Essentials Of Political Research

Abstract

* List of Illustrations * Preface * 1. The Scientific Study of Research Questions * What Does It Mean to Be Scientific * Distinguishing Empirical and Normative Questions * Reformulating Normative Questions as Empirical * Research Questions * The Scientific Research Process * 2. Building Blocks of the Research Process * Theories, Hypotheses, and Operational Definitions: An Overview * Types of Hypotheses * Theoretical Role, * Units of Analysis * Operational Definitions * 3. Research Design * The Concept of Causality * Types of Research Design * 4. Published Data Sources * The Internet as Data Source * The Importance of Units of Analysis * Strategies for Finding Data Sources * Some General Data Sources * Demographic Data * Political and Governmental Data for Nations * Data on U.S. Government and Politics * Survey Data * Content Analysis * Steps in Content Analysis * Issues in Content Analysis * 5. Survey Research * Sampling * Interviewing * Writing Survey Items * 6. Statistics: An Introduction * Levels of Measurement * Univariate Statistics * The Concept of Relationship * Multivariate Statistics * 7. Graphic Display of Data * Graphics for Univariate Distributions * Graphics for Multivariate Relationships * How Not to Lie with Graphics * The Need for Standardization * Principles for Good Graphics * 8. Nominal and Ordinal Statistics * Correlations for Nominal Variables * Correlations for Ordinal Variables * Chi-square: A Significance Test * Additional Correlations for Nominal Variables * Interpreting Contingency Tables Using Statistics * 9. Interval Statistics * The Regression Line * Pearson's r * Nonlinear Relationships * Relationships Between Interval and Nominal Variables * 10. Multivariate Statistics * Controlling with Contingency Tables * What Can Happen When You Control * Controlling With Interval Variables: Partial Correlations * The Multiple Correlation * Significance Test for R2 * Beta Weights * Causal Interpretation * References * Index