Surveys and Survey Experiments

3 Credits.

This course is a combined upper-level undergraduate and graduate-level introduction to the uses of surveys in the social sciences, with examples primarily drawn from political science. We will examine when and why social scientists choose to use survey methods, discuss questionnaire design and sampling considerations, learn the basics of interpreting survey results, and cover the logic of survey experiments. Throughout the course, we will read and discuss substantive research that uses these methods. This course is a complement (not a substitute) to statistical training. There is no statistical pre-requisite, and students may take the course as a stand-alone methods offering to improve their understanding of literature that uses survey methods. Students who wish to use survey methods in their own projects should also take a separate course on statistical methods, either before, after, or concurrently with this course.