Developing a Research Project

1
Developing a Research Project

• The Elements of Research Design

2
Three Purposes of Research

• Exploration
• Generally not sufficient for dissertation project
• Description
• This can be the goal if significant new facts or
  relationships are identified
• Usually need to at least speculate on explanation
• Explanation
• Central goal of most political science research

3
Getting a Project Started

• Identify a topic or area of interest
• Key transition is from topic to question
• Identify puzzle in literature
• Should be able to state question in 1-2 sentences
• Clearly define the purpose of the project
• Once you have a question, you need hypotheses
  about the answer

4
From Theory to Hypotheses

• Once you have a question, turn to various methods
  of theory development
• Deduction formal theory, computational models
• Induction building by analogy
• Theory building often involves both methods

5
Choose a Unit of Analysis

• Level of aggregation at which your hypotheses can
  be observed
• Individuals (citizens, leaders, etc.)
• Groups (parties, social movements)
• Organizations/Institutions (states,
  bureaucracies, firms)

6
Units of Analysis and Threats to Inference

• Ecological Fallacy
• Cannot infer individual behavior from collective
  outcomes
• Reductionism
• Cannot infer collective outcomes from individual
  behavior

7
Choose a Method of Research

• Experiments
• Surveys
• Case Studies
• Field Research
• Archival Research
• Aggregate Data Analysis
• Existing or Field Collection
• Use Multiple Methods Whenever Possible

8
Select Observations

• What is the population to which you want to
  generalize?
• How can you reach that population to draw a
  sample?
• If random sampling is impossible or
  inappropriate, how do you select cases to avoid
  bias?

9
Operationalize Variables

• Translate theoretical concepts into observable
  information that can be gathered on units of
  analysis
• How valid are your measures?
• How reliable are your measures?

10
Collect the Data

• Be clear and systematic about the type of data
  collected
• Keep clear files and records of all data
  collected
• If using quantitative data, keep do files for
  all data construction and analysis.

11
Analyze the Data

• Make analysis techniques transparent
• To the greatest extent possible, make analyses
  easily replicable.
• Think about presenting results in the most
  meaningful way possible.
• Clear and meaningful results are more persuasive
  and more widely read.

12
Connect Analyses Back to Puzzle and Hypotheses

• Always draw readers back from analyses to their
  implications for hypotheses and your original
  puzzle
• What does it all mean?
• Try to get back to those one or two core sentences

13
What is a Good Dissertation?

• Theory development
• Is this alone enough for a dissertation?
• Theory Testing
• This is the goal of most projects
• Is it ESSENTIAL for a dissertation?
• Policy Evaluation
• Is this any different from theory testing?

14
What is a Good Dissertation?

• Historical Evaluative/Descriptive
• When does this constitute a contribution to
  social science?
• Literature Assessing
• A viable strategy for dissertations?
• When does this constitute a contribution to
  social science?

15
What is a Good Dissertation?

• Nomothetic vs. Ideographic Explanation
• Is one mode of explanation preferable to the
  other?
• Is one mode of explanation inherently more
  scientific?
• Can ideographic work be political science?