POL 2156 Chapter : Research Methods (Knowing)

• School: University of Ottawa
• Department: Political Science
• Course: POL 2156
• Professor: Stephanie Mullen

Document Summary

Chapter 1: how we know what we know and how we know we know: knowledge, description of the state/operation of some aspect of the universe upon which people/groups are prepared to act, product of social process, public/government/experts think knowledge is inadequate, funding bodies/corporations/universities accept research proposal, successful proposals carried out by research teams, findings communicated by professional organizations, communities/government debate/legislate. Relate evidence to research question, draws conclusion, acknowledges limitations: phase 1: essential first steps, select, narrow, and formulate the question to be studied (focus the research problem, select a research design (quantitative or qualitative?, design and devise measures for variables, set up tables for analysis (create an analysis plan, select a sample, phase 2: data collection, collect data, summarize + organize data, phase 3: analysis + interpretation, relate data to the research question, draw conclusions, assess the limitations of the study, make suggestions for further research.