Research Design for Public Policy

This course is a graduate-level introduction to empirical research in public policy. Designed for MPhil students who are beginning their research project, the aim of the course is to give students the tools to pose focused research questions, develop answers with theoretical frameworks, formulate and re?ne concepts, construct valid and reliable measures, and ?nally to gather data. While other methodology courses teach students how to analyze data, this course emphasizes the process of developing research questions and gathering high quality data for answering them. Particular attention is directed to problems, and strategies related to “small-n” qualitative research, for the most part setting aside the techniques of experimental, quasi-experimental as well as correlational analysis.