I have continued to enjoy using SPSS. The techniques on data comparisons in Chapter 4 of Pollock’s textbook have been particularly interesting, even though the homework assignment for that chapter was significantly more time-consuming than past chapters. I have been doing very well on the homework assignments. I have typically been taking my time with them, but I could probably move even faster through them and still achieve the same results. The instructions are easy to follow. My only fear is that I am not retaining all the details of exactly how to perform each kind of analysis, especially since we have now moved from simply running statistical tests on the data to actually manipulating the data itself (Chapter 3 of Pollock’s textbook). I anticipate that I may have to closely review the instructions in Pollocks’ textbook when the time comes to perform these steps on our own group project.
However, I have been scoring lower than I expected on the quizzes. On the first quiz, I mixed up the definitions of inductive and deductive logic. I now know that deductive logic is defined as starting with a theory, and then evaluating its observable implications with a test using observation. That is, deductive logic means starting with a broad, general theory, and then narrowing your focus to test that theory with specific examples. This is the approach that political scientists almost always take. Inductive reasoning is the opposite: This approach can be described as observing a specific event or phenomenon, creating a theory about why that event occurred is that particular context, and then seeking to apply that theory to other contexts that have similar characteristics. Thus, inductive logic moves from a narrow focus to a broader theory.
On the second quiz, I realized after the fact that I did not completely understand the difference between ordinal, nominal, and interval variables. On one question, I mistook the variable “year of birth” as an ordinal rather than an interval variable. I now know that ordinal data are ordered, but the difference between two values is not necessarily meaningful. The difference between two values in interval data, however, is meaningful. I am also now aware of the fact that just because a variable can be expressed in terms of numbers does not mean that it is ordinal. This confusion may have also stemmed from the fact that Thyne’s textbook only mentioned interval variables briefly, so I may not have paid attention to that section as much as I should have. On another note, I also confused negative and positive skews. Before I took the quiz, I knew the concepts behind skews: When the mean is higher or lower than the median, it pulls the distribution in the positive or negative direction. However, I simply mixed up which skewed distribution is described as positive and which is described as negative. I now know that graphs of positively skewed distributions have a tail that faces in the positive direction, and vice versa.
The group work on the upcoming literature review is going okay, but there seems to be a little confusion among the other members of my group on exactly what a literature review looks like. I had the opportunity to take COL Foster’s IS-460W Research Design for Political Science class last semester, so I have a decent idea of how to write a literature review. I have been offering some guidance to the other members of the group, and I believe they are getting the idea. My only concern is whether we all have been able to find scholarly articles that actually pertain to our topic. It seems so far that the articles we have found can be integrated to form a coherent and informative literature review.