Methodological review
Addocks and Collier’s article “Measurement Validity: A Shared Standard for Qualitative and Quantitative Research attempts to solve a number of theoretical and methodological problems concerning variable viability. In doing so they seek to address four distinct problems within the realms of political science research. They are: how we understand the different types of validity, the debate between content validity and conceptual disputes, provided an alternate solution to adapting indicators for specific context sensitive cases, and finally they have attempted to create an understanding of validity that can be applied for both qualitative and quantitative researchers. In terms of plausibility Addocks and Collier make a …show more content…
This main goal is inherently one of content, wherein he argues that looking at Democracy as a scale, as opposed to an on off state allows for a fuller understanding of democracy. This is a satisfactory research goal, given the context behind it, as if we are to understand democracy, it is important to understand what it is and how it is studied, to this end he puts together a series of methodological tests to prove his overall point about the state of measuring democracy. The indicators they used were to test two commonly held theories in democratic theory using both models of democracy’s in order to show how the variation in the two effect the outcome. The first was a test of the adage that democracies do not make war with each other, using previous research they present the two outcomes on both a graded and dichotomous model, wherein the graded model wads able to be pathed on a graph that showed more directly the correlation between levels of democracy and likelihood to go to war. In terms of quality of data, this data effectively shows the difference between the two conceptions of democracy’s, and how the difference can make a large difference in how we interpret the data about democracy. Though the end result was of similar values, the levels explored in the graded model had a lot more room for exploring …show more content…
As in the other chart, the data presented on Table 2 accurately show how the degrees of democracy effect the length of a regime, and while once again they reached the same conclusion about the state of democracy, the path they took to get there provides has a different and more interesting context regarding the graded model.
In short, the article uses the idea of contrast or Nomological Validity to determine the validity of the dichotomous model of democracy. This is to say that it is can be assumed to be valid so long as it meets the hypothesis we already know to be accurate, as seen in the previous two examples. While both meet this level of validity, Elkins argues that the graded model is a better fit due to the fact that it better shows the relationship between the two
Addocks and Collier’s article “Measurement Validity: A Shared Standard for Qualitative and Quantitative Research attempts to solve a number of theoretical and methodological problems concerning variable viability. In doing so they seek to address four distinct problems within the realms of political science research. They are: how we understand the different types of validity, the debate between content validity and conceptual disputes, provided an alternate solution to adapting indicators for specific context sensitive cases, and finally they have attempted to create an understanding of validity that can be applied for both qualitative and quantitative researchers. In terms of plausibility Addocks and Collier make a …show more content…
This main goal is inherently one of content, wherein he argues that looking at Democracy as a scale, as opposed to an on off state allows for a fuller understanding of democracy. This is a satisfactory research goal, given the context behind it, as if we are to understand democracy, it is important to understand what it is and how it is studied, to this end he puts together a series of methodological tests to prove his overall point about the state of measuring democracy. The indicators they used were to test two commonly held theories in democratic theory using both models of democracy’s in order to show how the variation in the two effect the outcome. The first was a test of the adage that democracies do not make war with each other, using previous research they present the two outcomes on both a graded and dichotomous model, wherein the graded model wads able to be pathed on a graph that showed more directly the correlation between levels of democracy and likelihood to go to war. In terms of quality of data, this data effectively shows the difference between the two conceptions of democracy’s, and how the difference can make a large difference in how we interpret the data about democracy. Though the end result was of similar values, the levels explored in the graded model had a lot more room for exploring …show more content…
As in the other chart, the data presented on Table 2 accurately show how the degrees of democracy effect the length of a regime, and while once again they reached the same conclusion about the state of democracy, the path they took to get there provides has a different and more interesting context regarding the graded model.
In short, the article uses the idea of contrast or Nomological Validity to determine the validity of the dichotomous model of democracy. This is to say that it is can be assumed to be valid so long as it meets the hypothesis we already know to be accurate, as seen in the previous two examples. While both meet this level of validity, Elkins argues that the graded model is a better fit due to the fact that it better shows the relationship between the two