CORA: An Open-Source Software Tool for Combinational Regularity Analysis.

Area of Science:

• Social Sciences
• Methodology
• Data Analysis

Background:

• Configurational Comparative Methods (CCMs) like Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) and Coincidence Analysis (CNA) are increasingly used.
• A novel CCM, Combinational Regularity Analysis (CORA), has recently emerged.
• There is a need for accessible tools to implement and understand new CCMs.

Purpose of the Study:

• To provide a software tutorial for the open-source CORA package.
• To demonstrate the application of CORA for discovering shared causes of complex effects.
• To guide users in interpreting CORA solutions and visualizing results.

Main Methods:

• Introduction to the CORA method and its underlying principles.
• Step-by-step guidance on using the CORA open-source software package.
• Explanation of techniques for mining configurational data and identifying solution-generating inputs.

Main Results:

• Demonstration of how CORA can identify minimum-size tuples of solution-generating inputs.
• Illustrations of how to correctly interpret the solutions generated by CORA.
• Guidance on visualizing complex causal relationships using logic diagrams.

Conclusions:

• The CORA package offers a practical tool for social scientists to apply a new CCM.
• CORA facilitates the discovery and interpretation of complex causal configurations.
• The tutorial enables researchers to effectively utilize CORA for analyzing configurational data.