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2.8: Key Terms/Glossary

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    76178
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    • Behavioralism: is the study of political behavior and emphasizes the use of surveys and statistics
    • Big data: the mountain of information, in the form of petabytes and exabytes, that is being stored on computers and servers around the world
    • Chicago School: started by Dr. Charles Merriam, a professor at the University of Chicago from 1900 to 1940, that focused on the study of political behavior using surveys and statistics
    • Empiricism: is research that seeks patterns and explanations for general phenomena and specific cases
    • Experiments: laboratory studies in which researchers recruit subjects, randomly assign subjects to a treatment or control condition, and then determine the effect of the treatment on the subjects
    • Institutionalism: the study of political institutions
    • Machine learning: the ability of a computer program to start with an initial model data, analyze actual data, learn from this analysis, and automatically update that initial model to incorporate the findings from its analysis
    • Mixed Methods: the use of both quantitative and qualitative methods of analysis
    • Normative view: the view of what should or ought to be, accounting for personal bias and opinion
    • Positive view: the view of what is, regardless of personal bias or opinion
    • Qualitative: typically, the use of interviews, archival research, and ethnographies to understand politics
    • Quantitative: generally, the use of mathematical models and statistics to measure a relationship between two variables

    This page titled 2.8: Key Terms/Glossary is shared under a CC BY-NC 4.0 license and was authored, remixed, and/or curated by Josue Franco, Charlotte Lee, Kau Vue, Dino Bozonelos, Masahiro Omae, & Steven Cauchon (ASCCC Open Educational Resources Initiative (OERI)) via source content that was edited to the style and standards of the LibreTexts platform; a detailed edit history is available upon request.

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