The exercises are well structured, and Clawson and Oxley provide very clear instructions on how to complete them. The questions included in the exercises seek to balance interpretation and critical thinking-helping students get at what the numbers tell us about the relationship between two variables and why that relationship exists. I like the hands-on approach, and I think the exercises address topics that students will find interesting and engaging -- Erin Cassese
I think this book can help students experience the joy of discovery firsthand. Rather than talking about how data can be used to shed new insights on public opinion or refute hoary truths, Clawson and Oxley show them how to find out such things on their own. Hearing a professor say it or show it with slides is one thing, but doing it on your own and waiting for the data to pop up online is a lot more fun, informative, and powerful -- Paul Goren
I found the text both straightforward and engaging, an often difficult balance to strike for a text teaching basic research methods. The explanations in the workbook are very clear-it walks students through each step and reinforces content with multiple examples. I was also quite impressed with the balance between skill development and substance. The explanations of how to perform analyses and the exercises are well grounded in both the substance of politics and well-established research areas in political science
-- Laurie Rice
