INTRODUCTION TO SURVEY RESEARCH

Prerequisites & course information

Requisites: Sophomore standing Course Designation: Core GenEd - Social & Behavioral Science Breadth - Social Science Level - Intermediate L&S Credit - L&S Liberal Arts and Science Grad 50% - Counts toward 50% graduate coursework requirement Repeatable for Credit: No Last Taught: Fall 2026 Learning Outcomes: 1. Formulate and construct logical arguments about political phenomena and evaluate those arguments using survey research Audience: Undergraduate 2. Explain the theoretical components of survey research Audience: Undergraduate 3. Interpret survey results in general with a particular focus on political polling Audience: Undergraduate 4. Design and assess political surveys, including questionnaire design, question wording, survey mode, sample size, nonresponse, survey experiments, standard error, and margin of error Audience: Undergraduate 5. Demonstrate statistical analysis skills in the context of political surveys including: hypothesis testing, confidence intervals, difference of means tests, data visualization and linear regression Audience: Undergraduate 6. Recognize ethical issues in survey research Audience: Undergraduate 7. Assess the state of a body of scholarly literature related to course themes, identify gaps in that literature, and formulate an original research question in the context of those gaps. Audience: Graduate Learning Outcomes: 1. Formulate and construct logical arguments about political phenomena and evaluate those arguments using survey research Audience: Undergraduate 2. Explain the theoretical components of survey research Audience: Undergraduate 3. Interpret survey results in general with a particular focus on political polling Audience: Undergraduate 4. Design and assess political surveys, including questionnaire design, question wording, survey mode, sample size, nonresponse, survey experiments, standard error, and margin of error Audience: Undergraduate 5. Demonstrate statistical analysis skills in the context of political surveys including: hypothesis testing, confidence intervals, difference of means tests, data visualization and linear regression Audience: Undergraduate 6. Recognize ethical issues in survey research Audience: Undergraduate 7. Assess the state of a body of scholarly literature related to course themes, identify gaps in that literature, and formulate an original research question in the context of those gaps. Audience: Graduate