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Dr. Zhang Dong from Lingnan University, Hong Kong, Gave a Lecture on Survey Experimental Research Method

2018-06-20

The doctoral students’ research program design not only related to write and publish their achievements, but their attention toward other social science fields, such as learning frontier research methods, and pay attention to the “design” of the research. It is also an important goal for ICI to conduct the program of “Research and Practice on doctoral students’ Research Capability Enhancement Mechanism”, which is supported by the Graduate School of East China Normal University. ICI invited experts who come from outside mainland China to teach in person, instructing doctoral students interdisciplinary frontier methods, and improving the quality of doctoral students training, which is now becoming the normalcy in the cultivation of doctoral students in ICI.

On the afternoon of June 15th, Dr. Zhang Dong took political science research as an example, gave a lecture on how to conduct survey experimental research to scholars and students from ICI.

Compared with the traditional survey research, which can only measure the correlation between variables, and hardly can draw a clear causal relationship, the survey experimental research method can solve the problem of causality.

On one hand, the random grouping makes the background variables of each group of participants consistent. When the sample size is large enough, it can be considered that the different groups of participants only have differences in the control variables, thus avoiding the influence of selective bias, so that we can find the causal relationship between variables.

On the other hand, survey experimental research method is particularly useful for studying sensitive issues such as racial discrimination and partisanship. Since these issues often involve personal interests, if they are directly thrown at the participants, the preparedness will prompt them to provide untrue data. Survey experimental research method skillfully solves this problem by inserting these questions into the items, and using the participant's subconscious mind to replace consciousness, so that the acquired data is closer to the possible "truth".

Dr. Zhang Dong introduced the three major research design of survey experimental method in detail, emphasized the detailed requirements for research design, and conducted discussions and exchanges with on-site teachers and students.

As Prof. Chen Shuangye said at the beginning of the lecture, data and tools should serve research design, but the data and tools themselves are not research design. Nowadays, some empirical researchers are obsessed with sophisticated tools and advanced data analysis methods, which instead blind our eyes and blur the criteria when judging a research design. Dr. Zhang Dong's research method provides a new perspective and means for doctoral students to carry out cutting-edge research and promote the transformation of research paradigm.