Study Questions
Conceptual Frameworks: Theory and Measurement

Fourth Class Period
POSI 5335

I. Mendoza, Richard. “Explaining the Affects of Public Participation and the state of the local economy on Municipal Bond Elections” (http://ecommons.txstate.edu/arp/256/).

1. Answer the following questions about the purpose and conceptual framework:

a. What is the ARP trying to accomplish?

b. Specify two hypotheses.

c. How do the hypotheses help Richard Mendoza accomplish his objective?

d. Identify or name the most basic building blocks of the hypotheses [there should be at least two per hypothesis]. The basic building blocks of the hypothesis are sometimes referred to as the concepts or elements of the hypothesis.

2. Answer the following questions about the methods:

a. What research technique or methodology was used?

b. For each hypothesis specified above, what is the dependent variable? How does the dependent variable correspond to the building blocks? How was the variable operationalized?

c. Fore each hypothesis identified above, what is the independent variable? How does the independent variable correspond to the building blocks? How was the variable operationalized?

3. Answer the following questions about the statistics:

a. What statistical test was used to test the hypotheses?

b. What evidence was used to test the hypotheses?

II. Ben-Dor, Gabriel; Pedahzur, Ami; Hasisi, Badi. 2002. Israel’s national security doctrine under strain: The crisis of the reserve army. Armed Forces & Society. 28 (2): 233-255.

1. Answer the following questions about the purpose and conceptual framework:

a. What is this article trying to accomplish?

b. Specify two hypotheses.

c. How do the hypotheses help Ben-Dor et al. accomplish their objective?

d. Identify or name the most basic building blocks of the hypotheses identified above [there should be at least two per hypothesis]. The basic building blocks of the hypothesis are sometimes referred to as the concepts or elements of the hypothesis.

2. Answer the following questions about the methods:

a. What research technique or methodology was used?

b. For each hypothesis identified above, what is the dependent variable? How does the dependent variable correspond to the building blocks? How was the variable operationalized?

c. For each hypothesis identified above, what is the independent variable? How does the independent variable correspond to the building blocks? How was the variable operationalized?

3. Answer the following questions about the statistics:

a. Specify the mean(s) of the dependent variable for each hypothesis. Specify the mean(s) of the independent variable for each hypothesis. Interpret.

b. What statistical test was used to test the hypotheses?

c. What evidence was used to test the hypotheses?