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How do researchers choose their goals of inference? A survey experiment on the effects of the state of research and method preferences on the choice between research goals

  • In empirical research, scholars can choose between an exploratory causes-of-effects analysis, a confirmatory effects-ofcauses approach, or a mechanism-of-effects analysis that can be either exploratory or confirmatory. Understanding the choice between the approaches is important for two reasons. First, the added value of each approach depends on how much is known about the phenomenon of interest at the time of the analysis. Second, because of the specializations of methods, there are benefits to a division of labor between researchers who have expertise in the application of a given method. In this preregistered study, we test two hypotheses that follow from these arguments. We theorize that exploratory research is chosen when little is known about a phenomenon and a confirmatory approach is taken when more knowledge is available. A complementary hypothesis is that quantitative researchers opt for confirmatory designs and qualitative researchers for exploration because of their academic socialization. We test the hypotheses with aIn empirical research, scholars can choose between an exploratory causes-of-effects analysis, a confirmatory effects-ofcauses approach, or a mechanism-of-effects analysis that can be either exploratory or confirmatory. Understanding the choice between the approaches is important for two reasons. First, the added value of each approach depends on how much is known about the phenomenon of interest at the time of the analysis. Second, because of the specializations of methods, there are benefits to a division of labor between researchers who have expertise in the application of a given method. In this preregistered study, we test two hypotheses that follow from these arguments. We theorize that exploratory research is chosen when little is known about a phenomenon and a confirmatory approach is taken when more knowledge is available. A complementary hypothesis is that quantitative researchers opt for confirmatory designs and qualitative researchers for exploration because of their academic socialization. We test the hypotheses with a survey experiment of more than 900 political scientists from the United States and Europe. The results indicate that the state of knowledge has a significant and sizeable effect on the choice of the approach. In contrast, the evidence about the effect of methods expertise is more ambivalent.show moreshow less

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Metadaten
Author:Ingo RohlfingORCiD, Felix Bethke
URN:urn:nbn:de:bvb:739-opus4-12739
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1177/20531680231170969
Publisher:Sage Publications
Document Type:Article
Language:English
Year of Completion:2023
Date of Publication (online):2023/05/17
Publishing Institution:Universität Passau
Release Date:2023/08/10
Issue:Research & Politics, 10(2)
Page Number:7
First Page:1
Last Page:7
Note:
Gefördert durch den Publikationsfonds der Universitätsbibliothek Passau.
Source:Research & Politics, Volume 10, Issue 2, April-June 2023
Institutes:Sozial- und Bildungswissenschaftliche Fakultät
Dewey Decimal Classification:3 Sozialwissenschaften / 30 Sozialwissenschaften, Soziologie / 300 Sozialwissenschaften
open_access (DINI-Set):open_access
Licence (German):License LogoCreative Commons - CC BY-NC - Namensnennung - Nicht kommerziell 4.0 International