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PIR-20089 - Module Specification
School of Social Sciences
Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences

For academic year: 2024/25 Last Updated: 25 April 2024

PIR-20089 - Elections, voters and public opinion
Coordinator: Gemma Loomes Room: CBA1.038 Tel: +44 1782 7 34236
Lecture Time: See Timetable...
Level: Level 5
Credits: 15
Study Hours: 150
School Office:

Programme/Approved Electives for 2024/25

None

Available as a Free Standing Elective

No

Co-requisites

None

Prerequisites

None

Barred Combinations

None

Description for 2024/25

Elections and voting are key components of the democratic political process. Opinion polling and other research on public opinion forms the basis of our understanding of electoral trends, is used by governments and political parties to develop policy and strategy, and features in everyday commentary on politics in the media. Understanding elections, voters and public opinion is therefore central to our understanding contemporary politics. This module engages students in the study of elections, voters and public opinion. In doing so students will develop their knowledge of psephological trends, alongside key skills in the practicalities of designing, conducting and analysing quantitative political research. These skills are developed during a series of interactive workshops alongside traditional lectures.

Aims
To equip students with the core skills needed to evaluate aspects of and carry out basic quantitative political research. This includes developing research questions to test theories and hypotheses, designing survey-based political research and working with quantitative political data, including constructing and reading appropriate data tables and graphs, and interpreting descriptive statistics. This is achieved through engaging students in basic psephology and focusing how quantitative research can be used to understand elections, voters and public opinion.

Talis Aspire Reading List
Any reading lists will be provided by the start of the course.
http://lists.lib.keele.ac.uk/modules/pir-20089/lists

Intended Learning Outcomes

1
1
2
2
3

Study hours

10 hours: 10 x 1 hour lectures
10 hours: 10 x 1 hour workshops
20 hours: independent preparation time for workshops (2 hours each)
44 hours: preparation time for assessment 1 (1,000 word essay)
33 hours: preparation time for assessment 2 (questionnaire design)
33 hours: preparation time for assessment 3 (750 word data analysis report)

School Rules

None

Description of Module Assessment

1: Essay weighted 40%
1,000 word essay
Students will write a 1,000 word essay on voter behaviour. Questions will be chosen from an approved list.

2: Research Design weighted 30%
Questionnaire design
Students will develop a questionnaire (of approximately 15 questions) which is designed to address a political research question. As part of this students will need to write a 500 word summary outlining their research question and discussing their chosen method of survey administration.

3: Report weighted 30%
750 word data analysis report
Students will write a 750 word report analysing the results of an approved political opinion poll. The report must analyse five separate independent variables and must include at least five tables and graphs constructed by the student.

Please note that for the 2022/23 Academic Year programmes may be adapted to operate in accordance with a flexible, digital approach. This means that there may be some changes made to how modules are delivered and assessed. The latest information will be provided to you by your School in module handbooks. We endeavour to give you as much notice as possible of any changes and details about the circumstance in which changes are made to programmes can be found in the Student Agreement, available at: https://www.keele.ac.uk/student-terms-and-conditions/

Last Updated: 25 April 2024