Political Science Research Methods

Teaches students to effectively evaluate the research of others and learn how to conduct their ownWhen exposing students to political science's most important research methods, comprehensive coverage as well as clear and straightforward language are paramount. In the trusted tradition of previous editions, this new fifth edition covers all of the major research methods of the discipline and leads students step by step through the logic of research design. The new edition now gives even greater attention to promising new research tools such as online search engines, formal modelling, and logistic regression. New and updated examples from contemporary research problems make the text especially relevant and engaging. Guaranteed to please instructors looking for useful reinforcement and practice, a new companion student workbook meaningfully ties exercises and assignments to learning objectives covered in each chapter. New To This Edition* More effective, streamlined organization and presentation better reflects the actual process of developing research problems and implementing research designs;* Expanded discussion of hypothesis formation and the logic of making causal inferences;* Greater attention to creating operational definitions of theoretical concepts and how these definitions affect research design and results;* More extensive coverage of the use of path diagrams to help students clarify their ideas about hypothesized relationships between concepts;* New and updated examples throughout to give students real world problems to work through, such as stronger illustrations of how to extract hypotheses from written material such as magazine and newspaper articles;* Improved guidance on the proper use of aggregate data. A student workbook is also in production:Working with Political Science Research Methods: Problems and ExercisesJanet Buttolph Johnson H. T. ReynoldsISBN: 1-56802-928-4 or as a package: 1-56802-929-2C100 pages 190 X 140mm Publication: October 2004 The student workbook will contain additional exercises from text chapters and a CD with data sets in SPSS format as well as a simple, convertible text format.