The Certificate in Public Opinion and Survey Research offers professional training to provide students with the skills to design and conduct surveys, statistically analyze survey results, write reports, and make public presentations of survey findings. The Certificate program enables students to pursue employment in a variety of fields involving survey research.

The Certificate program is both a free standing graduate program for those who are interested in adding survey research skills to their present complement of professional capabilities, and as a supplement to the Department of Political Science's Master Degree program.Graduate students equipped with both an MA in Political Science and a Graduate Certificate in Public Opinion & Survey Research will be well qualified for employment in both the public and private sectors.

The Certificate program would also be an attractive addition to graduate students pursuing degree programs, such as Communications, Journalism, Sociology, Social Psychology, Marketing Research, Community Planning, and Public Health, who are looking to enhance their skills with survey research design and analysis capabilities. Though, at this time, the Certificate Program is oriented to students who are able to take classes during the day, in-career students are also welcome. The Certificate program can be a valuable means to upgrade existing skills and job market competitiveness.

The curriculum is designed to be completed within one academic year. The courses for the Certificate are part of the Department of Political Science's regular graduate course offerings. For those who wish to pursue a Master's degree concurrently with the Certificate program, courses are counted towards the 45 hours of course work required for the Master of Arts in Political Science degree. The Department's Master's program is designed to be completed within two years, and combining these two programs will not lengthen this time.

Requirements
1) PS 555: Intro to Polling and Survey Research (4 credits) Principles, methods, and techniques for designing, conducting, and analyzing surveys; sampling procedures; questionnaire construction; data collection, processing and analysis; ehtics of polls.

2) PS 715: Proseminar in Public Opinion (4 credits) History, concepts, and theories of public opinion; methods for studying public opinion; trends in American political attitudes and opinions; public opinion mass media, and elections; public opinion and public policy; the profession of public opinion research.

3) PS 751: Pro-Seminar in Survey Research (4 credits) Principles, methods, and techniques of survey research design and analysis.

4) PS 752: Multivariate Statistical Analysis I (4 credits) Selected topics including hypothesis testing, measures of association, cross tabulation, plotting, graphical presentation, analysis of variance and linear regression. Students also design individual research projects for analysis in PS 753.

5) PS 753: Multivariate Statistical Analysis II (4 credits) A continuation of PS 752. Course work includes multiple regression, causal modeling, factor analysis and structural equation models. Students carry out the research project they designed in PS 752, using SPSS and other statistical software packages.

6) PS 851: Practicum in Survey Research (3 credits) Application of survey research methods: sampling, questionnaire design, data collection, analysis, survey report writing, and oral presentation of survey research findings to professional audiences.