Research Design

Question 1

What are the three things we need to know before designing a research project?

Answer 1

1. Purpose of research
2. Units of analysis
3. The time dimension

Question 2

What are the three purposes of research?

Answer 2

1. Exploration
2. Description
3. Explanation

Question 3

What questions do “description” purposes aim to answer?

Answer 3

What, where, when and how

Question 4

What are the ways of explaining causal relationships in social research?

Answer 4

1. Correlation
2. Time order
3. Non-spurious relationships

Question 5

Explain correlation

Answer 5

When two variables are correlated, changes in one variable are associated with changes in the other

Question 6

True or false: Correlation is the same as causality

Answer 6

False, causality is very hard to prove. There are 10+ variables in an experiment so its hard to pinpoint what caused what.

Question 7

When the correlation between two variables shown in data is actually caused by a third party, it is called what?

Answer 7

A spurious relationship