Graduate Program - Research Tools
The courses listed below, some required of everyone and some elected and tailored to students' research plans, are intended to bring every doctoral student to a contemporary standard of competency in research skills. The student's doctoral committee is the ultimate authority for approving which track the student should follow. The committee will do this by consulting with the student and taking into account the student's research interests. It is also the ultimate authority as to which substitutions, if any, are to be made in required or elective courses, and which advanced courses—whether quantitative or language, or in some cases, both—must be taken by the student. The appropriate research tools should be a function of the student's research and career interests and needs, and based upon student/committee discussion.
PS7000 Introductory Statistics for Political Science and PS7010 Computing Methods (a one hour lab graded on S/U basis) must be taken concurrently in the first fall semester as a Missouri graduate student. A preliminary diagnostic exam is given during the first week of the semester. In the unlikely event that a graduate student needs remedial courses such as Math 10 (College Algebra), the program of study may be delayed. PS9030 Scope and Methods reviews the discipline and the research traditions of Political Science in a graduate seminar taken in the student's first winter (spring) semester at MU. Ideally, doctoral students should have acquired, as undergraduates or as part of their M.A. programs taken elsewhere, an introductory knowledge of computing methods similar to that covered in PS7010 and introductory knowledge of statistics similar to that covered in PS7000. If the student has such background, the Director of Graduate Studies, upon the advice of the chair of the student's doctoral committee and methods course instructor, may excuse the student from the above requirements.
Doctoral students must also take a second course in statistical methods, such as one of the following: PS9020 Inference and Political Statistics, PS9030 Linear Models in Politics, or Stat385 Regression and Correlation Analysis. In addition to the courses listed above, a doctoral student must complete an additional six hours in research methodology including formal or quantitative methods, a foreign language, or a combination of the two.
A doctoral student with advice of the advisor and doctoral committee must choose one of the following three options.
Option A: Advanced Formal & Quantitative Methods
For those needing a high level of formal or quantitative methodological sophistication for research, whether for dissertation research or as required to work in the primary field, at least an additional six hours of methodology courses must be selected in consultation with the student's doctoral committee. The doctoral committee may require whatever additional methodology courses the student needs to pursue research interests. These elective methods courses may include Political Science 9010, 9020, 9030, 9040, 9050 or formal, quantitative, or qualitative methods courses in the Statistics, Economics, Sociology, or other departments.
Option B: Advanced Foreign Language
For those who need a high level of competency in an additional foreign language to competently pursue their research interests, the student's doctoral committee may authorize at least six hours of 200-level or above language courses. Students who take this option must demonstrate research fluency (written, reading, and oral if necessary for research) in one foreign language by passing the Princeton (ETS) exam with a score of 500-530 or by passing an exam arranged by the Doctoral Committee Chair or the Director of Graduate Studies with the relevant foreign language department at MU. Foreign students may not use their native language to satisfy this requirement.
Option C: Research Tools Combination
For students who need a mix of foreign language skills for reading purposes as well as advanced formal methods or quantitative skills, a student's doctoral committee may approve a combination of courses from Options A and B. In this case, the student needs to demonstrate a reading knowledge, rather than a higher degree of fluency, in one foreign language, together with at least an additional three hours of courses satisfying Option A. Variations in this combination may be authorized by the doctoral committee as appropriate for the student's research interests.