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| Preface | |
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| The First Rule: There Should Be the Possibility of Surprise in Social Research | |
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| Selecting a Research Question | |
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| Researchable Questions | |
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| Interesting Questions | |
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| Selecting a Sample | |
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| Samples in Qualitative Studies | |
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| Is Meaningful Social Research Possible? | |
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| Summary | |
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| Student Exercises on Rule 1 | |
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| The Second Rule: Look for Differences That Make a Difference, and Report Them | |
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| You Can't Explain a Variable with a Constant | |
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| Maximizing Variance to Find the Effect of a Cause | |
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| Size versus Statistical Significance | |
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| Comparing Effects Where There Is a Common Metric | |
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| Calibration: Converting Explanatory Variables to a Common Metric | |
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| Substantive Profiling: The Use of Telling Comparisons | |
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| Visual Presentation of Results | |
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| Policy Importance | |
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| Importance for Theory | |
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| Conclusion | |
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| Student Exercises on Rule 2 | |
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| The Third Rule: Build Reality Checks into Your Research | |
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| Internal Reality Checks | |
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| Reality Checks on Data-Dubious Values and Incomplete Data | |
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| Reality Checks on Measures-Aim for Consistency in Conceptualization and Measurement | |
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| Reality Checks on Models-The Formal Equivalence Check | |
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| External Reality Checks: Validation with Other Data and Methods | |
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| Using Causal-Process Observations to Test Plausibility of Results | |
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| Using Ethnographic Data to Help Interpret Survey Results | |
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| Other Examples of Multiple-Method Research | |
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| Concluding Remark | |
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| Student Exercises on Rule 3 | |
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| The Fourth Rule: Replicate Where Possible | |
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| Sources of Uncertainty in Social Research | |
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| Overview: From Population to Sample and Back to Population | |
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| Measurement Error as a Source of Uncertainty | |
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| Illustration: Two Methods for Estimating Global Poverty | |
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| Toward a Solution: Identical Analyses of Parallel Data Sets | |
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| Meta-analysis: Synthesizing Results Formally across Studies | |
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| Summary: Your Confidence Intervals Are Too Narrow | |
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| Student Exercises on Rule 4 | |
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| The Fifth Rule: Compare Like with Like | |
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| Correlation and Causality | |
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| Types of Strategies for Comparing Like with Like | |
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| Matching versus Looking for Differences | |
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| The Standard Regression Method for Comparing Like with Like | |
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| Critique of the Standard Linear Regression Strategy | |
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| Comparing Like with Like Through Fixed-Effects Methods | |
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| First-Difference Models: Subtracting Out the Effects of Confounding Variables | |
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| Special Case: Growth-Rate Models | |
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| Sibling Models | |
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| Comparing Like with Like through Matching on Measured Variables | |
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| Exact Matching | |
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| Propensity-Score Method | |
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| Matching as a Preprocessing Strategy for Reducing Model Dependence | |
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| Comparing Like with Like through Naturally Occurring Random Assignment | |
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| Instrumental Variables: Matching through Partial Random Assignment | |
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| Matching Through Naturally Occurring Random Assignment to the Treatment Group | |
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| Comparison of Strategies for Comparing Like with Like | |
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| Conclusion | |
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| Student Exercises on Rule 5 | |
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| The Sixth Rule: Use Panel Data to Study Individual Change and Repeated Cross-section Data to Study Social Change | |
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| Analytic Differences between Panel and Repeated Cross-section Data | |
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| Three General Questions about Change | |
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| Changing-Effect Models, Part 1: Two Points in Time | |
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| Changing-Effect Models, Part 2: Multilevel Models with Time as the Context | |
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| What We Want to Know | |
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| The General Multilevel Model | |
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| Convergence Models | |
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| The Sign Test for Convergence: Comparing Your [phi]s and [delta]s | |
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| Convergence Model versus Changing-Effect Model | |
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| Bridging Individual and Social Change: Estimating Cohort Replacement Effects | |
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| An Accounting Scheme for Social Change | |
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| Linear Decomposition Method | |
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| Summary | |
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| Student Exercises on Rule 6 | |
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| The Seventh Rule: Let Method Be the Servant, Not the Master | |
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| Obsession with Regression | |
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| Naturally Occurring Random Assignment, Again | |
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| Decomposition Work in the Social Sciences | |
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| Decomposition of Variance and Inequality | |
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| Decomposition of Segregation Indexes | |
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| The Effects of Social Context | |
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| Context Effects as Objects of Study | |
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| Context Effects as Nuisance | |
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| Critical Tests in Social Research | |
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| Conclusion | |
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| Student Exercises on Rule 7 | |
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| References | |
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| Index | |