thoughts on QCA solutions please

[Sarah Wang]

Hi everyone in the QCA community, 

I have been running an analysis using QCA in the topic related to national maths performance. In this paticular analysis,  I have 40 cases, 7 conditions. Reducing any of the 7 conditions made less cases explained. 

It is also obvious that these cases are heterogeneous (e.g., all the cases within the set of the outcome are listed in individual rows in the truthtable)

The conservative solutions and parsimonious solutions are shown in the attachment. 

Could I please ask for your insights related to:

1. Do you think conservative solutions and parsimonious solutions are too descriptive so they are difficult to publish?  This may vary according to disciplines and different journals. If you could share some of your thoughts about it, that would be wonderful for me to consider. 

2. Can QCA be applied to such a project, when cases are very heterogeneous? Why or why not? 

3. If it is you, would you choose the conservative solutions or parsimonious solutions? (parsimonious solutions in this case are not that parsimonious). 

Thank you so much in advance

Kind regards

Sarah