| The Idea: | Many students construct a research question before they know whether data exist to answer their question. They also often too willingly pass over a dataset that does not immediately appear to fit their research interests. Students will be able to conduct research more easily and efficiently if they can learn to think more openly about preexisting datasets. |
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| The Question: | How do different individuals examine and interpret the same data in varied ways? |
| A Note: | This exercise (ZIP 10K) offers a tentative set of steps and questions instructors might use to direct students in exploiting the resources offered by ICPSR's Bibliography of Data-Related Literature. Instructors might prefer to rearrange steps and append or eliminate questions, depending upon the goals and unanticipated turns of class discussion. Instructors are welcome to download the directions and questions, edit them to suit their teaching purposes and distribute them at will. |
The Entry ArticleThe proposed article for this exercise is: Krysan, Maria; Farley, Reynolds, "The residential preferences of Blacks: Do they explain persistent segregation?." Social Forces. Mar 2002, 80, (3), 937 - 980. (full text via JSTOR) This article is suitable for undergraduates because:
This article is useful for an exercise drawing on ICPSR's Bibliography of Data-Related Literature because:
(This article is in our Database of Application Articles.) |
Guiding QuestionsGeneralWhat are the authors' main research questions? How do they reframe these questions as hypotheses? How do the authors specify their independent and dependent variables? How do the authors describe the dataset they use to answer their research question? What are the authors' main findings and conclusions? Is the article's argument convincing? Why or why not? SpecificWhy do the authors consider the two hypotheses "competing?" Which hypothesis do their conclusions support? Why do the authors use two measures of black preferences? What problems might emerge when interviewers use the hypothetical neighborhood technique? How does the qualitative data complement what the authors learn from the quantitative data? |
The DataStudent Action Items
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Guiding QuestionsIs the author of the entry article one of the principal investigators for this dataset? How many other scholars who have published off this dataset are also principal investigators? How does the description of the dataset compare to how the authors describe it in the entry article? What are some of the unique features of this dataset? What was the stated purpose of gathering the data for this dataset? How might the purpose have shaped the kinds of questions the researchers asked on the survey? Which items listed in the "Scope of Study" might the principal investigator have intended to be independent variables? Dependent variables? Why? How does one usually know? How would one describe the sample for this dataset? How does the dataset hold up under the criteria for external validity? What might the authors say about this issue? What other research questions could the data from this dataset possibly answer? What research questions could this dataset probably not answer? |
The Related LiteratureStudent Action Items
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Guiding QuestionsHow many works analyze the same dataset as the entry article? How many of these are journal articles? How many individual authors are represented in the list of journal articles? Judging from the titles of the journals, in what disciplines do those who have analyzed this dataset appear to be publishing? Does it appear that those publishing in different disciplines are asking different kinds of research questions? Judging from the titles of these works, how would one characterize the varied ways in which scholars have posed research questions they have tried to answer with this dataset? In comparison to the entry article, are there articles that analyze this dataset that: (a) Use the same variables? (b) Answer the same research question? (c) Discuss the same theories? (d) Contradict the findings of the entry article? Find three titles that have very clearly specified independent and dependent variables. When are the independent and dependent variables obvious from the title and why? |
The Exit ArticleStudent Action Items
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Guiding QuestionsWas the exit article published before or after the entry article? How do the descriptions of the dataset in each article differ? What can one learn about the dataset from the exit article that was unknowable from the entry article (or vice versa)? How do the research questions and conclusions for each article differ? Do the entry and exit articles use the same independent and dependent variables? If not, how do they specify them differently? Do(es) the author(s) mention theoretical or methodological concepts in the exit article similar to concepts that appeared in the entry article? Do(es) the author(s) introduce new concepts? What might these mean? Does the knowledge produced in one of the articles contribute to the knowledge produced in the other? Do(es) the author(s) of either entry or exit article cite the other article? If so, how? |