POL 51 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: International Crisis, Scientific Method, Dependent And Independent Variables
18 Jan 2017
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Scientific method: causal theory (to explain the outcome) Why and the how, the process, reasoning, think because. Operationalization: how will we measure the concept. Evidence to go from theory hypothesis (ex. Describes a relationship we expect to see between 2 variables if the model is true . Tells us what value the dv is predicted to be given a certain value of the iv. Cause or causal factor, explanatory variable, usually denoted as x". Covariation: changes in the value of the iv should result in different values of the dv. Iv needs to have different values for us to know if it has an impact on the dv. The effect, the outcome variable, usually denoted as y". Talk only about the expected relationship between variable values. No need to provide rationale (the because), that"s provided by theory. If rain amounts increase, we should see river levels rise. (x: rain amounts, y: river levels)
