Exam 2: Research Methods

Sound social research is required to design effective policy solutions that benefit all people.

Over time,scientists made systematic observations of the heavens and concluded the earth was not at the centre of the solar system.Eventually,even the Catholic Church could no longer support the belief that the Earth was at the centre of everything.Which term best describes this process?

What are explanation and understanding,and why are they important in the social sciences?

Which situation is an accurate depiction of the Hawthorne effect?

Elisa has 1000 participants over the age of 21 for a research project on urban lifestyles,providing people in one group with a car,and another group with public transit passes.What procedure is best for selecting who will be in the group given a car?

Renae has finished her participant observation study and is now ready to analyze the data.Which method is she most likely to use?

A sociologist who owns a Harley-Davidson bike starts hanging out with a biker gang.In addition to the hanging out,he informally conducts interviews with the members,and supplements his research with official statistics and police reports.Then he publishes a book on his work that gives an in-depth insider's look at the structure and process of gang life,contrasted with the official information.His work both confirms some aspects of official data,and explodes some myths about biker gangs.What kind of research is this?

A graduate sociology student proposes a thesis on pool hustlers.A major part of his methodology is to hang out in pool halls,and as a reasonably good pool player he will play games and allow himself to be hustled,and he will use his skill to set up hustles himself.What kind of research is he conducting?

In Canada,the long-form census is mandatory.

Jason had slept in,and after a hurried shower was rushing out the door to school when his mother stopped him and told him to wear a hat to cover his wet hair.Jason asked why and his mother replied,"It's cold outside and if you don't,you'll catch a cold." What was Jason's mother implying?

Which method did Scarce's ethnographic account of salmon,biology,and the social construction of nature rely on the most?

When discussing her research project on family violence,Serena says that she will use official police statistics and data from Statistics Canada as her main source of data.Tom pointed out to her that she may have a problem with validity of her findings.Why would Tom say this?

An experimenter sets up a situation to observe people's behaviour when they are subjected to certain variables that she is testing.However,she begins to suspect that her presence alone is changing the behaviour of the subjects.What is this phenomenon called?

What does the term external validity mean in relation to experimental research?

For many students,the mere mention of research methods provokes a cringing reaction.What was your outlook on the subject matter prior to studying this chapter? What have you learned that you can apply when reading newspaper articles and other reports of research findings? How does understanding the various methods of research help you to acquire a deeper understanding of the social world you live in?

When does the Hawthorne effect occur?

Which technique is often employed by social scientists to eliminate the problem of external validity associated with experiments?

What is the Hawthorne effect? Can you describe a personal experience of yours in which reactivity became an issue?

There is very little difference between the subject matter of the natural and the social sciences.

You conduct a survey with a large introductory class of sociology students,but you want to sample only 30 percent of them.When passing out the survey,you need to make sure that each person in the class has an equal chance of being selected to complete it.What kind of sample have you selected?