, most students will be encouraged to base their senior thesis on surveys previously administered by the Pew Foundation. However, if you happen to have a strong interest in areas outside of Pew's focus, there are many other options you can look at, including:
Some of you may be primarily interested in American
politics questions and may have worked with
ANES (American National Election Study) surveys in PSC
2019 (the ANES is one of the sample datasets used in
the Pollock workbook). Like earlier editions, the 2020
ANES pools questions asked of the same respondents
before and after the election. Its questionnaires and
data can be accessed
https://electionstudies.org/data-center/2020-time-series-study/
.
One particularly useful source for data on US politics is the Cooperative Congressional Election Study (CCES), which is administered every two years: https://cces.gov.harvard.edu/ . In addition to having a vast number of political questions, the standout feature of these datasets are their sample size: over 50,000 respondents. Because it has such large sample sizes, the CCES is the best source of American politics data to study specialized populations like US veterans or Evangelical Protestants when there is no group-specific survey available. Most surveys do not have large enough samples to look at groups that make up a small share of the US population.
Another great source of data for Americans'
political behavior and thinking is the Voter Study
Group surveys: https://www.voterstudygroup.org/
. They use large enough samples to study some
groups that would not be well suited to a smaller Pew
survey sample. They have over-sampled African
Americans and Latinos, so this is a good place to
start if you want to study American politics and
examine (some) racial differences.
And yet another excellent source for survey data on American attitudes is the Public Religion Research Institute (https://www.prri.org/about/). They typically release datasets within a couple of years after each survey (see: https://www.prri.org/data-vault/) and are particularly good source if you want to look at divisive social issues and politics. Locating their datasets is a pain because of the "Parc" filtering system they are now using for the "Data vault." To take a look at what datasets are available, follow the data vault page's search link. Using the "Parc" search engine, check just the search box for "projects." Then, put in a date range. Unfortunately, PRRI has started to take longer to release datasets, and sometimes they are releasing only partial datasets. That said, the Value Surveys datasets typically contain a large set of variables that could lead to interesting thesis projects.
For those of you interested in Latin America, you consider using Americasbarometer data. These pre-labeled/cleaned bi-annual, multi-country datasets can be downloaded at no cost. See: https://www.vanderbilt.edu/lapop/data-access.php. Like Pew, LAPOP's has staff researchers who write short reports using data the organization is collecting in their surveys. See the Insight series reports here: https://www.vanderbilt.edu/lapop/insights
The other main source of data on political public opinion in Latin America is the Latinobarometer: https://www.latinobarometro.org (again, available at no cost). Although the Americasbarometer and LatinoBarometer have many of the same questions, some items--usually a battery of specialized questions for just one year--differ. Also, the LatinoBarometer is administered every year, while the Americasbarometer is fielded every two. If you want to compare the US or Canada to a Latin American country, only the Americasbarometer includes the US and Canada.
If you have an interest in Africa, there is data and a robust set of resources at: https://www.afrobarometer.org/data. In the site's publications section, take a look at working papers (you can filter by publication type) to get ideas about what kinds of research projects you may be able to do with this recurring survey (you may be able to see the working papers, here: https://www.afrobarometer.org/publications/?select-publication-subtype%5B%5D=working-paper&hidden-current-page=1.
And this is a major source for public opinion data on Europeans: https://www.europeansocialsurvey.org/. The European Values Survey is also a good place to find Europe-specific data: https://europeanvaluesstudy.eu/. The Values Survey includes countries in Eastern and Central Asia.
The World Values Survey is the most widely used data for researchers looking a differences between counties over time, but you can also download datasets for specific countries: https://www.worldvaluessurvey.org/wvs.jsp. You can search "WVS" in a Google Scholar search to find articles published using the data or follow the links in the "Paper Series" menu to find research papers published by WVS researchers.
A second focus for Thursday's will be to go over the mechanics of downloading a dataset and its questionnaire to your computer. We'll also talk about how use SPSS to see whether you have a sufficient number of respondents for a study's independent and dependent variables
Before class (unless you have
recently worked with SPSS), watch this screencast to
get familiar
with the basics of how SPSS works: This screencast
reviews the very basics of how SPSS works and the
layout of its different windows (10min, 31sec;
or shorter if this is a review for you and so you set
Youtube's settings to playback at 1.5x or 2x speed).
If you don't remember much about SPSS's basic screen
(data editor, syntax, and output) don't use 20 minutes
of class time to go over a basic introduction to SPSS
when you could be working and asking questions. For
more detail, download this document that your instructor
wrote summarizing the basics of starting to use SPSS.
Some key ideas to remember from class: As
you start to work with a dataset that might work for
your project, start off by running frequencies
(analyze -> descriptive statistics ->
frequencies) for each of the variables in which you
are most interested to see how many observations there
are for each value of a given variable.
