In August 2017, the journal European Political Science published “Prisoners at Midnight: Illustrating the Advantages and Disadvantages of Quantitative Analysis Through a Simulation Exercise,” an article co-authored by Victor Asal, Nolan Fahrenkopf, Amira Jadoon, and Injeong Hwang.
Click here to learn more about the article, or read the abstract below.
Recent literature suggests that undergraduate students in political science dread studying methods, especially quantitative methods. Nonetheless, we believe that teaching students the value of quantitative analysis is critical. Going beyond traditional teaching approaches, we use a simulation to conceptualize the logic and process of quantitative analysis. In our simulation, student participants are told they are in a prison with another prisoner, where both have the objective to make the other prisoner crossover, using any strategy. The simulation allows students to generate and test basic hypothesis about students’ characteristics and their strategies, as well as operationalizing variables and quantifying results.
