This document covers several topics in political science research methods including concepts, case studies, variables, theories, hypotheses, correlation, causation, and qualitative and quantitative analysis. It discusses features of good concepts, methods for understanding cases, the difference between correlation and causation, and defines key terms like theory and hypotheses. Examples are provided for concepts like freedom and democracy, methods like most-similar and most-different case studies, and how variables might be correlated or causal for things like stress levels and exam grades.

1. POL 252-01
Spring 2015

5.  Usually looking at individual countries
 Civil Conflict: Hutus andTutsis in Rwanda
These groups were arguing
over level of “Rwandan-ness”
or national identity.

6. German Bundestag
Ellen
Johnson
Sirleaf,
President of
Liberia

8.  #1: Description
 #2: Classification
 #3: HypothesisTesting
 #4: Prediction

10.  What are concepts?
 Examples: Freedom, Democracy, Development
 Features of Good Concepts:
 #1: Clarity and Coherence
 #2: Consistency
 #3: Usefulness

13.  What causes what?
 Variables – Change between cases
 Two Methods to Understand Cases:
 Most-Similar-Systems (MSS)
 Most-Different-Systems (MDS)

16.  What varies between the cases?
 Your College Choice

19.  Cases that are different in various respects yet
similar on particular outcome of interest
 What explains similarity?
 Variables that are not different (similar) are
interesting and important to us

25. THEORY
 General explanations of
how and why the world
works
HYPOTHESES
 Proposed explanations for
why something occurs

26. CORRELATION
 Association between two
variables
 Example:
 Stress Level
 Time of Semester
 How might these be related
or associated with one
another?
CAUSATION
 One variable causes
another
 Example:
 Study Habits
 Exam Grades in POL 252
 Which variable causes the
other?

27. QUALITATIVE
 Historical accounts
QUANTITATIVE
 Numbers and statistics
One of
Anne
Frank’s
diary
entries