POL 504-1
Research Design
for M.A. Students in Political Psychology
Wednesdays 10:00 AM to 1:00 PM
Fall 2014
Instructor: Dr. Jason Barabas
Class Location: Social and Behavior Sciences, N703
Office: Social and Behavior Sciences, N727
Office Hours: Tuesdays 10 AM to 11 AM, Wednesdays 2 PM to 3 PM or by appointment
Office Phone: 631-632-4304
Email: jason.barabas@stonybrook.edu
Website: www.jasonbarabas.com or Blackboard (Bb) Course Site
Course Description and Objectives:
This course introduces students to the logic underlying the scientific study of political psychology
and politics. We will cover a variety of research methods that can be used to study attitudes and
opinions in addition to other possible outcomes and applications. Major course topics include theory
development, conceptualization and measurement, hypothesis testing, validity, and causality. Many
of the concepts will be demonstrated with published examples. Other than two exams, the major
course requirement is an independent research design, which requires students to develop a research
question and a study capable of testing it using the appropriate methods. It is advantageous to take
this course in addition to or along with graduate-level class(-es) on statistics being offered in the
Department of Political Science.
Upon successful completion of POL 504 students will be able to:
1. Understand the challenges of establishing causal generalizations;
2. Understand the relationship between theory and evidence;
3. Develop original and practical solutions to test research puzzles and hypotheses;
4. Critique and improve upon existing methods and published work.
Course Website:
Blackboard will allow students to access course materials. The Blackboard system is available from
any computer with access to the Internet at the following website, http://blackboard.stonybrook.edu.
Logging into Blackboard requires a NET ID and a Password. Use this page to obtain additional
readings, electronic copies of assignments, and other course handouts and resources.
Required Books:
Barasko, Maryann, Daniel M. Sabet, and Brian F. Schaffner. 2014. Understanding Political Science
Research Methods: The Challenge of Inference. New York: Routledge. [“BSS” on syllabus]
The books are available at the university bookstore or via online vendors (e.g., Amazon). Students
can access other assigned readings (published articles or book chapters) either through J-STOR
(http://jstor.org), the university library, or as made available by the instructor.
Recommended Books:
Shadish, William R, Thomas D. Cook, and Donald T. Campbell. 2002. Experimental and QuasiExperimental Designs for Generalized Causal Inference. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
Dunning, Thad. 2012. Natural Experiments in the Social Sciences: A Design-Based Approach. New
York: Cambridge.
Gerber, Alan S. and Donald P. Green. 2012. Field Experiments: Design, Analysis, and
Interpretation. New York: W.W. Norton.
Gerring, John. 2012. Social Science Methodology: A Unified Framework, 2nd ed. New York:
Cambridge University Press.
Morton, Rebecca and Kenneth Williams. 2010. From Nature to the Lab: The Methodology of
Experimental Political Science and the Study of Causality. New York: Cambridge.
Grading:
Class Participation
Midterm Exam
Final Exam
Research Design Project
% of Final Grade
25%
25%
25%
25%
Participation: Students are expected to attend class and participate in discussions. In particular, you
are expected to read the required texts/readings before class and come to class with questions and/or
comments. If you have an emergency situation and cannot fulfill these requirements, you must let
me know immediately and before the scheduled date of the exam. The instructor reserves the right
to give unannounced pop quizzes that will contribute toward the participation grade. There may also
be opportunities for extra credit that will be announced in class. In general, aim for quality rather
than quantity when it comes to participation.
Exams: The exams will test your knowledge of the material presented as well as your ability to
apply the techniques we cover. In addition to multiple choice questions, students will be given
hypothetical situations with a topic(s), a theory(-ies) with hypotheses, and data. Students will be
asked to come up with a causally-robust design to test the theory. Students may also be asked to
critique actual published studies from a research design perspective. The exams will be cumulative
in the sense that anything covered up to the day of the exam may be relevant.
There will be no make‐up exams except under the most extraordinary circumstances as determined
by the instructor. “Extraordinary circumstances” consist of severe student illness or death in the
family. In either case, adequate documentation will be required. For example, a doctor or nurse
must indicate that the student was unable to take the exam at the regular time. In the event that you
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are unable to take an exam you must contact me no later than the day of the exam. ANY MAKE‐UP
EXAMS WILL BE IN A DIFFERENT FORMAT (E.G., ESSAY, ORAL).