Next, you split the dataset
on a potential independent variable (Data -> split file
-> compare groups -> move the variable you are
interested into the analysis box -> hit "ok).
Pro-tip: if you know the name
of your independent variable, it may be faster to find the
one you are looking for, if you hover over the variable
list and right-hand click (with a Mac, use control plus
click). You will be given the option to show variables by
their name or their longer label. Right-hand click again,
and you can sort the variables alphabetically by
name.
Once you have told SPSS to
run separate stats for each value of a variable, rerun a
frequency for your dependent variable. This procedure will
allow you see if different values of an independent
variable (e.g., folks who belong to different parties)
might be related to the distribution of the dependent
variable (in class, we looked at how identifying with
different parties had anything to do with how much a
person thinks that being a "true" American requires
supporting capitalism.
If you want to analyze a
different independent variable, go back to the split file
command and change out your grouping variable. You also
can group multiple variables at a time if you want. So,
for example, if you split the dataset by both gender and
party, you can compare the distributions of women
Republicans and male Republicans on some dependent
variable.
Pro tip: Once you are done
comparing groups, you need to go back to the split file
command and select the option to "analyze all groups" or
SPSS will keep providing results that are split into the
different groups.
And one important note: This
procedure works well if you have an independent variable
with just a few categories. If you have a whole bunch of
different groups, you may want to recode the independent
variable into a series of dummy variables.
Watch after class if you need more guidance on downloading a dataset and beginning to see if it has the independent and dependent variables you will need if you are going to use the dataset for your project (remember, you have a handout that gives you this same information): This screencast shows you where you should download store datasets on your computer, what materials you should download with a survey dataset, and how to convert a downloaded dataset into an SPSS file if the dataset is originally available only in another format. The example in the screencast involves the dataset we downloaded in class and runs around 20 minutes (shorter if you just need a refresher and increase playback speed to 1.75).
After class, you can
watch this screencast if you need
more guidance on how to split a dataset on a
independent variable so that you can see if there
may be a relationship between it and a dependent
variable, The screencast runs around 10min (shorter
if you just need a refresher and increase playback
speed to 1.75). The key ideas from the screencast were
covered in class (as summarized above). In the
screencast, the example shows how we can split a
dataset by gender to look at whether men and women
differ in their level of support for democracy as some
previous research has suggested.
Week 3 (classes on 9/3, 9/5: Refining your research
question and making sure that you can find, download,
and save a working version of the dataset(s) your
project will require.
Due Sunday, 9/1, by 10pm: Thesis assignment #1, which will identify and briefly describe one or more potential thesis topics. Follow the submission instructions carefully. This assignment is due on Sunday evening so that I can read through several examples of student work before we meet on Tuesday.
What are we doing this week? Students will continue to refine their research questions, ideally narrowing their focus to one promising area. Your second major assignment, Thesis assignment #2 , will be due at the end of next week. It will ask you to describe your main research question in some detail, explain why the topic is interesting, and to offer some ideas about what you expect to find as you analyze one or more public opinion datasets to answer the question. By the end of this week, you should have located a dataset that you will be able to use in your research, cleaned up the dataset (i.e., removed variables and, if applicable, observations that have no connection to your project). You also should have started to explore in some detail what we already know about your topic using resources you are finding with the help of Google Scholar.
Our work this week also will involve beginning to work
some with SPSS in class. We won't get too serious about
recoding and creating variables yet; however, you need to
(re)learn enough about SPSS this week to know how to
download and prepare public opinion datasets for analysis.
There is a lot of detail listed below in this week's
schedule. Keep in mind that I am using this space to
summarize key information and resources for the course so
that can find them as needed later in the term. You are
*not* expected to be an expert on using SPSS to prepare a
dataset for analysis by the end of the week; rather, this
is the first time during the term that will be practicing
with SPSS, so there are very detailed notes and screencast
links here that you will be able to return to later on.
On Tuesday, we
will talk about everyone's project ideas. Come to class prepared to
tell everyone about the research question you think you
may want to work on for your senior seminar. We
will hear everyone's initial thoughts on a topic, and you
will get feedback on what will work and what probably
won't. This is meant to be a teaching-by-doing meeting,
where the mistakes that students initially make when
trying to elaborate a project will help to teach everyone
in the class how to come up with a suitable topic. Coming
up with a good topic for the first time is hard work
because you don't know how to do what you haven't ever
done before. Just focus on following directions and
putting in your best effort.
