Exercise 1: Short questions (qualitative vs. quantitative strategies)
Please answer the following five short questions, justifying your answers. Please answer each question using a maximum of 150 words.
1. What does the process known as triangulation in data collection refer to? What does it consist of and when is its use most pertinent?
2. What kind of data do quantitative research strategies rely upon? Do quantitative methods only use quantitative data? Please justify your answer.
3. Are interviews considered to be a primary or secondary source of data? What kind of analysis is data obtained from interviews most valuable for, qualitative or quantitative? Please justify your answers.
4. When collecting qualitative data, what are the main techniques of qualitative data analysis? Please briefly explain each type.
5. What are the advantages of a quantitative approach? What are some of the perceptions regarding the efficiency of qualitative approaches compared to quantitative approaches?
Exercise 2: Case assessment
Exercise 2 revolves around the choice between qualitative and quantitative methods of data analysis.
The list below contains 5 cases on issues or topics might be of interest for a researcher in the field of political science and International Relations.
o Please choose 3 out of those 5 cases and answer the questions below.
o Please answer each of the questions using a maximum of 200 words.
o Please make sure to read the cases carefully. Some of them provide only limited information. Your answers should be based on what you are able to deduct from the descriiption of each case.
Questions:
• Choice of method: What methodology is more suitable in this case, a qualitative or a quantitative one? What about mixed methods? Why? Please justify your answer. What would be the potential advantages/ disadvantages of your choice?
• Can you identify some variable/s (factors) that could be of interest to look at for the research project?
• How would you approach the data collection? Which data do you think you could rely on? How would you obtain the data?
• In case you collected your data from the internet, what aspects would you pay attention to in order to ensure the quality and reliability of the data?
Exercise 3: Qualitative vs quantitative methods
First, please read carefully through the descriiption of the three instruments provided below that a researcher can use for data collection in social science research.
Second, please answer the set of questions following the descriiption of each instrument. Please provide your answers in the designated answer box below each instrument.
Please answer each of the questions using a maximum of 150 words per instrument. Answers exceeding the indicated maximum number of words will not be graded.
