study notes Research Methods Methods

Empirical research

Goals of social scientists: Applied research versus pure, theoretical or recreational research

The empirical approach to political science/public health/empiricism

Characteristics of scientific knowledge/theory

  • Empirical Verification

  • Falsifiability (provisional, tentative)

  • Non-normative (also be able to explain why scientific knowledge is not normative)

  • Transmissible, why clear description of research procedures is important

  • Cumulative (e.g. “I have stood on the shoulders of giants”) 

  • General

  • Explanatory and predictive; Probabilistic explanation

  • Parsimony/Simplicity

Importance of Theory

Do not worry about induction and deduction, they will not be on the exam.

Examples of theories in political science (realism, proximity theory) or public health  

The explanatory range of theories 

Objections/challenges with studying politics through scientific/empirical approach/empiricism.

  • Practical objections to the empirical approach

  • Tendency to focus on trivial/measurable things rather than important social issues and problems; ignoring important normative issues

  • Competing approaches/stances to the empirical method: interpretation and constructionism or critical theory

Ch. 3: Characteristics of a good research question/ research problem/research puzzle

Literature Review:  definition and significance

7 reasons for conducting a literature review 

How to differentiate scholarly/academic sources from non-scholarly sources; 

Peer review process

Specific examples of scholarly and non-academic sources

Pyramid citations

Google Scholar 

Writing a literature review:  the box card method and its limitations 

Parenthetical notation/in paper citations.

Information required in bibliographic entries

Ch. 4

Hypothesis/hypotheses

Variables:  independent, dependent; 

Antecedent and intervening variables  

Arrow diagram 

Characteristics of good hypotheses:

  • Empirical statement, generality, plausibility, specificity (directional hypothesis, positive relationship, negative relationship), corresponds to the data, testability.

Unit of analysis

Ecological Inference/Cross-level analysis

Ecological fallacy

Why defining concepts is important

Measurement/operational definition; operationalize

Challenges of measurement in political science/public health/social sciences

Measurement bias

Accurate measures = reliable, valid, unbiased;  

How to demonstrate reliability

  • Test-Retest Method

  • Alternative format method, 

  • Split halves method, 

Validity; Face validity; Content validity; Construct validity

Precision of Measurements: Level of measurement:  

  • Nominal, Ordinal, Interval/Ratio Levels of Measurement.

Dichotomous variables/dummy variable