PA 705
Fall 2004

Homework Assignment #2

Evaluating Published Quantitative Research

Due: Sept. 15

Please also bring to class a 1 or 2 sentence description of your tentative proposed research topic for the prospectus required in this class.

Evaluating Quantitative Research

Please refer to the article, “Mission Change in a Federal Agency and its Link to Employee Transfer Preferences,” by Douglas Ihrke (American Review of Public Administration, June 2004) and answer the following questions:

1. Does the author make a clear statement as to the purpose of his study?  If so, what is it?
2. Does the author identify a deficiency in the current literature that this study is designed to fill?  If so, what is it?
3. Does the author spell out the hypothesis(es) he will test? Do these hypotheses make sense in light of literature reviewed? (Give an example of where one part of the hypothesis is supported or not supported by the literature).
   
    
4.  What is the unit of analysis in this study; i.e., what or whom is he drawing conclusions about? 
5. What methodology is used in this study? Specifically,
   1. What is the method of data collection?
      
       
   2. What is the population from which data are collected?  Is this population appropriate, given the research question asked here?
      
       
   3. What is the dependent variable(s)?  How is it operationalized and measured? Does this appear to be a reasonable way to operationalize this concept?
      
       
   4. What are the independent variable(s)? How are they operationalized and measured? What level of measurement is used (e.g., nominal, interval. . .? )
      
       
   5. Are any intervening variables mentioned? If so, what are they and how are they operationalized and measured? If not, do you think any intervening variables could have moderated the relationship between the independent and dependent variable that should have been included?
   6.  Does the author address issues of the reliability and validity of their measures? If so, how? If not, how could reliability and validity have been addressed?
       
6. In your view, are there any major flaws in the research design?
7. As a public manager supervising a workforce such as that addressed in this article, would you find it useful? 
8. Does the author use citations appropriately to back up statements of fact and refer to previous research?  Do the citations and reference list provide complete information such that you could find the studies they refer to if you wanted to?