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Report

Teaser, summary, work performed and final results

Periodic Reporting for period 3 - ENHANCEDQMMR (Enhanced Qualitative and Multi-Method Research in Political Science)

Teaser

Summary

Social scientists need methods, techniques and tools for answering their research question and contributing to knowledge generation and inform policy-making. Proper methods are not all that there is to science, but science requires the right tools to produce correct findings. This project focuses on a set of methods comprising qualitative techniques such as process tracing and Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) and multimethod research (MMR) combining different methods. The project aims to improve these methods in multiple ways and to enable empirical researchers to be more confident in the accuracy of their findings.

Work performed

In the first half, the project focused on Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA). The project developed and used simulations for contributing to the rigor of QCA. This includes a better understanding of how susceptible QCA is to produce correct results even if irrelevant conditions are included in the initial model. Another achievement is the development of a technique for estimating the power of a QCA study, which means to estimate the probability of correctly rejecting a false null hypothesis.

Final results

The developments so far contribute to the state of the art because they develop simulations, which are still relatively new to the field of QCA, for improving QCA. In the second half of the project, we designed and started an experiment allowing us to better understand what influences the conclusions that empirical researchers based on data. With regard to QCA and multimethod research, we will work on multiple ends to strengthen QCA, including for example the development of safeguards against publication bias in QCA research. Furthermore, the PI has started working on Bayesian nested analysis.