This course is about quantitative policy evaluation, i.e. the statistical analysis of outcomes affected by public policies.
- What is the effect of an educational programme on student achievement?
- What effect do freely provided malaria nets have on health?
- What is the effect of generous parental leave regulations on fertility?
- What are ethical issues when assessing policy impact?
The taught will be taught on campus in weekly 90-minute sessions.
It is open to all Master students in Political Science and PhD students in the Social Sciences. If you want to take part in this despite already having earned the ECTS points, you can do so, too, if there is enough space (I will certify your participation), but you have to follow the whole course with the full workload.
The first meeting will be on Thursday, 10 April, 08.30 -10.00 in LS 105.
I am teaching this course because I believe that all Master graduates in political science should be able to understand and conduct the evaluation of public policies. The methods that we will learn can be used not only in public policy but also any kind of systematic programme or intervention (e.g. within an organisation). Students will thus be able to assess any kind of programme, intervention or public policy, a very important transferable skill. We will look at established analyses, both very good and very bad examples, and reproduce some of the analyses.
We will practice how to present policy evaluations to lay people by presentation and other means.
A number of graduates of this course ended up in evaluation as a main job. Having taken this course helped them to get the expertise and the credentials.
We will use Stata and/or R on your own computer in and out of class. You will be provided with licenses if need be. You should have some basic knowledge of some syntax-based statistical software or computer language. If you have absolute no knowledge of syntax whatsoever, but are statistically up2scratch ( a rare combination), please send me an e-mail, so that we can see whether you can go through a self-taught course.
You should like numbers and statistical analyses because the course is not for the statistically faint-hearted. Students who took my course MA lecture in political sciene methods are well equipped for this course. We will look at observational, quasi-experimental and experimental analyses.
If you want to benefit from a cutting-edge course in applied methods and public policy analysis, in an intensive interactive peer2peer environment and with a teacher who genuinely cares about analytical political science and your individual progress, this is the course for you. The workload will be 5 ECTS, i.e. 150 working hours, not more and not less. You have to prepare classes and submit written and oral pieces fo work.
All material will be in English. English will be the language that we will converse in unless every participant will have grown up in a German-speaking environment. Written submissions can only be in German if all those who will read them have a good command of it.
Participation is mandatory. If you cannot attend one session, you need to excuse yourself in advance and will have to submit substitute work to show that you have understood the material.
How to register:
Register by sending an e-mail expressing your interest to achim.goerres@uni-due.de
First come, first serve. The seminar is capped at 20 participants. |