Ahead
of Thursday's class (unless you have recently
worked with SPSS), watch this screencast to get familiar with the basics
of how SPSS works: This screencast
reviews the very basics of how SPSS works and the layout
of its different windows (10min, 31sec; shorter if
this is a review for you and so you set Youtube's settings
to playback at 1.5x speed). Note that this video was made
for a specific class a while back, so it will refer to a
dataset that will be unfamiliar to you; the only content
that you need to care about is the general information
about how SPSS works. We will be reviewing this
information many different times and in varying ways over
the next month.
On Thursday, in class, we will be practicing with SPSS to prepare a
dataset so you can effectively analyze it. To
complete the next thesis assignment, everyone will need to
know: (1) download a dataset, (2) drop irrelevant
variables from a dataset, and (3) if applicable to the
specifics of your study, remove irrelevant observations
from a dataset.
Below, there are two screencasts that you can use in the
future as resource to reinforce what we will cover in
class. It will make the most sense to watch these videos
after class and only if you need to do so.
Key
ideas from the screencast, so you shouldn't need
to watch it more than once (if at all):
You can create the necessary code to make a small version of your dataset in two steps:
Step one:
Open the copy_ version of the full
original dataset.
Use the FIle -> "Save As" command, and click your way to the destination folder where you want to save a smaller version dataset.
Do not hit the ok
button--after you give this file a new name, you
are going to use the Paste button to paste the code
into a syntax file. We will add an additional
line to this code in a minute.
Rename the file being saved so that
you know it is a smaller version of the dataset.
Dr. Setzler typically keeps the name of the
original dataset, but adds *small_to the front end
of the file. His system is to have original_,
copy_, and now small_versions of the dataset.
Again, after you have renamed the file, use the Paste button to paste the code into a syntax file.
The last step will automatically
open up a new syntax file and paste a command
telling SPSS to save the small_version of the
file. If you select and run that code, it will
save the full dataset, and that's not what you
want. You are going to want to tell SPSS to keep
only some of the variables when you run that SAVE
command. Before you modify your syntax to do that,
take a minute and add a notation (starting with an
asterisk so SPSS will grey out your note and not
try to run it) explaining to your future self what
this code does. This is a good time to remind
yourself in the note that, "In order for this code
to run in the future, you need to have the full
copy_version of the dataset open."
Step two:
Now, you want to manually change the syntax you just pasted, telling SPSS to save the _small file with just a subset of variables. To do this, type out "/KEEP=" as a subcommand and then list of variables to your save command. The line of code that you add should look like what I have bolded here:
Select just the SAVE code block (i.e., from SAVE OUTFILE through COMPRESSED.) and tell SPSS to run the selection. You can do this by green arrow in the commands icon options or by right-hand clicking and selecting run selection (on a Mac, holding the control button down while doing a touchpad tap is the equivalent of a right-hand mouse click).
Verify that you now have a _small.sav file in the folder where it is supposed to be. Open it up and make sure just the subset variables you need are there.
If all looks good,
add two notes to the top of your syntax. Start
notes in your syntax with an asterisk to SPSS
will grey out the note and not treat it as code.
SPSS sees a period as your indication that the
note has ended. The first note should be a
reminder to your future self that whenever you
run this code, you will need to have the copy_
version of your full dataset open, and you will
open this syntax file from within that dataset
(File -> Open-> Syntax). The second note
should be a quick reminder to yourself of what
this syntax does.
Once everything is
working and you have annotated your syntax, save
the syntax file to the same folder as your
datasets. Name it clearly so you can find it
again in case you need to re-run it in the
future.
These steps are
important because you may need to add or drop
additional variables in your small_ dataset at
some point, To do so, all you will have to do is
delete the current small_ dataset file, change
the syntax as necessary to add new variables you
want to keep, and rerun it. As you saw in the
screencast, this quick step will recreate a
modified small file that has only the variables
you need.
If all looks good, close the syntax and all of the open datasets. Do NOT save any changes to the copy_ dataset if asked to do so. Going forward, you will be working only with that small datset.
Pro-tip from the screencast:
When editing the Keep= line, rather
than copying variable names individually or typing
them in manually, it is a lot faster and way less
error-prone to create a list of variables to keep
using a point and click command:
Analyze->Descriptive statistics
->Descriptives->and then select all of the
variable names you want to keep. Then, paste your
descriptive command into your syntax. Select
just that code and run it (to run it, hit the
green arrow button).
If the output for the variables looks good (i.e., you got the right variables listed), then copy and paste the descriptives comman variables list into your /KEEP code line.
One other pro-tip from the screencast:
When you are in the Descriptives selection window (or any command listing all of the variables), it is a lot faster to find the variables you are looking for if you right-hand click on the variables (Mac users need to press the command key and click at the same time) to first show variable names and then to sort those names alphabetically. This trick works in all of the menu's dialog windows where there is a long list of variable labels listed in whatever order they appear in the dataset.