Research Project Design: By the end of the semester you will be asked to submit a final research
design project (which need not include data analyses) that incorporates the principles and
techniques that you have learned. The best projects will have the potential to be published one day.
Specific objectives for the research design project will be discussed in class after the midterm.
Grading Scale: Barring any unforeseen changes, the grading scale for the course is as follows:
A
AB+
B
BC+
93.50 to 100
89.50 to 92.49
86.50 to 89.49
83.50 to 86.49
79.50 to 83.49
76.50 to 79.49
C
CD+
D
DF
73.50 to 76.49
69.50 to 73.49
66.50 to 69.49
63.50 to 66.49
59.50 to 63.49
59.49 and below
If you want to add, drop, or change the grade status of this course, you are responsible for
complying with all deadlines in this regard. Such deadlines are a matter of University policy. Please
visit the appropriate university website for the deadlines.
University Attendance Policy: Excused absences include documented illness, deaths in the family
and other documented crises, call to active military duty or jury duty, religious holy days, and
official University activities. These absences will be accommodated in a way that does not
arbitrarily penalize students who have a valid excuse. Consideration will also be given to students
whose dependent children experience serious illness.
Academic Honor Policy: The Stony Brook University policies on academic dishonesty are
available at: http://www.stonybrook.edu/commcms/academic_integrity/policies.html. The website
explains the University's expectations for the integrity of students' academic work, the procedures
for resolving alleged violations of those expectations, and the rights and responsibilities of students
and faculty members throughout the process. Students are responsible for reading the Academic
Honor Policy and for living up to the policies.
Americans with Disabilities Act: If you have a physical, psychological, medical or learning disability that may impact your course work, please contact Disability Support Services, ECC (Educational Communications Center) Building, Room 128, (631) 632-6748. They will determine with
you what accommodations are necessary and appropriate. All information and documentation will
be kept confidential. This should be done during the first week of class.
Critical Incident Management: Stony Brook University expects students to respect the rights,
privileges, and property of other people. Faculty are required to report to the Office of Judicial
Affairs any disruptive behavior that interrupts their ability to teach, compromises the safety of the
learning environment, or inhibits students' ability to learn. Faculty in the HSC Schools and the
School of Medicine are required to follow their school‐specific procedures.
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Electronic Communication Statement: Email is one of the ways the faculty officially
communicates with you for this course. Another common communication platform is the course
Blackboard website. It is your responsibility to make sure that you read your email in your official
University email account and check in with Blackboard regularly. For most students that is Google
Apps for Education (http://www.stonybrook.edu/mycloud), but you may verify your official
Electronic Post Office (EPO) address at
http://it.stonybrook.edu/help/kb/checking‐or‐changing‐your‐mail‐forwarding‐addressin‐
the‐epo. If you choose to forward your official University email to another off‐campus account,
faculty are not responsible for any undeliverable messages to your alternative personal accounts.
You can set up Google Mail forwarding using instructions found at
http://it.stonybrook.edu/help/kb/settingupmail‐forwarding‐in‐google‐mail. If you need technical
assistance, contact Client Support at supportteam@stonybrook.edu.
Email Response: Please send emails to Jason.Barabas@stonybrook.edu and allow at least 24 hours
for a response before sending another message on the same topic. Please note that the 24-hour rule
does not apply on weekends. So, for emails sent on Saturday or Sunday, the 24-hour “email clock”
starts Monday at 9 am.
Syllabus Change Policy: This syllabus is a guide for the course and is subject to change with
advance notice. Please monitor the class webpage on the Blackboard system for the latest
announcements and changes.
COURSE SCHEDULE
Whenever possible I will put copies (PDFs) of the assigned non-required book readings on the class
Blackboard website (denoted “[Bb]” on the syllabus).
