1. Questions

Question 1

Research question

Answer 1

a specific question that guides the research project

Question 2

What three elements does a good research question have?

Answer 2

Topic: “I’m studying…”
Question: “because I want to find out…”
Significance: “in order to better understand…”

Question 3

A good research question is a perfect mix between what two things?

Answer 3

Interesting and Answerable

Question 4

Causality is not as clean and simple as in the natural sciences because…

Answer 4

…people are complicated. Therefore, we speak in terms of tendencies/likelihoods

Question 5

independent variable (x)

Answer 5

What you change or control.
The cause

Question 6

dependent variable (y)

Answer 6

What you measure or observe
The effect

Question 7

The Four Principles of Davis about Causality

Answer 7

1. Causality is about averages/tendencies - there can be exceptions
2. X is a cause of Y does not mean X is THE cause of Y
3. Correlation does not mean causation
4. experimental data are more persuasive

Question 8

Four Rules of Causality Davis

Answer 8

1. Run the arrow from X to Y if Y starts after X freezes
2. Run the arrow from X to Y if X is linked to an earlier step in a well-known sequence
3. If (during some span of time) X never changes and Y sometimes changes, run the arrow from X to Y
4. If X is relatively stable while Y is relatively volatile, run the arrow from X to Y

Question 9

Starting a question with “why is..” is most of the time not a good research question. Why?

Answer 9

Because there is usually more than one cause – multicausal