week 1-8

Question 1

NORMATIVE RESEARCH

Answer 1

study of what OUGHT to be

Question 2

EMPIRICAL RESEARCH

Answer 2

study of what IS

Question 3

ONTOLOGY

Answer 3

what is the nature of the social world and what are its constituent parts

Question 4

EPISTEMOLOGY

Answer 4

what is knowable

Question 5

Positivism

Answer 5

social world same as natural world - can use same methods

Question 6

Ontological assumptions-P

Answer 6

no difference between social and natural world -objective reality

Question 7

Epistemological assumptions-P

Answer 7

scientific knowledge is limited to what we can actually observe -law like generalisations

Question 8

INTERPRETIVISM

Answer 8

scoial world not same as natural world

Question 9

ontological assumptions-I

Answer 9

scientific knowledge about social world can only be gained through interpreting meanings

Question 10

EPISTEMOLOGICAL ASSUMPTIONS-l

Answer 10

scientific knowledge about the social world can only be gainede through itnerpreting meanings

Question 11

OPERATIONALISATION

Answer 11

theories involve concepts - CONCEPTS DEFINED TO MAKE THEM MEASURABLE

Question 12

ECOLOGICAL VALIDITY

Answer 12

artificial experimental settings MAY NOT GENERALISE TO WORLD

Question 13

POPULATION VALIDITY

Answer 13

experiments often involve UNREPRESENTATIVE subject pools

Question 14

REACTIVITY

Answer 14

people may change behaviour when they know they are being observed

Question 15

observational research design

Answer 15

researcher does not have control over values of the INDEPENDENT VARIABLE - good for description , explanation , variability in terms of internal validity

Question 16

experimental research design

Answer 16

experiments , a research design in which researcher both CONTROLS AND RANDOMLY ASSIGNS VALUES OF THE INDEPDNENT VARIABLE

Question 17

internal validity vs external

Answer 17

degree to which we can be confident that a study identifies the causal effect of the independent on the dependent variable

EXTERNAL-degree to which findings can be GENERALISED to other contexts

Question 18

types of observational design

Answer 18

TIME SERIES - over time , not over diff units
CROSS SECTIONAL-different countries , not over diff units
PANEL - over time and cross units - but same unit over time
REPEATED CROSS SECTIONS- over diff cross units and over time buyt not same units
TIME SERIES CROSS SECTIONAL-over time over cross units , and same units - SAME AS PANEL

Question 19

LARGE C DATA

Answer 19

numbers quantitative scientific realism high standardization

Question 20

scientific realism

Answer 20

small c number meaning , quantitative +qualitative numbers stats words high or average standardization

Question 21

interpretivist small c

Answer 21

data expressed as meaning , qualitative , words , low standardisation

Question 22

LEVELS OF MEASURMENT

Answer 22

NOMINAL- categories without any natural order e.g type of political system
ORDINAL-data arranged in a meaningful order , but intervals between rankings may not be equal, e.g level of interest
INTERVAL-numeric scales with equal intervals between values but no true 0 point e.g put yourself on scale 1-10
RATIO - TRUE 0 point , numeric scales with equal intervals e.g number of protests

Question 23

LARGE C RESEARCH

Answer 23

less intensive study of a large number of cases using quantitative methods- avoids sample selection bias - selection on dependent variable
-typically deductive
-inc potential for generalizability
-inc ability to identify causal effects
-less useful for inductive research , interpretivist
SAMPLING strategies
- probability sampling- random - leverages law of large numbers
-non probability sampling

Question 24

SMALL C RESEARCH

Answer 24

-intensive study of a single case or small number of cases
-qualitative methods
-good for causal mechanisms , inductive research , thick description

Question 25

case selection in descriptive case studies ?

Answer 25

TYPICAL AND DIVERSE CASES

Question 26

case selection in large c research - total population sampling

Answer 26

-select all cases in a population e.g census high external validity

Question 27

simple random sampling / probability sampling

Answer 27

-leverages law of large numbers representative all cases drawn from pop with same probability randomly

Question 28

stratified random sampling -probability sampling

Answer 28

populations divided into relevant strat then drawn at random from different strat

Question 29

non probability sampling- convenience sampling methods

Answer 29

convenience sampling - volunteer , snowball quota sampling - surveys -cannot be generalised to population but high internal validity if rely on experimental designs to rule out confounders

Question 30

Ways of tackling confounders in observational studies

Answer 30

-statistical control -most similar and most different designs -time changes observations

Question 31

observational research design ? what is it good for ?

Answer 31

Researcher does NOT have control over values of **independent variable** -DESCRIPTION QS AND EXPLANATIONS QS

Question 32

experimental research designs

Answer 32

researcher both **controls** and **randomly assigns** values of the INDEPENDENT VARIABLE to the participants -deductive

Question 33

types of experiments

Answer 33

laboratory , field ,survey

Question 34

special case : natural experiments

Answer 34

observational design

Question 35

TYPICAL CASES

Answer 35

one or multiple cases which represent a larger population well on important features -strategy when goal is description

Question 36

diverse cases

Answer 36

-populations often diverse

Question 37

case selection in explanatory case studies

Answer 37

-inductive studies -testing of causal hypothesis -mechanism studies

Question 38

inductive studies - case section techniques

Answer 38

explanatory **search for new explanations** for a phenomenon EXTREME CASES , DEVIANT , MOST SIMILAR , MOST DIFFERENT

Question 39

CASE SELECTION: most similar design + most different extreme and deviant cases crucial cases

Answer 39

1- minimum of two cases which similar in terms of background conditions but **differ in terms of X OR Y** 2-extreme - unusually values in **Y** deviant -one or multiple cases which deviate from a common causal pattern 3-Most LIKELY - EASY test that if fails cast as **strong doubt on theory** ,least likely = HARD test that if passes provides **strong evidence for theory**

Question 40

causal hypothesis - common case selection techniques

Answer 40

DOES X CAUSE CHANGE IN Y crucial cases , most similar cases , most different cases

Question 41

mechanism studies

Answer 41

exploration or testing of causal mechanism common case selection - pathway cases