GV249 Seminar AT1: Introduction

Lennard Metson

2024-10-08

Hello! 👋

Me

Lennard Metson (he/him)

PhD Student (LSE Government)

Research interests

Political campaigns; Voting behaviour and social networks; Tech and politics

Methods I use

Field experiments; Applied data science

Me

Where did I start learning research methods?

GV249!

Who are you?

Introduce yourself!

What course are you on?
What’s one topic you find interesting?
What methods (if any yet!) are you excited to use?

Research methods 🔬

🤔 Is political science a science?

What kinds of things are we trying to find out?

Description
Causal relationships

🤔 Is political science a science?

Who is interested?

Other academics
Policy makers
Campaigners

The classic research process

Key reading

Kellstedt & Whitten. (2018) The fundamentals of political science research. Cambridge University Press, Chapter 1.

🤔 What is big data?

Key reading

Monroe, et al. (2015) “No! Formal theory, causal inference, and big data are not contradictory trends in political science.” PS: Political Science & Politics

Bigger
Less “structured”…

🤔 What is big data?

How does it relate to conventional political science research?
- Often data science in political research is about converting unstructured data into structured data we can analyse using conventional methods

Unstructured data

Why learn about methods

To consume (political science) research
To produce (political science) research

🤔 What is useful to you?

Course logistics 📋

Tips for learning successfully

Core content is contained in the lectures and readings
- Presentations will be based off of the essential readings and the lecture. For more details, always consult those sources.
The seminars are an opportunity to discuss the materials and ask clarifying questions
- I will structure seminars with a short presentation, but the structure is flexible and we can see where discussions take us!

Tips for learning successfully

We will also use the seminars to run “labs” where we’ll teach you to code in R (🤩)
Ask questions!! Many of the topics we’ll introduce do not make sense immediately.
Ask questions in lectures, seminars, office hours or over email depending on what feels useful to you!

Office hours

📅 Friday 12:30 - 13:30 📍 CBG.3.19
Book on Student Hub