Vocabulary

1) Research Design: This refers to a research plan that sets out how the research will go
about responding to a research question. It can also be seen as the basic structured of a
research paper.
2) Interview: a form of qualitative data collection in which the researcher asks questions of a
research participant. Interviews can take on many forms. The most common are
structured, semi-structured, and unstructured interviews.
3) Large-n: a large number of cases, or ns.
4) Datasets: A collection of related sets of information, usually coded in numeric form.
5) Methodology: the study of ways through which we acquire knowledge.
6) Ontology: the study of being, the nature of social entities.
7) Epistemology: the study of knowledge, how is knowledge produced.
8) Hypothesis: A statement that makes a claim as to a relationship between two or more
variables, usually the independent and dependent variables.
9) Field research: the gathering of primary data, either through accessing primary source
documents, or through interviews, participant observation, questionnaires, surveys, or
other methods aimed at eliciting responses from human subjects
10) Positivism: empiricism which embraces natural science methods to explain the world
around us and is based on the assumption that knowledge can be accumulated through
experience and observation. This tradition has also been referred to as naturalism,
positivism, or behavioralism.
11) Human subjects: when people participate in research, these people are referred to as
human subjects.
12) Plagiarism: the intentional or unintentional use of someone elses words or ideas in your
own work without appropriate attribution, usually done through referencing.
13) Literature review: an analytical summary of existing scholarly research on a certain topic
that establishes and organizes existing concepts and theoretical frameworks for the reader.
14) Qualitative Methods: Data collection and data analysis strategies that rely upon the
collection, and analysis of, non-numeric data. This does not have to be restricted to
textual data and can also include speech, film, and other forms of communicative works.
15) Quantitative Methods: Data collection and data analysis strategies that rely upon
collecting or coding data in numeric form in an attempt to determine whether or not a
relationship exists between two or more variables. This entails the use of either statistical
analysis or formal models.
16) Content analysis: a form of data analysis that allows researchers to examine large
amounts of data derived from social communication through the categorization and
coding.
17) Discourse analysis: a form of qualitative data analysis that focuses on the interpretation
of linguistic forms of communication.
18) Triangulation: refer either to a strategy for collection, in which the researcher relies on
multiple sources of data, such as interviews, media, reports, and official documents, or to
a strategy for bringing together distinct research methods, such as quantitative and
qualitative methods.

19) Straw man argumentation: refers to the misrepresentation of another scholars argument
in order to make it easier to undermine or disprove.
20) Inductive reasoning: the generation of theoretical propositions out of empirical
observations.
21) Deductive reasoning: the empirical observations are used to generates theoretical
propsitions.
22) Constructivism: to describe both a theoretical approach to International Relations and a
broader epistemological tradition referred to in this book as interpretivism. In relation to
constructivism as a theory of IR, constructivists emphasize the causal role of norms in
explaining certain outcomes, or they emphasize the need to interrogate social meaning.
23) Interpretivism: the term that rejects the notion that natural science methods can help
explain the world around us, and instead focuses on social meanings embedded within IR
through the interrogation ideas, norms, beliefs, and values. (Referred to as constructivism,
reflectivism , or post-positivism
24) Experimentation: a scientific method imported from the natural sciences that normally
tests a hypothesis to determine whether a conjectured relationship or process will either
verify or falsify it.
25) Falsifiable: the position that an observation can be found to be false through observation
or experimentation.
26) Intersubjective (understanding): the observation that agents are constituted through their
interactions with other agents. These processes of interaction, illuminated through
discourse, are argued to help us understand how the social world is constituted.
27) Causal mechanism: independent stable factors that under certain conditions link causes to
effects.
28) Dependent variables: the object that requires explanation or a particular outcome that you
wish to explain.
29) Question-based research: a research project in which the researcher poses a question that
typically attempts to explain a uncertain relation between two or more variables
(empiricism) or that problematizes our understanding of an existing variable
(interpretivism).
30) Independent variable: something that is conjectured to explain or cause the dependent
variable.
31) Explanatory variables: variables that explain a certain outcome or dependent variable.
32) Official document: published documents released by a state, organization, or business.
33) Narratives: a qualitative concept that focuses on how memories are constructed in the
form of stories about the past events such as wars or political struggles.
34) Positive theory: refers to theory development in the empirical tradition that focuses on
explaining the relationship between variables.
35) Ontological puzzle: refers to the type of questions that can be of interest to interpretive
researchers. It is contrasted with cause-and-effect puzzles of interest to empirical
researchers.
36) Process-tracing: the tracing of processes that link possible causes with observed
outcomes.

