TY - JOUR
T1 - A tale of two cultures
T2 - Contrasting quantitative and qualitative research
AU - Mahoney, James
AU - Goerts, Gary
N1 - Funding Information:
Authors’ note: Both authors contributed equally to this article. Mahoney’s work on this project is supported by the National Science Foundation (Grant No. 0093754). We would like to thank Carles Boix, Bear Braumoeller, David Collier, Scott Desposato, Christopher Haid, Simon Hug, Benjamin I. Page, Charles C. Ragin, Dan Slater, David Waldner, Lisa Wedeen, and the anonymous reviewers for comments on earlier drafts. We also thank students at the 2006 Arizona State Qualitative Methods Training Institute for feedback on a presentation of much of this material.
PY - 2006/6
Y1 - 2006/6
N2 - The quantitative and qualitative research traditions can be thought of as distinct cultures marked by different values, beliefs, and norms. In this essay, we adopt this metaphor toward the end of contrasting these research traditions across 10 areas: (1) approaches to explanation, (2) conceptions of causation, (3) multivariate explanations, (4) equifinality, (5) scope and causal generalization, (6) case selection, (7) weighting observations, (8) substantively important cases, (9) lack of fit, and (10) concepts and measurement. We suggest that an appreciation of the alternative assumptions and goals of the traditions can help scholars avoid misunderstandings and contribute to more productive "cross-cultural" communication in political science.
AB - The quantitative and qualitative research traditions can be thought of as distinct cultures marked by different values, beliefs, and norms. In this essay, we adopt this metaphor toward the end of contrasting these research traditions across 10 areas: (1) approaches to explanation, (2) conceptions of causation, (3) multivariate explanations, (4) equifinality, (5) scope and causal generalization, (6) case selection, (7) weighting observations, (8) substantively important cases, (9) lack of fit, and (10) concepts and measurement. We suggest that an appreciation of the alternative assumptions and goals of the traditions can help scholars avoid misunderstandings and contribute to more productive "cross-cultural" communication in political science.
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U2 - 10.1093/pan/mpj017
DO - 10.1093/pan/mpj017
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:33745425871
SN - 1047-1987
VL - 14
SP - 227
EP - 249
JO - Political Analysis
JF - Political Analysis
IS - 3
ER -