Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) requires researchers to choose calibration and dichotomization thresholds, and these choices can substantially affect truth tables, minimization, and resulting solution formulas. Despite this dependency, threshold sensitivity is often examined only in an ad hoc manner because repeated analyses are time-intensive and error-prone. We present ThSQCA, an R package that automates threshold-sweep analyses by treating thresholds as explicit analytical variables. It provides four sweep functions (otSweep, ctSweepS, ctSweepM, dtSweep) to explore outcome thresholds, single-condition thresholds, multi-condition threshold grids, and joint outcome-condition threshold spaces, respectively. ThSQCA integrates with the established CRAN package QCA for truth table construction and Boolean minimization, while returning structured S3 objects with consistent print/summary methods and optional detailed results. The package also supports automated Markdown report generation and configuration-chart output to facilitate reproducible documentation of cross-threshold results.
翻译:定性比较分析(QCA)要求研究者设定校准阈值和二分阈值,而阈值选择会显著影响真值表、最小化过程及最终解公式。尽管存在这种依赖性,阈值敏感性分析通常仅以应急方式实施,这是因为重复性分析既耗时长又易出错。本文提出R包ThSQCA,通过将阈值作为显式分析变量,实现阈值扫描分析的自动化。该包提供四种扫描函数(otSweep、ctSweepS、ctSweepM、dtSweep),分别用于探索结果阈值、单条件阈值、多条件阈值网格以及结果-条件联合阈值空间。ThSQCA与成熟的CRAN包QCA集成,支持真值表构建与布尔最小化,同时返回具有统一print/summary方法的结构化S3对象,并可选择输出详细结果。该包还支持自动化Markdown报告生成与配置图输出,便于跨阈值结果的可重复性文档记录。