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Summary and notes Research Design: lectures and book chapters

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  • Course
  • Research Design
  • Institution
  • Universiteit Leiden (UL)
  • Book
  • Research Design in Political Science

Summary of the course Research Design (year , semester 2) by Toshkov & Carroll. Contains notes from all the lectures and mandatory book chapter parts.

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Document information

  • September 23, 2022
  • 106
  • 2022/2023
  • Class notes
  • Toshkov
  • All classes

Subjects

  • research design
  • research
  • theories
  • large n designs
  • concepts
  • causality
  • collider bias
  • case study

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Written for

  • Universiteit Leiden (UL)
  • Public Administration
  • Research Design
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Research Design
Brief contents
Week 1: Introduction, types of research. Theory & Concepts..........................................................1
Lecture 1: Introduction: Types of Research. Theory & Concepts.......................................................1
Chapter 1: Introduction....................................................................................................................... 8
Chapter 2: types of research and research questions......................................................................12
Chapter 3: Theory in the Research process.....................................................................................20
Chapter 4: Concepts and Operationalization...................................................................................23

Week 2: Causality. Experimental Research......................................................................................30
Lecture 2: Causality. Experimental Research..................................................................................30
Chapter 6: Explanation and Causality.............................................................................................. 36
Chapter 7: Experimental Designs..................................................................................................... 43

Week 3: Small-N comparative designs............................................................................................. 48
Lecture 3: Small-N comparative designs.......................................................................................... 48
Chapter 9: Comparative Designs..................................................................................................... 54

Week 5: Large-N designs................................................................................................................... 58
Lecture 5: Large-N Designs............................................................................................................. 59
Chapter 5: Measurement and Description........................................................................................64
Chapter 8: Large-N Designs............................................................................................................ 70

Week 6: Large-N Designs Continued................................................................................................ 85
Lecture 6: Large-N Designs Continued............................................................................................85

Week 7: Within-case analysis............................................................................................................ 92
Lecture 7: Withing case analysis...................................................................................................... 92
Chapter 10: Single-Case Study Designs..........................................................................................96

Additional stuff for exam................................................................................................................. 101
Chapter 11: Mixed and Nested Designs.........................................................................................101
Chapter 12: Communicating Research.......................................................................................... 103



Week 1: Introduction, types of research. Theory & Concepts
Literature: RD Chapter 1t/m4
April 6th, 2022

Lecture 1: Introduction: Types of Research. Theory & Concepts

What is this course about?
- The design of research
 What are good questions to ask?
1

,  How do we build on existing knowledge to ask and answer good research
questions?
 How do we plan for data collection?
 How do we set up empirical models that can answer our questions?
 How do we communicate our research and how do we assess the research
of others?

What are we going to learn?
- Learning objectives
 Critically assess empirical research in the field of public administration,
broadly defined
 Understand pros and cons of different designs
 To be prepared to write a research proposal and conduct research

The process of research




Why is RD important?
- As a student, you produce original research
- As a (public service) professional, you will:
 Use research to make decisions
 Assess research when doing so
 Commission (ask others to do for you) research
- As a citizen, research informs your choices

Examples of research questions
- What is the impact of the lockdown on the spread of the COVID-19 virus?
- What is the effect of immigration on the economy?
- How to encourage global action for environmental protection?

2

, - Does online learning work?
- Does moderate drinking increase longevity?
- What will be the effect of Brexit on British society?
- Is there discrimination in university admissions processes?
- Did Facebook win the 2016 US election for trump?

Assessment:
- Geen definitie vragen bij examen
- What are the main reasons that..

Types of research
- Normative
- Positive
 Positive research can be complimented by normative research in that
positive research can be motivated by normative research
 Normative research cannot be answered with empirical research methods
- Major research goals
 Descriptive
 Predictive
 Explanatory

All scientific research requires inference

Normative Research
- Prescriptive (what ought to be)
- Norms and values
- Cannot be answered with empirical data
- In frequent dialogue with positive research

Positive Research
- Relationships between concepts and empirical facts
- Can be purely theoretical (rare)
 Positive political theory: relationships between theoretical concepts without
direct reference to empirical facts or to value judgements.
 Examples: principal-agents models; Arrow’s Theorem etc.
- Usually, positive research is empirical

Empirical Positive Research
- Connect theoretical concepts to facts
- Goals of empirical research:
 Description
 Prediction
 Explanation

Other research types and goals
- Exploratory as ‘advanced’ descriptive (generally not a goal on its own)
- Interpretive research as descriptive OR explanatory

Some important points


3

, - Explanatory questions can be about the future (prospective), but they are
about more than pure prediction: they’re about conditional prediction
(prediction, conditional on a certain policy or programme or even taking place)
- All (empirical) research requires (scientific) inference, even descriptive and
predictive research. Explanatory research requires a special type of inference,
called causal inference.

Some more important points
- All empirical research incorporates and builds on descriptive research.
- Lesson-drawing requires double causal inference (what worked in case 1,
how would it work in case 2). Policy recommendations require normative
research on top of explanatory research on top of descriptive research.

What is theory?
- Theory is a collection of interrelated abstract concepts and ideas about a
phenomenon of interest.
- We focus on explanatory theories: theories that provide explanations of
general patterns and individual facts of the social and political worlds.

What kind of theory? (1)
- Normative political theory is different: it deals with values and normative
judgements.
- (Pure) positive theory is also different: it only examines relationship between
concepts

What kind of theory? (2)
- Meta-theories, paradigms and theoretical frameworks are different: they are
too general.
- Game theory is very different: it is actually a method for theorizing, not a
substantive theory
- Interpretations are similar to explanatory theories, but only apply to a
particular case
- A model – a symbolic representation of reality – is very similar to an
explanatory theory
 A statistical model (should) reflect a theory but, as such, is not a
substantive theory

Theories and maps
- Theories and models are like maps:
 They inevitably ignore some features of reality to focus on others
 Different versions are useful for different purposes
 More detail is not necessarily better
 You cannot always compare theories and maps as to how ‘true’ they are

The functions of theory
- Explanatory theories:
 Set the research agenda
o Direct research attention
o Identify puzzles
 Direct data collection

4

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