COURSE SYLLABUS

Political Science 6364: Public Opinion and Survey Research

1:00-3:45 p.m., Wednesday, Spring Semester, 2010

Contact Information
Professor: (Dr.) Marianne Stewart
Office E-Mail: mstewart@utdallas.edu
Office Hours: 4:00-5:30 p.m., Monday and Wednesday; and by appointment
Office Location: 3.226 GR
Office Phone: (972) 883-2011

Course Information
In general, this graduate course presents students with a rigorous, and both applied and basic,
approach to the guidelines, design, conduct, evaluation, and communication of survey research as
used in the study of public opinion and political attitudes. The course focuses on major
explanations involving various sources of public opinion and political attitudes; the conduct of
survey research; and the use of surveys to study attitudes and opinions during campaigns. In
particular, the course objectives are to help students learn to:
describe and evaluate the sources, nature, and consequences of public opinion and political
attitudes;
describe and evaluate the conduct of survey research, the design of survey questions, the
practice of survey interviewing, and the analysis of survey data;
use surveys to study attitudes and opinions during campaigns, and thereby, to participate in
the design, conduct, evaluation, and communication of survey research.

Required Books
Clawson, Rosalee A. and Zoe M. Oxley. 2008. Public Opinion: Democratic Ideals, Democratic
Practice. Washington: Congressional Quarterly Press.
Fowler, Jr., Floyd J. 2009. Survey Research Methods, 4th edition. Los Angeles: Sage
Publications.

Recommended Books
Johnson, Janet Buttolph and H.T. Reynolds with Jason D. Mycoff. 2008. Political Science
Research Methods, 6th edition. Washington, DC: Congressional Quarterly Press.

Course Schedule
January 12. An Introduction to The Course.

January 19. Public Opinion and Political Attitudes: An Overview of Studies and Surveys.
Required Reading
Clawson and Oxley, Public Opinion:
Chapter 1: "What Should the Role of Citizens Be in a Democratic Society?"
Appendix: "Studying Public Opinion Empirically"
Fowler, Survey Research Methods:
Chapter 1: "Introduction"
Chapter 11: "Ethical Issues in Survey Research"
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Recommended Reading
Johnson and Reynolds, Political Science Research Methods:
Chapter 3: "The Building Blocks of Social Scientific Research: Hypotheses, Concepts,
Variables"
Chapter 5: "Research Design"

January 26/February 2. Public Opinion and Political Attitudes: Explanations of Sources

Involving Political Socialization and Mass Media.
Required Reading
Clawson and Oxley, Public Opinion:
Chapter 2: "Political Socialization"
Chapter 3: "Mass Media"

February 9-16. Public Opinion and Political Attitudes: Explanations of Sources Involving
Ideology, Pluralism, Knowledge, Interest, and Attention.
Required Reading
Clawson and Oxley, Public Opinion:
Chapter 4: "Attitude Stability and Attitude Change"
Chapter 5: "Ideological Innocence and Critiques"
Chapter 6: "Pluralistic Roots of Public Opinion"
Chapter 7: "Knowledge, Interest, and Attention to Politics"
Recommended Reading:
Clawson and Oxley, Public Opinion:
Chapter 8: "Support for Civil Liberties"
Chapter 9: "Support for Civil Rights"

February 23. Public Opinion and Political Attitudes: Consequences for Government Support and
Public Policy.
Required Reading
Clawson and Oxley, Public Opinion:
Chapter 10: "Trust in Government, Support for Institutions, and Social Capital"
Chapter 11: "Impact of Public Opinion on Policy"

March 2-9. Survey Research: Considering Fundamentals.

Required Reading
Fowler, Survey Research Methods:
Chapter 2: "Types of Error in Surveys"
Chapter 3: "Sampling"
Chapter 4: "Nonresponse: Implementing A Sample Design"
Chapter 5: "Methods of Data Collection"

March 14-19. Spring Break - No Classes.

March 23-30. Survey Research: Designing Questions.

