The Craft of Political Research is a non-technical introduction to research design and analysis in political science, emphasizing the choices we make when we design a research project and analyze its results. The book-s approach centers on asking an interesting research question, then designing inquiry to eliminate as many alternative explanations as possible.
How do we develop theory, and what constitutes a good research question? How do we operationalize measures and gather evidence to answer a question? How do we analyze our data? Students are introduced to such topics as multidimensional concepts, levels of measurement, validity, reliability, random and non-random measurement error, sampling, case selection, causality, experimental and quasi-experimental design, statistical inference, and regression and correlation analysis. Throughout, the emphasis is on understanding the -back story- of analysis-why do we measur
