QUALITATIVE AND MULTI-METHOD RESEARCH SHORT COURSES AT APSA 2007
The Qualitative and Multi-method Research Section co-sponsored four short courses at the APSA annual meeting in Chicago: SC1 Multi-Method Research; SC2 Research Design and Field Methods; SC3 Introduction to Qualitative Comparative Analysis and Fuzzy Sets; and SC15 Interpret This! A Conceptual and Practical Workshop in Interpretive Political Science. The descriptions and (where available) links to relevant course materials follow below.
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Short Course 1: Multi-Method Research
9am to 1pm, Wednesday 29 August 2007
Instructors: David Collier, Henry E. Brady, and Jody LaPorte, UC Berkeley; Thad Dunning, Yale University
Attention has increasingly focused on how qualitative methods can be linked to other analytic tools, including large-N quantitative analysis and formal modeling. To this end, methodologists have urged scholars to “nest” their case studies within a larger quantitative analysis (Lieberman; also Laitin), to link quantitative data-set observations with qualitative causal-process observations (Brady, Collier, and Seawright), and to “thicken” their concepts by applying case knowledge to statistical work (Coppedge).
Given that many political scientists are now convinced that good research necessarily employs multiple methodologies, how can different approaches be combined to maximize analytic leverage? How useful are the multi-method techniques noted above? What other procedures are available to political scientists? This short course explores several options for advancing multi-method research:
a. Contextualized Comparison. Contextual differences across time and place can undermine the validity of descriptive and causal inference. We discuss this problem and suggest tools for overcoming it, exploring whether these tools are the same, or if they differ, in qualitative and quantitative research.
b. Using Simple Formal Models to Construct Comparisons and Understand Cases. We examine how traditional concerns of comparative case-study research, including case selection and developing a fruitful analytic frame for cross-case comparison, can be addressed with quite simple formal models.
c. Natural Experiments and Instrumental Variables. We consider how limitations of natural experiments can be addressed by constructing “instrumental variables.” Shortcomings of this technique are also evaluated.
d. Typologies. We discuss the place of typologies in broader debates on levels of measurement, and explore whether and how typologies can address the challenges of “lower” levels of measurement—challenges which arise in both qualitative and quantitative research.
Background Readings
Brady, Henry E., and David Collier, eds. (2004). Rethinking Social Inquiry: Diverse Tools, Shared Standards (Lahnam, MD: Rowman and Littlefield). See, for example, Brady, Collier, and Seawright, “Sources of Leverage in Causal Inference” (chap. 13); and Sidney Tarrow, “Bridging the Quantitative-Qualitative Divide” (chap. 10).
Coppedge, Michael (1999). “Thickening Thin Concepts and Theories: Combining Large N and Small in Comparative Politics,” Comparative Politics 31:4 (July): 465-76.
Elman, Colin (2005). “Explanatory Typologies in Qualitative Studies of International Politics,” International Organization 59 (Spring): 293–326.
Laitin, David D. (2002). “Comparative Politics: The State of the Subdiscipline,” in Ira Katznelson and Helen V. Milner, eds., Political Science: State of the Discipline (New York: Norton).
Lieberman, Evan (2005). “Nested Analysis as a Mixed-Method Strategy for Comparative Research,” American Political Science Review 99, No. 3 (August): 435-452.
Links to Course Materials
Introduction to SC1 (Powerpoint)
David Collier, Jody LaPorte and Jason Seawright, Putting Typologies to Work (Powerpoint)
Jason Seawright, Typologies and Measurement (Pdf)
Jason Seawright, CPOs and DSOs: Issues of Coordinaton (Pdf)
David Collier and Jason Seawright, Sources of Leverage in Causal Inference (Powerpoint)
Henry Brady, Using a Simple Model of Decision-Making to Select and Understand Cases (Powerpoint)
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Short Course 2: Research Design and Field Methods
2pm to 6pm, Wednesday 29 August, 2007
Instructors: Diana Kapiszewski, University of California, Berkeley, Benjamin Read, University of Iowa, and Sara Watson, University of British Columbia
This short course addresses a variety of field methods and data collection techniques to help analysts make the most of their empirical research. Topics include preparing for and conducting research involving the direct observation of political actors, institutions, and processes; unstructured and structured interviews; archival sources; ethnographic study; as well as managing, analyzing, and evaluating data. Although field methods are usually associated with “studying politics abroad,” we discuss techniques that may be applied both inside and outside the U.S. A foundational premise of the course is that planning for the effective use of field methods and the efficient collection of data are a crucial part of overall research design.
Analysts typically initiate their projects by mapping out their analytic questions and identifying the data they will need to investigate and to support their claims. Yet even if the research is well-planned and adequately funded, obstacles can arise. Key respondents may be unhelpful or unavailable. Valuable archives and other collections of primary materials may be accessible only on a limited basis or may be poorly organized. Data necessary for constructing sampling frames for formal or informal interviewing may simply not exist. Time or money may run out before essential data have been collected. This short course will help analysts to anticipate, identify, and resolve many of the challenges involved in designing and conducting field research. We discuss strategies that will allow the analyst to: (1) convert the research design into a “to get” list; (2) identify and begin to investigate data sources before leaving the home institution; (3) make optimal use of relevant technologies (e-mail, web, cell phones, portable photocopying equipment, scanners, digital cameras, and voice and video recorders); (4) respond to the availability of data not anticipated in the original research design, and to the inaccessibility of data that was originally to be collected; (5) organize and manage the potentially vast quantities of information gathered; (6) establish key contacts and interact constructively with politicians, administrators, and scholars in the host community; (7) cope with professionally, politically, and personally uncomfort¬able situations; (8) make the transition from data collection to data analysis and writing in a timely manner.
Participants will be provided with document templates that may be useful when carrying out field research, including sample correspondence. The course is valuable for students planning dissertation projects, for scholars who would like to develop or improve their data collection skills, and for those who teach classes on research methods.
Links to Course Materials
SC2 Research Design and Field Methods (Powerpoint)
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Short Course 3: Introduction to Qualitative Comparative Analysis and Fuzzy Sets
2pm to 6pm, Wednesday 29 August, 2007
Instructor: Charles C. Ragin, Department of Sociology, University of Arizona
The analytic challenge of comparative research is not simply that the number of cases is small, but that researchers gain useful in-depth knowledge of cases that is difficult to represent using conventional forms (e.g., representations that emphasize the "net effects" of "independent variables"). The researcher is left wondering how to represent knowledge of cases in a way that is meaningful and compact and which does not deny case complexity. Set-theoretic methods such as Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA), the central focus of this workshop, offer a partial solution.
QCA is fundamentally a case-oriented method that can be applied to small-to-moderate-sized Ns. It is most useful when researchers have knowledge of each case included in an investigation, there is a relatively small number of such cases (e.g., 5-50), and the investigator seeks to compare cases as configurations. With these methods it is possible to construct representations of cross-case patterns that allow for substantial heterogeneity and diversity. The workshop offers an advanced introduction to the approach and the use of the software package fsQCA. Both the crisp (or Boolean) and fuzzy-set versions of the method are presented.
Links to Course Materials
SC3 QCA/Fs course slides as a pdf file
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Short Course 15: Interpret This! A Conceptual and Practical Workshop in Interpretive Political Science.
9.30am to 5:00pm, Wednesday 29 August, 2007