The course introduces students to the fundamentals of public policy research. We start from the foundations of research methods, and invite students to consider how to conduct transparent, rigorous, and evidence-based research through the lenses of external validity, internal validity, and measurement validity. Then, we delve into experimental and quasi-experimental designs that are commonly employed in evaluating public policies today. Along the way, this course guides students through the steps of coming up with a meaningful research question in public policy and designing an empirical study suitable for investigating the question.
- Teacher: Yajiao Chen