Teaching Research Methods in Political Science brings together experienced instructors to offer a range of perspectives on how to teach courses in political science. It focuses on numerous topics, including identifying good research questions, measuring key concepts, writing literature reviews and developing information literacy skills.

The SAGE Handbook of Research Methods in Political Science and International Relations offers a comprehensive overview of research processes in social science — from the ideation and design of research projects, through the construction of theoretical arguments, to conceptualization, measurement, & data collection, and quantitative & qualitative empirical analysis — exposited through 65 major new contributions from leading international methodologists. Each chapter surveys, builds upon, and extends the modern state of the art in its area. Following through its six-part organization, undergraduate and graduate students, researchers and practicing academics will be guided through the design, methods, and analysis of issues in Political Science and International Relations: Part One: Formulating Good Research Questions & Designing Good Research Projects Part Two: Methods of Theoretical Argumentation Part Three: Conceptualization & Measurement Part Four: Large-Scale Data Collection & Representation Methods Part Five: Quantitative-Empirical Methods Part Six: Qualitative & "Mixed" Methods

Stephen Van Evera greeted new graduate students at MIT with a commonsense introduction to qualitative methods in the social sciences. His helpful hints, always warmly received, grew from a handful of memos to an underground classic primer. That primer evolved into a book of how-to information about graduate study, which is essential reading for graduate students and undergraduates in political science, sociology, anthropology, economics, and history - and for their advisers. -How should we frame, assess, and apply theories in the social sciences? "I am unpersuaded by the view that the prime rules of scientific method should differ between hard science and social science. Science is science." -A section on case studies shows novices the ropes. -Van Evera contends the realm of dissertations is often defined too narrowly "Making and testing theories are not the only games in town.... If everyone makes and tests theories but no one ever uses them, then what are they for?" -In "Helpful Hints on Writing a Political Science Ph.D. Dissertation," Van Evera focuses on presentation, and on broader issues of academic strategy and tactics. -Van Evera asks how political scientists should work together as a community. "All institutions and professions that face weak accountability need inner ethical rudders that define their obligations in order to stay on course."

There are a plethora of books that aim to teach the research methods needed for political science. Thinking Like a Political Scientist stands out from them in its conviction that students are better served by learning a handful of core lessons well rather than trying to memorize hundreds of often statistical definitions. Short and concise, the book has two main parts, Asking Good Questions and Generating Good Answers. In the first section, one chapter each is devoted to the three fundamental questions in political science: who cares?, what happened?, and why?. These take up, among many other topics, crafting a literature review, creating hypotheses, measuring concepts, and the difference between correlation and causation. The second section of the book has chapters about choosing a research design, choosing cases, working with written documents, and working with numbers. All of these are essential skills for undergraduates to have when reading published work and conducting their own research. Every chapter ends with several exercises where students can read examples from published work and develop their own skills as researchers. Finally, unlike most research methods books, Christopher Howard s sprinkles humor and surprising analogies throughout."

The teacher-scholars featured in this book explain how to spark a students’ natural curiosity about the world they live in by using experimental design to test basic intuition, generate and answer “what if” questions, and address real world problems that matter deeply to students, researchers, policymakers, political practitioners, and the community at large.

Providing expert advice from established scholars in the field of political science, this engaging book imparts informative guidance on teaching research methods across the undergraduate curriculum. Written in a concise yet comprehensive style, it illustrates practical and conceptual advice, alongside more detailed chapters focussing on the different aspects of teaching political methodology.

Providing expert advice from established scholars in the field of political science, this engaging companion book to Teaching Undergraduate Political Methodology imparts informative guidance on teaching research methods across the graduate curriculum. Written in a concise yet comprehensive style, it illustrates practical and conceptual advice, alongside more detailed chapters focussing on the different aspects of teaching political methodology.