Designing Social Inquiry |  | Authors: Gary King, Robert O. Keohane, Sidney Verba
Publisher: Princeton University Press
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Rating:  12 reviews
Sales Rank: 31293
Media: Paperback
Edition: illustrated edition
Pages: 300
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Dimensions (in): 9.2 x 6.1 x 0.7
ISBN: 0691034710
Dewey Decimal Number: 300.72
EAN: 9780691034713
ASIN: 0691034710
Publication Date: May 2, 1994
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Product Description
While heated arguments between practitioners of qualitative and quantitative research have begun to test the very integrity of the social sciences, Gary King, Robert Keohane, and Sidney Verba have produced a farsighted and timely book that promises to sharpen and strengthen a wide range of research performed in this field. These leading scholars, each representing diverse academic traditions, have developed a unified approach to valid descriptive and causal inference in qualitative research, where numerical measurement is either impossible or undesirable. Their book demonstrates that the same logic of inference underlies both good quantitative and good qualitative research designs, and their approach applies equally to each. Providing precepts intended to stimulate and discipline thought, the authors explore issues related to framing research questions, measuring the accuracy of data and uncertainty of empirical inferences, discovering causal effects, and generally improving qualitative research. Among the specific topics they address are interpretation and inference, comparative case studies, constructing causal theories, dependent and explanatory variables, the limits of random selection, selection bias, and errors in measurement. Mathematical notation is occasionally used to clarify concepts, but no prior knowledge of mathematics or statistics is assumed. The unified logic of inference that this book explicates will be enormously useful to qualitative researchers of all traditions and substantive fields.
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Showing reviews 1-5 of 12
 Misunderstanding qualitative inquiry August 31, 2009
Joseph A. Maxwell (Fairfax, VA USA)
4 out of 5 found this review helpful
Several reviewers have commented that this book basically applies quantitative and statistical reasoning to qualitative research, and that the authors make some major errors in doing so. I don't want to address their misunderstandings of statistics, which other reviewers have identified, but to point out that, contrary to those reviewers who think this book "is excellent as a guide to what an optimal qualitative research design should be," KK&V fundamentally misunderstand qualitative research, and attempt to force this into a quantitative framework that completely misses the actual logic and rigor of qualitative inquiry. Their book has, however, been quite influential and controversial, and has prompted several major rejoinders within political science that attempt to correct KK&V's misunderstandings (Henry Brady & David Collier, Rethinking Social Inquiry; Alexander George and Andrew Bennett, Case Studies and Theory Development in the Social Sciences; Gary Goertz & Jack Levy (Eds.), Explaining War and Peace: Case Studies and Necessary Condition Counterfactuals).
Understanding this debate requires noting a peculiarity of qualitative research in political science (often called "case study research" in this field): that qualitative researchers in political science often describe what they're doing in terms of "variables." In almost all other fields, qualitative researchers don't think of what they're doing in terms of variables, but in terms of events and processes. This difference is connected to two quite different ways of understanding causality: the "regularity" view (derived from David Hume's analysis of causality) that defines causality as simply the regular association of variables, and denies that there is anything beyond this (the standard view in philosophy for much of the 20th century), and a "realist," "process," or "causal/mechanical" approach, which has become prominent in philosophy more recently, that sees causality as the actual mechanisms and processes by which one event or phenomenon influences another. I don't have the space to go into this issue in the detail it requires (in philosophy, see Wesley Salmon, Causality and Explanation; Peter Manicas, A Realist Philosophy of Social Science: Explanation and Understanding; for the implications for qualitative research, see my paper "Causal Explanation, Qualitative Research, and Scientific Inquiry in Education," published in Educational Researcher 33(2), pp. 3-11, March 2004). The point is that imposing a "variable" or "regularity" understanding of causality on qualitative research completely misconceives the way in which most qualitative researchers think about what they're doing. For a more accurate understanding of qualitative research design, see my book Qualitative Research Design: An Interactive Approach, or Catherine Marshall & Gretchen Rossman, Designing Qualitative Research.