Week 1 – Course Expectations and Policies (8/27/2014)
Readings:
BSS, Chapter 1
King, Gary, Robert Keohane, and Sidney Verba. 1994. Designing Social Inquiry. Princeton, NJ:
Princeton University Press. Chapter 1 [Bb]
Week 2 – Overview I: Inference and Research Questions (9/3/2014)
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Readings:
BSS, Chapters 2-3
Turner, Joel. 2007. “The Messenger Overwhelming the Message: Ideological Cues and Perceptions
of Bias in Television News.” Political Behavior 29: 441-64. [Bb]
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Week 3 – Overview II: Data, Causality, and Experiments (9/10/2014)
Readings:
BSS, Chapter 4-5
Gerber, Alan S., and Donald. P. Green. 2000. “The Effects of Canvassing, Telephone Calls, and
Direct Mail on Voter Turnout: A Field Experiment.” American Political Science Review 94 (Sept.):
653-63. [Bb]
Week 4 – Analysis I: Statistical Basics (9/17/2014)
Readings:
BSS, Chapter 4-5
Iyengar, Shanto. 1990. Framing Responsibility for Political Issues: The Case of Poverty. Political
Behavior 12 (March): 19-40. [Bb]
Week 5 – Analysis II: Observational Studies (9/24/2013)
Readings:
BSS, Chapter 6-7
Barabas, Jason. 2006. “Rational Exuberance: The Stock Market and Public Support for Social
Security Privatization.” Journal of Politics 68 (February): 50-61. [Bb]
Arceneaux, Kevin, and Stephen P. Nicholson. 2012. “Who Wants to Have a Tea Party? The Who,
What, and Why of the Tea Party Movement.” PS: Political Science & Politics 45 (October):
700-10. [Bb]
Week 6 – Inferential Threats I: Internal and Statistical Conclusion Validity (10/1/2014)
Readings:
Shadish, Cook, and Campbell, Chapters 1-2 [Bb]
Morgan, Stephen L., and Christopher Winship. 2007. Counterfactuals and Causal Inference:
Methods and Principles for Social Research. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Chapters 1-2. [Bb]
Zaller, John. 2002. “The Statistical Power of Election Studies to Detect Media Exposure Effects in
Political Campaigns.” Electoral Studies 21: 297-329. [Bb]
Week 7 – Inferential Threats II: External and Construct Validity (10/8/2014)
Readings:
Shadish, Cook, and Campbell, Chapters 3-5. [Bb]
Barabas, Jason, and Jennifer Jerit. 2010. “Are Survey Experiments Externally Valid?” American
Political Science Review 104 (May): 226-42. [Bb]
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King, Gary, Christopher J. L. Murray, Joshua A. Salomon, and Ajay Tandon. 2004. “Enhancing the
Validity and Cross-Cultural Comparability of Measurement in Survey Research.” American
Political Science Review 98 (Feb.): 191-207. [Bb]
Week 8 – Review and Synthesis (10/15/2014)
Readings:
BSS, Chapter 8
Week 9 – Midterm Exam (10/22/2014)
Readings:
None. Prepare for Exam.
Week 10 – Special Topics: Surveys and Questionnaire Design (10/29/2014)
Readings:
Pasek, Josh, and Jon A. Krosnick. 2009. “Optimizing Survey Questionnaire Design in Political
Science: Insights from Psychology.” In Oxford Handbook of American Elections and
Political Behavior, ed. Jan E. Leighley, pp. 27-50. [Bb]
Krosnick, Jon A., and Stanley Presser. 2010. “Question and Questionnaire Design.” In Handbook of
Survey Research, 2nd ed., eds. James D. Wright and Peter V. Marsden. San Diego, CA:
Elsevier. [Bb]
Schuman, Howard, and Stanley Presser. 1996. Questions and Answers in Attitude Surveys:
Experiments on Question Form, Wording, and Context. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Chapters
3-8. [Bb]
Berinsky, Adam J., Gregory Huber, and Gabriel Lenz. 2012. “Evaluating Online Labor Markets for
Experimental Research: Amazon.com's Mechanical Turk.” Political Analysis 20 (3): 351-68.
[Bb]
National Research Council. 2013. Nonresponse in Social Science Surveys: A Research Agenda.
