ARAŞTIRMA YÖNTEMLERİ

‘Random sampling’ is a strategy that enables every member in the population to become selected and be a part of the study. Random sampling is essential as it avoids the likelihood to select a biased sample. The correct answer is B.

The stratified sampling strategy is one of the most preferred methods in opinion studies in political science research as it ensures the representativeness of the population studied. The correct answer is A.

As its name indicates, ‘purposive sampling’ method is employed when the researcher intentionally is interested in a population with certain knowledge, experience, or history. The correct answer is D.

Validity refers to the correctness, appropriateness, meaningfulness, and usefulness of the data collected or the relevancy of the data collection instrument. The correct answer is B.

Population or sample, which can also be called as the unit of analysis, define the group that your research will be about.

The national time series surveys generally are data collected over the years that are in the interest of political scientists. The measurements are taken in an organized manner such as in fixed periods over time: these can be days, weeks, months or multiyear cycles as a season or time cycle may bear history that may influence the respondents attitudes or behaviors ultimately time series analysis has two major functions to consider:  First, it provides the researcher a detailed picture of the underlying structure of change in a variable, including certain reoccurring trends or cycles that may be present in the change. Such information about the structure of change helps explain why as well as how changes have occurred over time helps the researcher explain the cause of unexpected fluctuations. Second, time series analysis enables researchers to trace the historical behavior of past change, … which allows for extrapolating from the data to make predictions about the future changes

Political elections can be defined as systems that contain political tendencies and voters’ perceptions and preferences. The outputs of those systems are formed by specific attributes of individuals such as age, gender, occupancy, educational status, socio-economic status, religious belief, etc. Those attributes can create a data set, which contains hidden information and undiscovered patterns that can be revealed by using data mining methods and techniques.

Sampling error, exists any time when the researcher reaches some of the sample and not all members. For instance, instance, to understand the attitudes of political participation of uni­versity students the researcher only randomly selects students from one province as the available population rather than the whole country to generalize the findings to the target population.

Each question should have only one single objective. ‘I volunteer at governmental elections and NGOs’ Note, what if the participant only volunteers in one institution!

Avoid leading items that imply a preferred way to answer.

For example:

‘I think that women make best teachers.’

Avoid rating within the questions such as

‘I always attend student protests.’ 

1) Never 2) Rarely 3) Sometimes 4) Frequently 5)Always

Avoid loaded questions, especially during face-to-face interview survey, which may emotionally charge the respondent. For example: Do you have cancer?

Social Media Platforms do not allow for random sampling.

Through an independent variable, a researcher can study its effect on one or more variables. Thus how the independent variable affects the dependent variable is studied. Examine the following research questions:

RQ: Is there a relationship between mothers’ education level and children’s school achievement?

In the research question above, mother is the independent variable, and children’s school achievement is the dependent variable. In other words, the independent variable affects or manipulates the dependent variable.

Random sampling is the most reliable strategy to identify your sample because it enables every member in the population to become selected at an equal chance and be a part of the study. Consequently, the findings of the study that are based on random sampling can be generalized to its population.

As its name indicates, ‘purposive sampling’ method is employed when the researcher intentionally is interested in a population with certain knowledge, experience, or history. For instance, as a political scientist you may want to do descriptive research with the elderly who were activist university students during the protests of 1968 in the metropols and describe their current political participation behaviors. Thus, your sample needs to be purposively selected from individuals who were at college level at that time and who were activists.

Validity refers to the correctness, appropriateness, meaningfulness, and usefulness of the data collected or the relevancy of the data collection instrument.

Cross-national surveys provide opportunities to collect data that is administered in various countries so that the researchers can collect data regarding how knowledge, attitudes, and behavior many vary according to difference in democracy, culture, economic conditions through comparisons

Experimental research is considered to be the best method to test hypothesis related to cause-and-effect relationships (Fraenkel & Wallen, 2010).

Causal comparative research which is also called as ex post facto (after the fact for Latin) attempts to determine the cause or consequences of differences that already exist between identified set of subjects (Fraenkel & Wallen, 2010).

The independent variable is expected to affect or cause the change on the dependent
variable. In this research question, the effect of school type on mathematics achievement is investigated.

Review the table in p. 133 'Data Collection Procedures'

Fraenkel and Wallen (2010) state that samples should be large enough to obtain
reasonable expenditure of energy and time and suggests that the minimum numbers of subjects (participants) is “100 for a descriptive study, 50 for a correlational study, and 30 for causal-comparative and experimental studies”