Joe Maxwell
 perfect tool for students and teachers October 12, 2008
Aurelie in Dublin (Ireland)
0 out of 2 found this review helpful
the KKV (king, Keohane and Verba) is one the best tool for beginners in research for social, political, International Relations students or academics. it delivers advices and problems that researchers will come across at one moment of the research life. it also offers a good overview and critical analysis of what research is.
the authors make sure the heavy subject that is reasearch in social sciences is not too heavy to read. the books approaches the different methodologies that research will have to chose.
if not owned yet, it is in need to be buy and must belong the student private library.
Qualitative quality September 3, 2007
H. Sætra (Norway)
3 out of 4 found this review helpful
A lot of the other reviews give great insight into what this book is and isn't.
I simply want to say that this book is excellent as a guide to what an optimal qualitative reasearch design should be, if it is to be as valid and reliable as possible. Qualitative research seems like a "haven" for researchers that want to follow their "heart" or "feelings", and this book contends unscientific research in a way that surely offends many of these researchers. Not that feelings should be excluded, it's just that the design must be more than a subjective view presented as research, and this book will help, even if you don't agree with everything they say.
All the advantages and disadvantages of statistical reasoning applied to qualitative political science January 29, 2006
Arthur Digbee (Indianapolis, IN, USA)
16 out of 17 found this review helpful
This book takes the basic logic of statistical inference and applies it to qualitative research design in political science. As several reviewers note, it is not a book on statistics, nor indeed does it pretend to be. However, it extends the logic of statistical research design into nonquantitative research.
That much it does very well. By thinking about how to test hypotheses and how to increase variation in a qualitative research design, it has been very influential. Most important, it has sparked extensive criticism, modifying and delineating its claims.
The book has some amusing flaws. Most of the examples come from the authors' colleagues and graduate students at Harvard, which suggests either that good research is not done by people without that connection or that the authors don't read anything written by people who don't have an office down the hall. The two non-quantitative coauthors have both done extensive qualitative research that demonstrably violates the advice given here--both before and after this book. This is evidence that the advice is hard to follow, that they have not read the book, or that good scholars take other factors into consideration when designing research.
The last hypothesis is in fact the right one. There are many factors that go into good research design, and positivistic hypothesis testing provides only a few. Even many of the examples they give are less appropriate than appears at first glance, addressing evidence that goes well beyond what this book's advice would be.
In short, don't rely on this as a bible. Don't believe its claims that all good research must meet these standards. Still, it's a good handbook for what it seeks to accomplish.
This not a stats book October 17, 2005
PolisciMaverick
17 out of 18 found this review helpful
This is a response to reviewers who think this is a stat book. This book is not meant to serve as a stats textbook (if you want one there are plenty of good ones written by statisticians and econometricians). This book is designed to serve as a guide to research design in social science in terms of developing a question, following systematic research procedures and measurement while using qualitative research methods. In that regard it does not do a great job as they are stuck up with applying simplistic statistical techniques (predominantly regression analysis)to qualitative methodology. As a result the work ends up appearing weak to both the statistically inclined (including myself) and those who use predominantly qualitative methods. Arguably the biggest problems with this work is in their treatment of constant dependent variable designs. This arises from their notion of a "causal effect" that is quite different from what qualitative researchers might see as causality. In statistical terms their notion is correct but when we move towards a qualitative interpretation of the same the concept becomes problematic primarily because it is difficult to discern the appropriate differentation between values of the dependent variable in qualitative work.
Nonetheless, this book should be treated on its own terms for attempting to synthesize quantiative and qualitative research methods. This book started a controversy that continues till this day and did a great job in forcing people to actually think more deeply about their research design and methods.
If you want to study statistics or econometrics forget this book (choose what you want to know about....regression analysis, time-series models, bayesian models....your choice). If you want to study qualitative research well read this book but then read Brady and Collier 2002 and George and Bennett 2004. George and Bennett's work is arguably the best book on research design I have ever read.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 12
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