The goal of this course is to provide students with a strong foundation in several commonly used quantitative research designs. A secondary goal is to provide students with exposure to state of the art research methods to enable you to be more critical readers of published research and to give you tools to carry out such research on your own. Research design refers to the broad strategic framework used to tackle research questions. Designing that framework is the goal of this course. The course will start with a thorough review of the experimental research design. We will then switch gears to discuss the various dimensions of writing a solid research design document and the numerous data analysis details that one needs to pre-specify. The course will conclude with a brief discussion of two regression-based designs, which have seen substantial improvement in recent years: quantile regression and duration models. Along the way we will cover practical data analysis issues that arise in any quantitative research study. The main assignments will include reviews and critiques of actual published research. In addition, a short data analysis assignment is designed to ensure that you leave the class with a good grasp of how to implement your own study. The final assignment during the semester is a research design that you will develop to study a program, policy, or problem of interest to you. Prerequisite NURP 5013 Quantitative Methods or equivalent.