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Semester 1

Research Design in Politics and International Relations (PLIT10106)

Subject

Politics

College

CAHSS

Credits

20

Normal Year Taken

3

Delivery Session Year

2023/2024

Pre-requisites

Visiting students must have completed 4 Politics courses at grade B or above. We will only consider University/College level courses, and we cannot consider interdisciplinary courses or courses without sufficient Politics/Government/International Relations focus. **Please see Additional Restrictions below**

Course Summary

Research Design in Politics and International Relations will equip students with the skills necessary to understand, critically assess and undertake the research design process relevant to their PIR degree. Students will gain a good grasp of the behavioural assumptions in social science research, knowledge of a range of data collection methods (and how to assess the appropriateness of each), as well as the steps within a successful research project design. More specifically students will learn how to choose a topic, formulate a research question and hypotheses, select cases, navigate measurement issues, and undertake a range of data collection methods.

Course Description

The course will cover research design issues, including methodology and methods, for those addressing both empirical and more normative topics around Politics and International Relations. The course builds on courses offered in second year - Introduction to Political Data Analysis (IPDA) and Comparative Politics, which concentrate on methods of analysing evidence. This course focuses on how to structure your research project and how to collect your own evidence in response to your own research question. Beyond that it covers a range of issues which will be of use to political researchers: writing literature reviews, evaluating methodological choices, and ethical issues around political research.

Assessment Information

Written Exam 0%, Coursework 85%, Practical Exam 15%

Additional Restrictions

Unless you are nominated on a Politics exchange agreement, visiting students are only permitted to enrol in one Politics course each, per semester, before the start of the relevant semester’s welcome period – and spaces on each course are limited so cannot be guaranteed for any student. Enrolment in a second Politics course will depend on whether there are still spaces available in the September Welcome Period, and cannot be guaranteed. It is NOT appropriate for students to contact staff within this subject area to ask for an exception to be made; all enquiries to enrol in these courses must be made through the CAHSS Visiting Student Office. This is due to the limited number of spaces available in this very popular subject area.

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