The Craft of Political Research

by Shively, W. Phillips

• ISBN13: 9780130922328
• ISBN10: 0130922323
• Edition: 5th
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2002-01-01
• Publisher: Prentice Hall

Summary

This warm and accessible book makes a very basic introduction to the nature of research questions and methods of empirical research in political science. It aims to have readers understand why a particular method is chosen, beyond just what method to choose—and communicates not only how to conduct research, but how interesting and exciting original research can be. Chapter topics emphasize the internal logic of empirical measurement and analysis of observations in the conception and pursuit of a research project. Emphasizing the design of interesting research questions and basic problems of measurement and data analysis, this book relies more on intuitive understanding than on formal development. For individuals interested in political science research methods.

Table of Contents

Preface	xi
Doing Research	1	(12)
Social Research	2	(9)
Types of political research	4	(4)
The research mix	8	(2)
Evaluating different types of research	10	(1)
Ethics of Political Research	11	(2)
Political Theories and Research Topics	13	(17)
Causality and Political Theory	14	(1)
What Does Good Theory Look Like?	15	(4)
Example of elegant research:	17	(1)
Robert Putnam
To quantify or not?	18	(1)
Choosing a Topic	19	(2)
Engineering research	20	(1)
Theory-oriented research	20	(1)
Setting Out a Research Design	21	(5)
Observations, puzzles, and the construction of theories	22	(4)
Machiavellian Guide to Developing Research Topics	26	(3)
Further Discussion	29	(1)
The Importance of Dimensional Thinking	30	(9)
English as a Language for Research	31	(4)
Ordinary language	32	(3)
The Proper Use of Multidimensional Words	35	(3)
Example of dimensional analysis	36	(2)
Further Discussion	38	(1)
Problems of Measurement: Accuracy	39	(16)
Reliability	43	(3)
Reliability as a characteristic of concepts	44	(1)
Testing the reliability of a measure	45	(1)
Validity	46	(4)
Some examples	47	(2)
Checking for validity	49	(1)
The Impact of Random and Nonrandom Errors	50	(2)
The Importance of Accuracy	52	(1)
Further Discussion	53	(2)
Problems of Measurement: Precision	55	(17)
Precision in Measures	56	(3)
Precision in Measurement	59	(11)
The innate nature of levels of measurement	61	(1)
The sin of wasting information	62	(2)
Enriching the level of precision in measurement	64	(1)
Examples of enrichment	65	(4)
Quantifiers and nonquantifiers again	69	(1)
Further Discussion	70	(2)
Causal Thinking and the Design of Research	72	(23)
The Subjective Nature of Causation	73	(1)
Eliminating Alternative Causal Interpretations	74	(2)
Summary	75	(1)
A Few Basics of Research Design	76	(6)
Designs without a control group	77	(2)
Use of a control group	79	(2)
The true experiment	81	(1)
Designs for Political Research	82	(7)
Special design problem for policy analysis: regression to the mean	86	(3)
The Use of Varied Designs and Measures	89	(1)
Example of Varied Designs and Measures	90	(1)
Conclusion	91	(1)
Holding a Variable Constant	91	(2)
Further Discussion	93	(2)
Introduction to Statistics: Measuring Relationships for Interval Data	95	(22)
Statistics	96	(1)
The Importance of Levels of Measurement	96	(1)
Working with Interval Data	97	(18)
Regression analysis	97	(9)
Correlation analysis	106	(5)
Correlation and regression compared	111	(3)
The problem of measurement error	114	(1)
Further Discussion	115	(2)
Introduction to Statistics: Further Topics on Measurement of Relationships	117	(16)
Measures of Relationship for Ordinal Data	117	(3)
Measures of Relationship for Nominal Data	120	(4)
Dichotomies and regression analysis	121	(3)
Logit and Probit Analysis	124	(2)
Multivariate Analysis	126	(5)
Conclusion	131	(2)
Introduction to Statistics: Inference, or How to Gamble on Your Research	133	(17)
The Logic of Measuring Significance	134	(1)
Example of Statistical Inference	135	(1)
Hypothesis Testing	136	(10)
The null hypothesis	137	(1)
Example: χ2	138	(2)
Sampling distributions	140	(3)
The importance of N	143	(2)
The problem of independent observations	145	(1)
Is a Significance Test Always Necessary?	146	(1)
Polling and Significance Tests	147	(1)
Uses and Limitations of Statistical Tests	148	(1)
Conclusion	149	(1)
Further Discussion	149	(1)
Where Do Theories Come From?	150	(4)
Selected Bibliography	154	(5)
Index	159