Mechanical Turk for Social Scientists

Here are slides from a recent symposium on how to use Amazon's Mechanical Turk for social science research. These cover everything from the similarities and differences between Mturk samples, representative sample, and convenience sample, the surprising downsides of manipulation and attention checks and higher payments to subjects, and practical advice on how to use the service for pretty sophisticated surveys, experiments, and other types of research. Particularly interesting is the possibility of conducting surveys and other research in multiple countries for very low cost. I'm hoping to run some survey experiments on Mturk soon and these slides, as well as the other resources to which they link, are a great intro.

Democracy, Interdependence, and World Politics Summer Research Program

This program is a great opportunity for undergraduates to get real research experience. Below is a summary of the program, and if interested check out the website here.


In Summer 2012, the Department of Political Science at Texas Christian University will host the sixth annual Democracy, Interdependence and World Politics Summer Research Program for undergraduates. This program presents a valuable opportunity for undergraduate students to conduct faculty–mentored research projects. Supported by summer stipends, travel funds, and intensive mentoring, students will formulate and carry out a research project work in one of several self-selected issue areas: Foreign Policy in a Democracy; Interdependence and Foreign Policy; Democratization and Democracy Promotion; and Interdependence, Democracy and Conflict. Successful applicants will spend about 8 weeks at TCU in Fort Worth, Texas (June 3-July 27) during the summer of 2012, where they will work with a team of faculty members and visiting scholars to develop research questions and design and complete projects within the issue-areas just noted.

CRS on Drones

The Congressional Research Services published this overview of unmanned aerial vehicles in the U.S. military. Lots of good data on how quickly these are growing in number and importance.