POL101Y1 Lecture Notes - Null Hypothesis, Dependent And Independent Variables, Falsifiability
Document Summary
Not just facts and historical cases in canadian politics, foreign countries or international relations. But importantly the scientific knowledge of political phenomena, generalizable beyond specific cases. Science = a systematic method of knowledge creation. Main goal is to develop our knowledge of the causal process behind various pholitical phenomena science is arguable the most successful way to obtain and refine knowledge of the nature and our society. Theory: a tentative conjecture about the causes of some phenomenon of interest. Hypothesis: a theory based statement about a relationship that we expect to observe. Empirical test/analysis: a process in which scientists evaluate collected evidence systematically to make a judgment of whether the evidence favours their hypothesis. Dependent variable (y) a phenomenon of interest: the value of y will depend on the value x. Independent variable (x) (or explanatory variable) the cause/factor of the phenomenon. Explanation/mechasnism/process that links your independent and dependent variables.