Panel on a Research Agenda for the Future of Social Science Data Collection, Committee on
National Statistics. Division of Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education. Washington,
DC: The National Academies Press. [Bb]
Week 11 – Special Topics: Pre-Treatment, Selective Treatments, & Effect
Duration/Heterogeneity (11/5/2014)
Readings:
Druckman, James N., and Thomas J. Leeper. 2012. “Learning More from Political Communication
Experiments: Pretreatment and Its Effects.” American Journal of Political Science 56 (Oct.):
875-96. [Bb]
Gaines, Brian J., and James H. Kuklinski. 2011. “Experimental Estimation of Heterogeneous
Treatment Effects Related to Self-Selection.” American Journal of Political Science 55
(July): 724-36. [Bb]
Arceneaux, Kevin, Martin Johnson, and Chad Murphy. 2012. “Polarized Political Communication,
Oppositional Media Hostility, and Selective Exposure.” Journal of Politics 74 (Jan.): 17486. [Bb]
Mitchell, Dona-Gene. 2012. “It’s About Time: The Lifespan of Information Effects in a Multiweek
Campaign.” American Journal of Political Science 56 (April): 298-311. [Bb]
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Hill, Seth J., James Lo, Lynn Vavreck, and John Zaller. 2013. “How Quickly We Forget: The
Duration of Persuasion Effects from Mass Communication.” Political Communication 30:
521-47. [Bb]
Week 12 – Special Topics: Mediation (11/12/2014)
Readings:
Baron, Rueben M., and David. A. Kenny. 1986. “The Moderator–Mediator Variable Distinction in
Social Psychological Research: Conceptual, Strategic, and Statistical Considerations.”
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 51 (6): 1173–82. [Bb]
Bullock, John G., Donald P. Green, and Shang E. Ha. 2010. “Yes, But What’s The Mechanism?
(Don’t Expect and Easy Answer).” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 98 (4):
550-8. [Bb]
Renshon, Jonathan, Jooa Julia Lee, and Dustin Tingley. Forthcoming. “Physiological Arousal and
Political Beliefs.” Political Psychology. [Bb]
Brader, Ted, Nicholas A. Valentino, and Elizabeth Suhay. 2008. “What Triggers Public Opposition
to Immigration? Anxiety, Group Cues, and Immigration.” American Journal of Political
Science 52 (4): 959–78. [Bb]
[SKIM] Imai, Kosuke, Luke Keele, Dustin Tingley, and Teppei Yamamoto. 2011. “Unpacking the
Black Box of Causality: Learning about Causal Mechanisms from Experimental and
Observational Studies.'' American Political Science Review 105 (November): 765-89. [Bb]
Week 13 – Special Topics: Methodological Mode/Sample Considerations and Comparisons
(11/19/2014)
Readings:
Berinsky, Adam J., Gregory Huber, and Gabriel Lenz. 2012. “Evaluating Online Labor Markets for
Experimental Research: Amazon.com's Mechanical Turk.” Political Analysis 20 (3): 351-68.
[Bb]
Druckman, James N., and Cindy D, Kam. 2011. “Students as Experimental Participants: A Defense
of the ‘Narrow Data Base.” In Cambridge Handbook of Experimental Political Science by J.
Druckman, D. Green, J. Kuklinski, and A. Lupia. New York: Cambridge, pp. 41-57. [Bb]
Leeper, Thomas J., and Kevin J. Mullinix. 2013. “To Whom, with What Effect? Parallel
Experiments on Framing.” Working Paper: Aarhaus University. [Bb]
Jerit, Jennifer, Jason Barabas, and Scott Clifford. 2013. “Comparing Contemporaneous Laboratory
and Field Experiments on Media Effects.” Public Opinion Quarterly 77 (Spring): 256-82.
[Bb]
Clifford, Scott, and Jennifer Jerit. Forthcoming. “Is There a Cost to Convenience? An Experimental
Comparison of Data Quality in Laboratory and Online Studies.” Journal of Experimental
Political Science. [Bb]
Krupnikov, Yanna, and Adam Seth Levine. Forthcoming. “Cross-Sample Comparisons and
External Validity.” Journal of Experimental Political Science. [Bb]
Week 14 – THANKSGIVING HOLIDAY, NO CLASS (11/26/2014)
Week 15 – Project Workshop (12/3/2014)
Week 16 – Final Exam (12/10/2014 during class period or on an alternative date to be
announced in class)
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