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Author : Donald R. Kinder Publisher : University of Michigan Press Page : 516 pages File Size : 34,27 MB Release : 1993 Category : Political Science ISBN : 9780472081813
Increasingly, political scientists use the term 'experiment' or 'experimental' to describe their empirical research. One of the primary reasons for doing so is the advantage of experiments in establishing causal inferences. In this book, Rebecca B. Morton and Kenneth C. Williams discuss in detail how experiments and experimental reasoning with observational data can help researchers determine causality. They explore how control and random assignment mechanisms work, examining both the Rubin causal model and the formal theory approaches to causality. They also cover general topics in experimentation such as the history of experimentation in political science; internal and external validity of experimental research; types of experiments - field, laboratory, virtual, and survey - and how to choose, recruit, and motivate subjects in experiments. They investigate ethical issues in experimentation, the process of securing approval from institutional review boards for human subject research, and the use of deception in experimentation.
This textbook introduces the scientific study of politics, supplying students with the basic tools to be critical consumers and producers of scholarly research.
Experimental political science has changed. In two short decades, it evolved from an emergent method to an accepted method to a primary method. The challenge now is to ensure that experimentalists design sound studies and implement them in ways that illuminate cause and effect. Ethical boundaries must also be respected, results interpreted in a transparent manner, and data and research materials must be shared to ensure others can build on what has been learned. This book explores the application of new designs; the introduction of novel data sources, measurement approaches, and statistical methods; the use of experiments in more substantive domains; and discipline-wide discussions about the robustness, generalizability, and ethics of experiments in political science. By exploring these novel opportunities while also highlighting the concomitant challenges, this volume enables scholars and practitioners to conduct high-quality experiments that will make key contributions to knowledge.
Experiments are a central methodology in the social sciences. Scholars from every discipline regularly turn to experiments. Practitioners rely on experimental evidence in evaluating social programs, policies, and institutions. This book is about how to “think” about experiments. It argues that designing a good experiment is a slow moving process (given the host of considerations) which is counter to the current fast moving temptations available in the social sciences. The book includes discussion of the place of experiments in the social science process, the assumptions underlying different types of experiments, the validity of experiments, the application of different designs, how to arrive at experimental questions, the role of replications in experimental research, and the steps involved in designing and conducting “good” experiments. The goal is to ensure social science research remains driven by important substantive questions and fully exploits the potential of experiments in a thoughtful manner.
The study of politics seems endlessly beset by debates about method. At the core of these debates is a single unifying concern: should political scientists view themselves primarily as scientists, developing ever more sophisticated tools and studying only those phenomena to which such tools may fruitfully be applied? Or should they instead try to illuminate the large, complicated, untidy problems thrown up in the world, even if the chance to offer definitive explanations is low? Is there necessarily a tension between these two endeavours? Are some domains of political inquiry more amenable to the building up of reliable, scientific knowledge than others, and if so, how should we deploy our efforts? In this book, some of the world's most prominent students of politics offer original discussions of these pressing questions, eschewing narrow methodological diatribes to explore what political science is and how political scientists should aspire to do their work.
New edition providing an introduction to the scientific study of politics, refined discussions of concepts and a chapter on writing about an original research project.