Chapter 4 – Hypotheses, Concepts, and Variables

1. Chapter 4 – Hypotheses, Concepts, and Variables Steps in Research Process I. Specifying the Research Question • Topics for research are limited by • Significance (does it advance our understanding of politics) • Observable • Political behavior. Whose (units of analysis)? • ______________ (voters, lawmakers, etc.) • Groups (parties, unions, interest groups) • Institutions (state legislatures, city councils, courts) • Political jurisdictions (states, countries, congressional districts, precincts)

2. II. Proposing Explanations • Dependent Variable – varying phenomena that we are trying to explain (effect). • Independent Variable – varying phenomena that we thing explains our dv (cause). • Control Variables (other ivs) – other phenomena that may affect the dv directly. • Antecedent Variable – iv that occurs ____________ to all other independent ivs and may affect them (has indirect impact on dv). • Intervening variable – iv that occurs ______________ in time to the dv and is itself dependent upon other ivs in the model. Figure 4-1 (p. 110): Arrow diagrams help keep track of relationships • Formulating Hypotheses A. Characteristics of a good one • Make Empirical Statements – make testable statements about what exists in real world, not what _____________ exist. • Generality – should explain a general phenomena, not isolated or particular occurrence. • Plausibility – there should be a logical reason, grounded in

3. Sound theory (purpose of literature review). Use If/then statements to discipline yourselves in the deduction method of hypothesis formulation. If (theory) is true, then (hypothesis statement coming here) we should expect to observe ______ in the real world. • Specific – a good hypo specifies not only a relationship, but a directional hypothesis (hypothesis that identifies a cause and effect as well as whether there is a +/- relationship). Positive: the lower a state’s avg income, the _________ money the state government will spend per pupil Negative: Older people are less tolerant of social protest than younger people (age/tolerance of social protest). • Consistent with data – state hypotheses in terms of how the concepts in them are measured (%, #, dollars, etc.) • Testable – can be__________ empirically; also not tautological (stating a link between two concepts that are basically the same thing; e.g., as the economy improves, incomes go up). • Specifying Units of Analysis – these are the units or subjects being observed. Statistically, these are what your “cases” represent. So, in a survey, the units are individuals/respondents. But they may be states, counties, lawmakers, etc.

4. Defining Concepts – some are easy to define (car, vote, political party). Others are not (democracy, crime, political alienation, religiosity).