Research in Public Administration comes in two distinct but related forms. One flows from the 19th century scientific tradition with the express objective of providing a general explanation for observable phenomena. The second derives from the action oriented environment of Public Administration. This second form is primarily prescriptive and action-oriented and therefore, quit similar to engineering and business related work. In almost every instance of prescriptive research some underlying explanatory theory is at work. For example, to say it is better to do A than B one must first be able to predict the effects resulting from both A and B and then consider the relative values of those outcomes. Traditional scientific explanatory research is therefore a necessary prerequisite for any prescriptive research.
As part of the transition from traditional student to faculty colleague all graded assignments are designed to reflect real professional activities of research faculty. Each student will be assigned three article reviews for monographs that have been submitted for review to an academic journal. Time permitting students will be able to compare their reviews with those from the regular review process. Each student will also develop one 1 hour lecture on one of the major course topics for presentation to the class. The final project will be a research proposal due at the end of the semester. It is hoped that these proposal will be of sufficient quality to be submitted for possible funding
I recognize that there will be a wide variation in prior mathematical training. Consequently, I will run a Friday afternoon tutorial on a variety of mathematical topics designed to bring all students up to a minimal level of competency. I will specifically review topics in calculus and matrix algebra. While this first semester class will make use of these tools only occasionally, they will be used extensively in the second semester course on multivariate modeling.
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a. Archival b. Surveys c. Interviews d. Observation