POLSCI 3N06 Lecture Notes - Theoretical Definition, Dependent And Independent Variables, Operationalization
23 Nov 2013
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Political science 3n06 2013 lecture 3b: designing a research design. Your literature review allows you to refine your research question. Having developed a clear research question: your research proposal will ultimately contain one (or several) hypotheses. Answers that you will then test against the evidence. Different types of research questions often call for different types of hypotheses (see halperin and heath) Regardless, hypotheses usually state a relationship between two types of variables. Independent: something that causes the dependent variable, eg research questions: What is the relationship between democracy and development; To say that two variables are causally related, certain conditions have to hold. The variables must correlate with one another: vary with each other; move with each other, positive correlation increase in one variable will cause an increase in another variable; The cause must take place before the effect. If the dependent variable occurs before the independent variable then you may be confusing effect for cause.
