Suchergebnisse

Kane reviews 'The Australian Political System,' 2nd ed, by David W. Lovell, Ian McAllister, William Maley and Chandran Kukathas.

This case study discusses the many considerations and challenges I encountered while conducting research for my dissertation. I highlight two methods in particular--survey experiments and content analysis--both of which I relied upon heavily while studying partisanship in the U.S. public and depictions of partisanship in mass media in the United States. The case study also offers useful recommendations regarding how to organize a dissertation, obtain survey data, and hold oneself accountable for completing research on time.

Abstract
Survey experiments often yield intention-to-treat effects that are either statistically and/or practically "non-significant." There has been a commendable shift toward publishing such results, either to avoid the "file drawer problem" and/or to encourage studies that conclude in favor of the null hypothesis. But how can researchers more confidently adjudicate between true, versus erroneous, nonsignificant results? Guidance on this critically important question has yet to be synthesized into a single, comprehensive text. The present essay therefore highlights seven "alternative explanations" that can lead to (erroneous) nonsignificant findings. It details how researchers can more rigorously anticipate and investigate these alternative explanations in the design and analysis stages of their studies, and also offers recommendations for subsequent studies. Researchers are thus provided with a set of strategies for better designing their experiments, and more thoroughly investigating their survey-experimental data, before concluding that a given result is indicative of "no significant effect."