Laila Shoukry
900192436
Dr. Mostafa Hefny
Intro. To Research Methods
Response 9
Geddes’s article propose a new and interesting phenomenon in the field of research in
Political Science. Geddes argues that the selection of cases to study based on their common factor
(the outcome) will result in “selection bias”. Selection bias is the error that occurs in an experiment
due to the nonrandomization of the participants of the experiment for itself. Thus, without
randomization, the results of the study do not reflect reality, since all participants may share the
same qualities. Geddes argues that selecting the cases based on the result or the ‘dependent
variable’ implies that since the dependent variable is common in all cases, then it can be treated as
a causal factor, which in itself is an error. The effect of such an error will skew the results of the
experiment. Geddes also argues that another error that comes from this selection criteria is that
research will be fast to generalize such results on other cases as well. However, this selection
criteria produces results that are narrow in nature, that can only apply to the cases involved in the
experiment and in some incidents, it can still be falsified.
Geddes’s article is well written and very informative, with the use of examples providing
depth. Thus, the concepts were easy to understand. Geddes also sheds light on a very important
point, that I think many researchers will fall into this error. Thus, Geddes’s article proves to be
very important and emphasized something that I think all Political Science students – who are
future researchers- should be aware of.