Required Reading
Fowler, Survey Research Methods:
Chapter 6: "Designing Questions to Be Good Measures"
Chapter 7: "Evaluating Survey Questions and Instruments"
Recommended Reading
Johnson and Reynolds, Political Science Research Methods, Chapter 4: "The Building Blocks of
Social Scientific Research: Measurement"
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April 6. Survey Research: Doing Interviews.

Required Reading
Fowler, Survey Research Methods, Chapter 8: "Survey Interviewing"

April 13. Survey Research: Reporting Data.

Required Reading
Fowler, Survey Research Methods:
Chapter 9: "Preparing Survey Data for Analysis"
Chapter 10: "Analyzing Survey Data"
Chapter 12: "Providing Information about Survey Methods"

April 20-27. Public Opinions and Survey Research: Election Campaigns.

Required Reading - Web Sources
The 2009/10 British Election Study (BES): http://bes.utdallas.edu/2009/fellows-programme.html
-> Workshop II: Questionnaire Design for The 2009/10 BES -> Nick Howat and Joe Twyman
The Cooperative Campaign Analysis Project (CCAP) - to be provided.
The National Annenberg Election Survey (NAES):
http://www.annenbergpublicpolicycenter.org/ProjectDetails.aspx?myId=1

Recommended Reading - Published Sources

Cho, Wendy K. Tam and James G. Gimpel. 2007. "Prospecting for (Campaign) Gold," American
Journal of Political Science 51 (April), pp. 255-68.
Cho, Wendy K. Tam and James G. Gimpel. 2010. "Rough Terrain: Spatial Variation in Campaign
Contributing and Volunteerism," American Journal of Political Science 54 (January), pp. 74-89.
Clarke, Harold D., David Sanders, Marianne C. Stewart and Paul F. Whiteley. 2009. Performance
Politics and the British Voter. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press:
Chapter 3: "Valence politics and the long campaign"
Chapter 6: "The short campaign"
Lax, Jeffrey R. and Justin H. Phillips. 2009. "How Should We Estimate Public Opinion in The
States," American Journal of Political Science 53 (January), pp. 107-21.
Peterson, David A. 2009. "Campaign Learning and Vote Determinants," American Journal of
Political Science 53 (April), pp. 445-60.

Course Requirements and Grading Criteria

Class Participation = 20%. Regular attendance, assigned reading prior to the class meeting when
it will be discussed, and constructive and frequent contributions to class discussions.

3 In-Class Written Exercises @15%. Each in-class exercise consists of 3-5 straightforward,
written exercises based on assigned readings and course presentations. The exercises are done
within the first or the last 75 minutes of the class dates of February 9, March 23, and April 20.
All students are expected to comply with these dates – no makeups will be given.

Design Paper = 35%. A 12-page, double-spaced, typed/word-processed paper that:

states and interesting and important research question about public opinion and political
attitudes during or not during campaigns, and justifies why it is so (1 page);
reviews a selection of relevant research literature on the question that includes scholarly
articles, scholarly books, and/or scholarly chapters in edited volumes in either a chronological
(date-of-publication) order or a knowledge-production (set-of-ideas) form (3 pages);
relates the question and the literature to the development of an empirically testable hypothesis
and identifies the independent and dependent variables in this hypothesis (1 page);
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justifies why and how survey research can be used to assess the hypothesis, to develop
indicators/measures of the independent and dependent variables, and to provide an answer to
the research question posed. (1-2 pages)
includes a questionnaire designed to assess the hypothesis, to develop indicators/measures,
and again to provide an answer (4 pages);
discusses a strategy for analyzing data from the questionnaire (1-2 pages).
lists endnotes and references in appropriate form.
Due April 27 - All students are expected to comply with this date - no extension will be given .

A: 95-100%; A-: 90-94; B+: 83-89; B: 77-82; B-: 70-76; C+: 65-69; C: 60-64; F: Below 60%.

Notes
In addition to the above, students are expected to:
know that this syllabus, including calendar/timelines, is subject to change at the discretion of
the Professor;
access and read related policy material at http://go.utdallas.edu/syllabus-policies.