Applied Research Methods for Capstone Projects

Description from DukeHub

This course offers MPA students an overview of applied research methods and a framework to prepare for the successful completion of their capstone project in the Summer term. Through structured assignments, skill development workshops, and peer working groups, students will select a topic related to a policy, management, or governance challenge facing a real-world organization; complete a landscape analysis of existing knowledge on the topic; and then develop a plan for conducting original research and analysis. The culminating assignment in the course will bring these elements together in a capstone plan that is academically rigorous, analytically feasible, and professionally valuable.

Skills

• policy and lawdepartment: PUBPOL
• research methodstitle: "research methods"

AI-resilient: 1 of 5 1/5

• No: Physical, lab or field work
• No: Live work with people
• ✓Yes: Judgment someone is accountable for · "policy"
• No: A craft you practice with your hands or body
• No: Small, in-person format

The checks lean on Microsoft Research, Working with AI (2025), which found generative AI applies least to physical work and hands-on work with people. A signal, not a promise. How the score works

More in PUBPOL

• Introduction to Policy Analysis PUBPOL 101D
• Risk, Rules, and the American Social Safety Net PUBPOL 109CNS
• What Is a University For? Higher Education in An Age of Uncertainty PUBPOL 112CN
• Governing Corporate Power: Rules, Democracy, and Human Rights PUBPOL 113CNS
• Applied Statistics for Public Policy PUBPOL 150D
• Who Gets What - and Why? Public Policy, Health, and Opportunity in the US PUBPOL 191CC

All PUBPOL courses · All of Sanford