Research methodology confusion.

[jkaasik]

I'm applying for PhD Programs this fall and am a bit frustrated with trying to figure out what to write in my SOP regarding research methodology. I've always been more of a qualitative methods person, but I have taken a couple statistics courses and am interested in developing that as well. All that to say, I'm hoping to do a bit of both qual and quant.

 

What I DON'T understand is if that is enough to say (obviously more eloquently) in my sop or do I need to be significantly more specific? I'm also having a hard time establishing a good "fit" with certain departments/professors from the methods perspective, because I don't know if I'm generally just supposed to find out if they are quant-heavy, qual-heavy, or mixed? Or should I be looking for something much more specific in their research? 

If anyone could help, I'd really appreciate it! 

 

(About me: I just graduated this spring with a MA in international commerce and policy (mostly political economy) with a GPA of 3.71. My gre scores are 165V153Q and not sure about AWA yet. I have some research assistant experience but not tons. I'm hoping to study on European political economy and have done 2 traineeships with the European Parliament. Specifically, I want to focus on economic governance.)

[GopherGrad]

I think it's best to identify a research interest and a way that you would go about analyzing and solving the puzzles that remain in that interest. Once you're there, you can ask what kind of methods are best.

 

In general, you can make a case for mixed methods in just about any interest area, but it's more convincing in some than in others. Comparative nationalism might employ some surveys that require you to prove statistically that associations between responses were not random, but you'll have to do process tracing and historical analysis to make any sort of convincing case. Voter behavior is maybe the opposite; you can get some leverage from attempting to trace particular influences on a given voter and then generalize, but you can't possibly avoid using large-n surveys or experiments that will have to be justified statistically.

 

Making an argument that you need training in partcular types of methods to solve particular types of puzzles not only communicates your personal methodological bias or interest, it also signals that you understand methods to be the ways that you go about gathering and analyzing data and that there are certain tools for certain jobs.

 

Your own field would appear to have puzzles best solved using a wide variety of tools. If you are interested in the associations between particular types of financial or economic policies and later performance, you'll likely be doing a lot of coding and quant work. If you are interested in explaining the history or comparative internal politics of these institutions, that seems to be more qual. At some point, you may want to tie those questions together, at which point you'll need both.

[jkaasik]

Thanks for the response, GopherGrad. I appreciate the input. I suppose my problem right now has been that while I have a relatively well defined area of interest, I don't have any particularly well defined research questions...  

By the way, when I said I'm interested in European political economy, I should have elaborated. I'm referring specifically to the European Union as an entity. I realize that this necessarily encompasses the comparative political economy of member states to some extent, though.