Presidential Debates Effect

2. This question is crucially important for a variety of reasons, as the authors point out. First and foremost, of course, is that debates purport to help citizens cast their all-important votes in our democratic society. By placing candidates together on the same stage, debates allow the viewing public to see how the candidates interact with each other and how the react to difficult questions. Debates allow viewers to watch the candidates discuss the issues that may be of importance to them. And while debates regularly draw large viewership, not much is known about their tangible effects on election outcomes.

3. In order to answer this question, the researchers will test seven hypotheses in a meta-analysis of a number of different studies:

Presidential debate watching increases knowledge of candidates issue stands

Presidential debate watching increases issue salience (number of issues used to evaluate candidates).

Presidential debate watching affects preference for one candidate's issue positions over another's.

Presidential debate watching has an agenda setting effect (influences perceptions of the relative importance of issues).

Presidential debate watching affects perceptions of the candidates' character (e.g. honesty, compassion, morality).

Presidential debate watching affects perceptions of can

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used, however, appears to be whether the study showed a statistically significant effect for that given variable. The reviewers then combined the study results for a given variable to generate an overarching significance calculation for that variable. 7. This study is a meta-analysis. This means that the data collected was actually parsed out of a number of different randomized controlled trials of debate viewing. As previously mentioned, the reviewers coded nine studies together to refine their coding procedures. They then analyzed the studies using these procedures to monitor the effects each study showed for those variables. The researchers do not appear to mention validity outright, though they do suggest that some of the studies reviewed had larger sample sizes and are thus more reliable. But they do not mention whether this was quantified into a control variable or not. They also do not mention some of the internal validity issues involved with their own meta analysis. They mention the joint coding, but do not give details about how the coding proceeded afterwards. They do not mention if they conducted any checks to see whether their coders were in fact sticking to the procedures. Additionally, the fact that
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