Case |
A site under study. |
Outcome |
The result of one or more conditions. |
Condition |
A factor that is associated with an outcome of interest. |
Crisp set |
A type of QCA in which conditions are either “present” or “not present” for each case; conditions are coded as 1 or 0, respectively, for each case. |
Fuzzy set |
A type of QCA in which cases are assigned a value between 0 and 1, based on their degree of membership in the condition. Cases with membership over .5 are considered to be more in than out of a condition, and cases with membership below .5 are considered to be more out than in. |
Necessity |
A condition is necessary if the condition is present every time the outcome is present. |
Sufficiency |
A condition (or combination of conditions) is considered sufficient if the outcome is present each time the condition (or combination of conditions) is present. |
Calibration |
A number that is assigned to a condition to represent a case's degree of membership in that condition. |
Calibration structure |
A framework devised by researchers that breaks each condition down into tangible measures, and breaks each measure down into fuzzy set values. Clear definitions are created for each fuzzy set value. |
Solution pathway |
A combination of two or more conditions that is associated with an outcome. |
Consistency |
A measure of the degree to which cases that follow the same pathway also share the same outcome. |
Coverage |
A measure of the frequency of a given pathway to an outcome. |