Assignment #2: ***READ ALL RULES BEFORE PROCEEDING***
This assignment contains two applied exercises on techniques from chapters 9 and 10. Each answer is worth 75 points.
1. The first part of this assignment asks you to apply the technique of an intervention analysis: Using Gallup’s Presidential Approval Center, (https://news.gallup.com/interactives/185273/presidential-job-approval-center.aspx) compare tenures of two presidents of your choice. Looking at each presidency, pick two specific spikes or drops per president in the approval rating of each president and using Google research the background of how/why the spikes or drops occurred at those specific points in time. All examples used must be your own, and you may not use any of the examples that we used in the lectures. You also may notuse the current Covid crisis for this first question, because unfortunately not enough time has passed to objectively analyze trends.
Next write three paragraphs. The first paragraph will be the spikes and/or drops of the first president you observe. The second paragraph will do the same for your second president. In your third paragraph, offer a brief comparative analysis, where you compare your observed spikes/drops between the two presidencies. Are they similar or different? Why?
2. Your second applied exercise asks you to create a political survey using your choice of questions from the Princeton Database from Chapter 10. Assume you are working for a polling firm and are thus privy to resources for conducting surveys with large samples (i.e. 1,500-2,000 people).
First, state a research question on a policy or political problem of your choice. Second, find questions for a hypothetical survey that you could use to answer your research question. You are NOT to write your own questions, they must be recycled from one of the databases in the Princeton link. You may use more than one of the databases. I personally recommend ANES, but the choice is yours:
https://libguides.princeton.edu/politics/opinion
You do not have to write any questions on your own and are free to survey on whatever you would like as this is all hypothetical. The only rule is you must state your research question and then use a minimum of 8 questions from the database that you can survey on your research question. You are free to use more if you think it will strengthen your survey, however I will not dock your grade if you only use the minimum of 8 either. Do keep in mind that, as we have learned; the longer the survey, the higher the likelihood of someone walking away or hanging up the phone. Assume that the beginning of your survey will ask the respondent several basic questions on demographics, therefore please do not include them in your list of questions.
After stating your research question and listing your survey questions, answer the following. You do not have to write your answers in essay format; a few sentences on each is fine.
A. How will you administer your survey and who will you be surveying?
B. How and why do your questions serve your research?
C. Where and when will you be administering this survey?
Formatting decisions are left to the discretion of the student, however all submissions must be in doc or pdf format. Pages files are not allowed and will be returned with a request to reformat. Please provide APA or Chicago Style citations for your sources (i.e. which link you used from the database, any extra sites you may have consulted for ideas…). Any formatting guidelines not specified in this assignment or as per the syllabus are left to your own discretions. Unless otherwise approved, late submissions will not be accepted.
November 8th, 2020 
