Quantitative and Qualitative Methods for Policy Analysis

Fall 1998

Meetings: Monday, 7:00-9:45pm, in LIB 201 (ISER Conference Room)

Instructors: Sharman Haley

Office: 207D LIB (ISER)

Phone: 786-7741

Office Hours: after class and by appointment (drop in is usually okay)

Course Description: As a public administrator, you will have limited time and resources to identify problems and collect and analyze information to make policy decisions. This course will train you in quick methods for policy analysis, emphasizing analytic thinking to narrow and focus the task, and quantitative and qualitative techniques to generate insight from information. We will cover the basic steps in the policy analysis process and survey various analytic methods including legal research, GIS mapping, allocation formulas, decision analysis, and interpreting regressions.

Format: Class activities will be a combination of lecture, guest lecture, discussion, and in-class exercises applying material from the reading assignments. It is critical that students come to class well prepared on the material assigned. You should plan to spend five to seven hours per week preparing for class.

Grading: 25 % policy analysis memo

30 % homework (10 exercises)

25 % final project

10 % final presentation

10 % class participation

100%

Required Texts:

Carl V. Patton and David S. Sawicki, Basic Methods of Policy Analysis and Planning, 2nd edition. Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, 1993.

Eugene Bardach, The Eight Step Path of Policy Analysis (A Handbook for Practice), Berkeley Academic Press, 1996.

Mark S. Thompson, Decision Analysis for Program Evaluation, Ballinger Publishing Company, Cambridge, Mass., 1982.