Inquiry, theory and paradigms

15 important questions on Inquiry, theory and paradigms

What are primary documents?

  • Answers to open questions in a survey
  • Transcripts of unstructured and semi structured interviews.
  • Party platforms, annual business reports
  • e-mails, tweets
  • newspaper articles
  • policy documents
  • movies or pictures

What is content analysis?

A data collection method in which variables are constructed by coding a set of primary documents to say something about (a) unit(s) of analysis

What is deductive coding?

Creating variables using theoretical constructs.
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What is inductive coding?

Creating theoretical constructs using primary documents

What are the steps in content analysis?

  1. Formulate the research question with variables & units of analysis.
  2. Select primary document
  3. Develop an operationalization, a 'coding scheme'
  4. Code the text (maybe updating coding scheme)
  5. draw conclusions
  6. report your methods and findings

Which two types of observation mistakes are there?

  • Random errors
  • Systematic errors

What are Systematic errors?

Systematic bias or measuring the wrong construct

systematic error is associated with bias/invalidity, not with unreliability.

Where does measurement reliability refers to?

The absence of random error.

Where does measurement validity refers to?

Revers to no systematic error.
Measure what you intend to measure.

What is content validity?

Does it cover all aspects of the concept?

When is an observation accurate?

When it is
  • Precies (grams is better than kilo)
  • Reliable
  • valide

What are the sources of mistakes at the level of units?

  • Errors in the operationalization
  • errors made by the interviewer
  • errors made by the interviewed person

What can be the source of random errors?

  • Does everyone know what the subject is?
  • Do the all have an opinion about the subject?

What is the difference between deterministic and probabilistic?

  • Deterministic data is about fact that we can trust 100%. These facts will never change.
  • Probabilistic data is data about, for example people, where the oucomes can change and varying.

What is a Spurious relationship?

a spurious relationshipis a mathematical relationship in which two or more events or variables are not causally related to each other, yet it may be wrongly inferred that they are, due to either coincidence or the presence of a certain third, unseen factor

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