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Political Research Seminar (395-0-30)

Topic

Evidence-Informed Decision-Making

Instructors

Gustavo Diaz

Meeting Info

Scott Hall 201 Ripton Room: Tues, Thurs 2:00PM - 3:20PM

Overview of class

This seminar explores how evidence generated from statistical research methods can be used to inform decision-making in academia, government, and industry. We will examine the merits and pitfalls of contemporary tools in causal inference, data science, and machine learning when it comes to evaluating the effect of a policy, choosing among alternatives, or justifying organizational change. We will learn that connecting evidence to decisions often requires additional language and argumentation, which will lead us to more advanced techniques designed specifically to inform decision-making with minimal assumptions.

Course time may change to T 2-4:50pm depending on student interest

Registration Requirements

POLI_SCI 210, POLI_SCI 312, or equivalent

Learning Objectives

  • Understand how evidence drawn from statistical research methods can be used to inform-decision
  • Acquire new language to engage in conversations about evidence-informed decision-making in a broad set of domains
  • Practice learning, discussing, and applying new methods in quantitative and computational social science

Evaluation Method

  • Attendance and participation
  • Lead discussion on selected weeks
  • Reaction papers
  • Pre-analysis plan proposal OR Data exploration paper

Class Attributes

Advanced Expression