Poslední úprava: Dr. rer. pol. Michal Parízek, M.Sc., Ph.D. (29.09.2020)
The purpose of this course is introduce the students of international relations and security studies to political research methods, and specifically to their quantitative branch. Somewhat less formally, students will learn how to create or collect quantitative political data and how to use them to solve practical and/or theoretical political problems. Quantitative data -- information about political phenomena captured and summarized in numbers -- is available literally on every corner, waiting just to be collected and analyzed. In this class, students get the chance to learn how to do it. Being familiar with quantitative methods enables one to make policy decisions on the basis of a solid analysis of hard(er) empirical evidence, and to conduct systematic inquiry into the nature of international political and security phenomena. Last but not least, knowing quantitative methods enables one not be fooled by others when they try to support their arguments with lousy but seemingly sophisticated (because quantitative) analysis. The class does not assume any prior knowledge of statistics or mathematics, essentially beyond elementary school. It does assume, however, a good deal of motivation on the part of students, as the learning curve may be somewhat steeper for some of the students. The powerful (yet free) statistical package called R will be used in the class, in combination with the interface RStudio. Students are well advised to attend all classes and to keep up with the assigned readings as the material covered is highly cumulative.
Note that the course does not have a seminar in the classical sense (work in smaller groups). For practical reasons, short instruction videos are provided to students to guide them in their work with the statistical software. This course is complemented by the course Researching international politics: qualitative methods, that runs in Summer semester.
To joint the course sessions on Zoom, follow this link: https://cesnet.zoom.us/j/92726480217 (password available for registered users on course Moodle site).
Cíl předmětu - angličtina
Poslední úprava: Dr. rer. pol. Michal Parízek, M.Sc., Ph.D. (24.09.2020)
The specific objectives of the course are:
to help students understand and appreciate the most important components of research design
to help students understand the key principles of causal inference and the way statistics can help them in it
to help students understand and use the key tools of descriptive statistics
to help students understand and use basic tools of inferential statistics, including linear regression analysis
to help students appreciate the possibilities stats give them for their own future careers (or academic research)
Literatura -
Poslední úprava: Dr. rer. pol. Michal Parízek, M.Sc., Ph.D. (24.09.2020)
The literature for this course is discussed in the attached course syllabus.
Poslední úprava: Dr. rer. pol. Michal Parízek, M.Sc., Ph.D. (24.09.2020)
Literature for this course is listed in the attached course syllabus.
Metody výuky - angličtina
Poslední úprava: Dr. rer. pol. Michal Parízek, M.Sc., Ph.D. (02.11.2020)
The course consists of weekly lectures/seminars. Attendance is highly recommended, although strictly speaking this is not a formal requirement.
Due to the Covid-19 situation, the lectures of the course will be run (live) on Zoom. That means, students participate in sessions, as per the course schedule. Please make yourself familiar with the Zoom environment, ideally downloading the desktop app. Link to the Zoom sessions of the course is: https://cesnet.zoom.us/j/92726480217?pwd=Wi9tMytLbnUrTHJUaWxDVW9TWnhJdz09. The password is available to registered students on course Moodle site. Recording of the lectures will be made available on course Moodle site.
Požadavky ke zkoušce
Poslední úprava: Dr. rer. pol. Michal Parízek, M.Sc., Ph.D. (21.12.2023)
The mid-term will be available on Moodle from November 21 to November 24. Within that period, you will need to pick a time-slot of up to 3 hours within which you will do the mid-term.
The final exam slots are available for registration in SIS.
The exam takes places via Moodle, from home, under class 12 (https://dl1.cuni.cz/course/view.php?id=3445). Students are advised to carefully check the information about the exam under class 12 in section "Final exam". This includes information about the possibility to practice the calculated assignments provided from class 5 onward, announced earlier in the classes.
