The POWERMUTT Project

The POWERMUTT* Project
*Politically-Oriented Web-Enhanced Research Methods for Undergraduates — Topics and Tools
Resources for introductory research methods courses in political science and related disciplines

Home Table of Contents Introduction Note to Instructors Course Syllabi Using POWERMUTT Author's Home Page

Political Science As a Social Science Research Design Levels of Measurement Displaying Categorical Data Data Collection More About Measurement Contingency Table Analysis Control Variables Discriptive Statistics Standard Scores and the Normal Distribution Comparing Means Regression and Correlation Logitudinal Analysis of Survey Data

American National Election Study 2004 Subset American National Election Study 2000-2004 Panel Study Subset General Social Survey Cumulative (1972-2006) Subset U.S. House of Representatives U.S. Senate U.S. States Countries California State Legislature

Data Downloads Topic Downloads (PDF format)

General Data Statistics/Methods Texts Applets, etc. SPSS Resources ICPSR Resources SDA Resources Glossaries

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INTRODUCTION

1. Overview

The POWERMUTT (Politically-Oriented, Web-Enhanced Research Methods for Undergraduates — Topics and Tools) Project provides resources for introductory research methods courses in political science and related disciplines. A key objective of the project is to make learning more interactive through use of links both to other parts of the project site and to other sites on the Internet.

The project consists of the following main components:

Topics. The core of the project, Topics cover a fairly standard set of subjects typically included in the introductory methods course. All Topics include an essay explaining the Topic’s subject matter. Key concepts (excluding tools - see the following bullet) are indicated in bold and italics, and are listed after the main body of the Topic, with links back to where they are explained. Most Topics include a set of exercises and links to other Web sites for further study. A few exercises take you to sites that use Java applets. If these fail to work, you may need to change the options in your browser to enable Java.

Tools. Most Topic exercises require data analysis that uses statistical software. POWERMUTT Tools are brief tutorials on the use of such software. Topics include links to the Tools needed to complete the exercises. Tools can also be accessed directly from the project home page.

At present, the project includes Tools for analyzing data using SPSS Version 15, a statistical package widely used in political science and other disciplines. SPSS is not included with POWERMUTT, but there is a good chance that your college or university has an SPSS site license. If not, you can lease an individual copy. Check with your instructor for more information.

Since they are designed to support the Topics, the Tools do not attempt to cover all of the procedures available in SPSS, or even all of the features of any given procedure. In particular, some of the more elaborate procedures, such as “Regression” and “Line Charts,” have a variety of capabilities not covered here. Unless instructed otherwise, accept all defaults when using an SPSS procedure.

The project also includes:

Pop Up Protocols (POWERMUTT PUPS). In most cases, when a topic presents results that were obtained using SPSS, a link is provided to a “Pop Up Protocol” listing the steps needed to produce that result. Note: the protocols assume that you are starting each analysis from scratch, and that choices made for previous analyses have been cleared.
Data Downloads. Most of the exercises require analysis of one of several datasets provided with the project. Datasets are in SPSS system file format. Using them requires the SPSS statistical software package. The files can be downloaded by going to the "Downloads" section of the project.
Codebooks. Topics include links to codebooks describing the relevant datasets. Codebooks can also be accessed directly.
Topic Downloads. Topics are available for hard copy printing in PDF. The files can be downloaded by going to the "Downloads" section of the project. If Adobe Reader is loaded on your computer, you can open the file directly by double-clicking on it. You can also save it to one of the drives on your computer. If you don't already have it, you can download a free copy of Adobe Reader at http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html.
Links to Other Resources available on the Internet for teaching and learning research methods.

Note: if pop ups don't seem to work, you may need to temporarily disable any pop up blockers installed in your browser.

Within a POWERMUTT Web page (other than the home page and the table of contents), clicking on a link to an address external to the page will open up a new window in your browser. This is done so that you can work simultaneously with the document and with the other material. For example, while working on an exercise, you may need to refer to an SPSS Tool and to a dataset codebook. Some of these links will take you to another document within the project, others to various sites on the Internet. Links to another location on the same page will not open a new window in your browser, and you can return to your previous location simply by clicking on your browser’s “Back” button

2. Acknowledgements

I would like to express my thanks to my colleague, Dr. Sandra Emerson for agreeing to “field test” POWERMUTT in her research methods class, and to her students and mine for their many helpful suggestions.

The initial development of the project would not have been possible without the support of a sabbatical leave from California State Polytechnic University, Pomona.

Except where indicated, © 2003-2007 John L. Korey. Last updated January 10, 2008