Recounting the ICPSR Experience
The ICPSR Experience
by June Park
I first came to learn about the ICPSR program at the University of Michigan in my second year of my masters program at Korea University. I was interested in quantitative methodology back then, but despite Korea University being a member-institution of the program, the high costs of courses and travel funds kept me from applying to the program. This year, thanks to Professor Wilson and Professor Martin, I was finally able to attend the first session of the 2011 ICPSR Summer Program.
Before participating in the program, I asked many colleagues who had participated in the program before regarding the program, browsed through past course syllabi on the ICPSR website, and finalized my course selections after discussing it with Professor Christenson. Because I had taken introductory statistics and econometrics before, I sought to enroll in courses that would be directly linked and applicable to my dissertation research. I chose three workshops – Maximum Likelihood Estimation (audit), Game Theory (credit), and Regression Analysis II (credit); three lectures – Introduction to the LaTex Text Processing System, Introduction to the R Statistical Computing Environment, and Mathematics for Social Scientists II. Towards the end of the program, there were very interesting block lectures on obtaining research funding, publishing, and teaching introductory statistics, of which I also attended. There were also series of other interesting courses and workshops on Bayesian methods, time series analysis, scaling, network analysis, and computing in statistical software that I just could not allot my time for due to the huge workload for the main three workshops I had chosen.
In retrospect, the ICPSR experience provided me with a turning point in the application of methodology for dissertation research. The four long weeks of courses and homework required some level of discipline but they will eventually pay off in the long run. The main idea of the whole program was to actually enable application of quantitative methodology to my own research, by building my own dataset, cleaning it, and constructing the appropriate models and specifications that best demonstrate my hypothesis and analysis. The real importance here was to build upon the theory through the manuals and then step out of the manuals for application. A big bonus to this main objective was the network of friends who gathered at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor from all over the States and different regions of the world who share common research areas as a social scientist (even including economists) and the same concerns on empirical research as well as future career paths.
My personal evaluation is that attending only the first session may be insufficient to delve into utilizing quantitative methodology, even if you sign up for classes leveled ‘II’ during the first session (e.g., Math for Social Scientists II, Regression Analysis II, etc.) Actually, the second session is composed of workshops and lectures, which really enhances quantitative skills from the intermediate to the advanced level. I would recommend the first session to anyone interested in quantitative methodology, but would highly recommend taking basic statistics and perhaps introductory econometrics before going so that you can get the best out of the first session. (Without the basics you will suffer in the classes labeled ‘II’.) For those of you who already have a strong background in quantitative methods and those who already have a sense of modeling for their own research, I would suggest the second session for advanced models and methods. Sit through the classes of interest in the first week, and prioritize your choices for credit and audit.
Having returned to my field research site, I find myself seeking to combine both quantitative and qualitative data analysis in my dissertation research, and working on various specifications for the fit model to explain for my research question, which is mainly the linkage between U.S-East Asian trade imbalances and U.S protectionism. The on-site qualitative data I have collected by conducting government official interviews and also by participating in internal seminars and workshops in government agencies are just as crucial as the quantitative model that I am dwelling upon. For the dissertation, both regression models and game theoretical models will be deployed based on theories of international political economy. Beyond quantitative coursework at Boston University, I am glad to have benefited greatly from attending the ICPSR program at the University of Michigan. I am hoping that others from the department will also benefit from the opportunity and that BU Department of Political Science participation will thrive in the ICPSR program.