Table 1 Key terms in qualitative comparative analysis (QCA)
Key term | Definition |
|---|---|
Necessity | A condition is necessary if it is always present when the outcome is present |
Raw coverage | Percentage of total cases covered by a path (number of cases divided by the total number of cases) |
Unique coverage | Percentage of the total cases covered only in this path (number of unique cases divided by the total number of cases) |
Solution coverage | The extent to which all combinations of conditions cover the cases |
Truth table | All the condition combinations empirically found |
Consistency | Degree of association between the conditional combinations of the results of truth table operations and the realistic combinations of the sample cases |
Crisp set QCA (csQCA) | This form of QCA allows only binary forms of conditions. In set theory terms, conditions fall in (labelled as 1) or out (labelled as 0) of the sets |
Solution | All the paths that result from the analysis. There are three types of solution: complex, intermediate and parsimonious |
Complex solution | No assumptions are made about the logical remainders in this solution |
Intermediate solution | Uses a combination of both theory and the empirical cases to determine the paths. The empirical paths will never be contradicted in this solution |
Parsimonious solution | The most simple solution that uses mainly theory with the empirical cases to derive the path solutions |