Week 4 (9/10, 9/12): Your out-of-class time during most of this week will be spent further refining your research question (i.e., completing Thesis Assignment 2, which is due this coming Sunday) and making sure that you have your project's dataset/s downloaded and ready to go. In class, we will go over what goes into a literature review and talk some about how to interpret regression models.
Due Sunday, 9/15, by 10pm: Thesis assignment #2 , which will identify and briefly describe one or more potential thesis topics. Follow the submission instructions carefully. This assignment is due on Sunday evening so that I can read through several examples of student work before we meet on Tuesday.
Before we meet on Tuesday, please do the following:
Read through this article on elite messaging, love of country, and attitudes toward immigrants by Dr. Graeber and Dr. Setzler (and my good friend Nick McRee). Reminder: the password to open locked PDF files is: icecream .
This particular article is
being assigned for two reasons. First, the introduction of
the paper provides you with a concrete example of what the
introduction to a research paper should look like, giving
you a concrete example of what you are aiming for as you
complete Thesis Assignment 2. As you read, pay close
attention to what our central research question is and how
we are working a new question into a older literature.
You also are being asked to
read this paper because it uses both ordinal linear
regression and logistic regression. Before we start coding
anything in class or go over statistics in any detail, it
will be helpful if you have a review of regression so that
you can better understand the scholarship you will be
using to write the front end of your thesis.
In the version of the article I have posted for you, I have reworked the logistic regression models so that they report odds ratios, which are easier to interpret than the tables in the original article. As an exercise that will get us ready for what lies ahead into the course, we will practice interpreting the article's OLS (aka linear regression) and logistic regression results on Tuesday and probably some more on Thursday.
Ahead of Thursday's
class, you should continue to work on refining
your topic so you can meet the Sunday deadline to submit a
revised version of it.
Please make sure that you have contacted your thesis
mentor to arrange a meeting this coming week (which
will be week 5 of the term). The point of that meeting
it so discuss your thesis topic how your review of the
existing literature review on your topic area is
going. You will need to provide your mentor with a
copy of Thesis Assignment #2 ahead of the meeting.
As you are finishing up on that assignment, your
attention should be beginning to shift to the next
thesis assignment, which is extending your work so far
in the class into "the front end" of your thesis.
As you are working on all of your thesis assignments, you need to be digging deeply into the existing research using the Google Scholar search strategies that we have previously reviewed. You also need to make sure that you know when and how to cite other authors (if you need a refresher, see the instructor handout on this topic ). Your work in the literature review needs to be cited, and you need a bibliography; in both cases, you should follow the style guidelines of the American Political Science Association , which are detailed in a handout elsewhere on this website. The full APSA style guide can be downloaded at: https://connect.apsanet.org/stylemanual/ .
Week 5 (9/17, 9/19): Most of your out-of-class
time this week should be spent meeting with your thesis
advisors and beginning to write the
"front end" of your thesis (i.e., Thesis Assignment #3).
Thesis assignment #2 is due electronically by 10pm on Sunday (9/15). Bring a hard copy to Tuesday's class.
On Tuesday, we will talk about where everyone's project is after several weeks of working to narrow in on a doeable thesis topic. Come to class prepared to tell everyone about how things going with your project. You will get quick feedback on what will work and what probably won't. The goal of talking about our projects as a group is to introduce your colleagues to what you are doing, let you see who is doing similar work, and to highlight strengths and ares of concern in your preliminary work in ways that is intended to be helpful to one or more other students.
Attending class on Thursday will be optional; I will be in the classroom if you would like guidance during class. Your instructor contact time this week ((or early next week) will be spent meeting individually with your thesis mentor.
As a reminder, your next thesis assignment will be due in a little less than two weeks. At the start of week 7 (Sunday, September 29), Thesis assignment #3 will be due. This assignment asks you to situate your research project into the social science literature, using previous research to explain why your topic is interesting, what already know about it, what we still need to know, and what you expect to find based on similar studies (or at least on related topics) previously published in peer-reviewed journals you have located with Google Scholar searches. Follow the assignment's instructions and submission guidelines carefully.
If you would like to review HPU student-authored samples of what you are aiming for, take a look at the opening sections (i.e., up to the parts of the theses that begin to discuss their datasets and how variables were measured), here are two optional, but highly recommended examples:
Madison Deane '2024: "Fate, Randomness, and Economic Policy Attitudes." (use the usual password). Ms. Deane's "front end" uses more section subtitles than you will find in the typical article, but you will see that her ideas flow logically from one to the next, aided by effective topic sentences that transition between ideas.
Maggie Selman '2024: "Beyond the Binary: How Knowledge from Religion, Science, and Personal Contact Influence Hostility Toward Transgender Rights." Ms. Selman makes the case at the start that her topic is important by citing contemporary statistics and information before turning to the applicable social science literature.