37) Causal inference: A statement that posits a causal relationship between variables on the
basis of observed outcome.
38) Research proposal: a document in which you clearly and concisely provide an overview
of your thesis project to your supervisor.
39) Peer-review: refers to a blind review process undertaken by scholarly publishers in which
a manuscript submitted for publication is reviewed by two or more anonymous reviewers.
40) Coding: the categorization and quantification of material for analysis. It is often used to
categorize unstructured data gathered by the researcher for entry into datasets.
41) Interview consent form: a document prepared for field research that allows you to secure
the informed consent of research participants.
42) Focus groups: a form of group interview in which a group facilitator leads a discussion
on a specific topic in groups of six to ten participants. Generally researchers will carry
out multiple focus group discussions on a given topic.
43) Primary source documents: original documents, authored by individuals who had direct
access to the information that they are describing, or directly experienced a particular
event.
44) Secondary source documents: documents, which make reference to, and analyze, primary
source documents.
45) Structured interview: an interview format in which the individual administering the
interview keeps strictly to a script of questions and the respondent is asked to select from
a pre-determined menu of response options.
46) Unstructured Interview: an interview format that is more analogous to a conversation.
The researcher will at the beginning prompt a conversation on a given topic, but then
allows the conversation to evolve naturally.
47) Semi-structured interview: an interview format that is commonly used because it allows
the researcher to pose their questions, but also to ask follow-up questions that reflect the
interview participants response.
48) Correlation: reference to the co-variance of two variables. Because a change in one
variable appears to coincide with the change in another it is often confused with causation.
49) Measurement: the assignment of numeric values to establish the exact properties of a
particular object or event.
50) Formalization: the translation of verbal arguments or statements into mathematical form.
51) Formal models: the application of mathematical or statistical toots to the study of IR.
52) Behavioralism: an approach to IR that posits natural science methods can be imported
into the social sciences.
53) Statistical analysis: the analysis of large sets of numeric data in either the form of
descriptive statistics or inferential statistics.
54) Scaling: a form of measurement that allows for qualitative data to be converted into
metric units.
55) Descriptive statistics: a form of statistical analysis that helps provide means to describe
our data. It is often used to help present or visualize trends or to collect data.
56) Game theory: the application of mathematical models to understand strategic interaction
among actors.

57) Decision tree: a means of mapping a players choices and potential payoffs that does not
take into account the choices of others.
58) Iterated: this term is used in game theory to refer to repeated interactions among players.
59) Sample frame: the pool of potential survey or questionnaire respondents from which
actual research participants are drawn.
60) External validity: this refers to whether a population sample is representative of a sample
frame. It is most often ensured by attempts to minimize selection bias.
61) Random sample: every potential research participant within a sample frame has an equal
chance of being selected for participation. It is sought so as to guard against selection bias.
62) Snowball sampling: this refers to a strategy to access human subjects during the course of
field research that has the researcher rely on the first individuals you meet during the
course of your research to introduce you to other potential research participants.
63) Nominal questions: questions that generate responses that are categorical. Generally these
will be closed-ended questions with a menu of categories provided to the respondent to
choose from.
64) Ordinal questions: questions require the respondent to provide a ranking for series of
responses.
65) Multiple choices questions: this type of question is familiar with multiple choice
examinations.
66) Internal questions: questions ask respondent to place themselves in a particular class of
responses.
67) Scales: it allows researchers to determine the intensity of preference among respondents.
68) Inferential statistic: the use of statistical test to reach conclusions about numerical data
that has been collected.
69) Multivariate regression analysis: a statistical test that allows researchers to test whether or
not a relationship exists between three or more variables.
70) Bivariate regression analysis: a statistical test that allows for researchers to see whether
or not a relationship exists between two variables.
71) Spurious relationship: this is when there appears to be a relationship between two
variables, but the relationship is actually produced by a third variable.
72) Agent-based modeling: computer assisted mathematical simulation models that generate
data on how agents interact within a given environment that can be analyzed inductively.
73) Casual effect: the outcomes brought about by a posited causal variable.
74) Agent-structure debate: it revolves around the question of whether or not events are
determined by structural causes, such as institutions or socioeconomic factors, or whether
or not they are determined by the choices of individual decision-makers.
75) Selection bias: refers to situations where some members of a sample frame have a greater
chance of being selected for participation than others.
76) Research summary: a short description of your research written for the purpose of your
field research that provides an explanation of your research project and how your
findings will be used to research participants.