Deck 14: Appendix: Advertising and Society: an Overview of Sociological Methods

Question 1

How is science different from other ways of knowing?

A) It is completely true
B) It is systematic
C) It is descriptive
D) It is personalized

Answer 1

B

Question 2

Which of the following is the goal of idiographic explanation?

A) Comprehensive understanding
B) Theory testing
C) A list of probable causes
D) Generalization

Answer 2

A

Question 3

Which of the following is the goal of nomographic explanation?

A) Theory generation
B) Theory testing
C) Causal explanation
D) Comprehensive understanding

Answer 3

C

Question 4

Which of the following methodological processes specifies which people, objects, and attributes will be observed in research?

A) Comprehension
B) Explanation
C) Observation
D) Operationalization

Question 5

Which of the following is the most important characteristic of a sample?

A) A sample should be as large as possible
B) A sample should be representative of the population
C) A sample should consist of unusual individuals
D) A sample should be easily accessible to researchers

Question 6

"Men and women respond to sexualized advertising differently." In this statement, gender is:

A) an independent variable
B) a dependent variable
C) an incidental attribute
D) an inconsequential attribute

Question 7

"All humans are mortal. Socrates is human. Therefore, Socrates is mortal." Which of the following methodological concepts does this statement exemplify?

A) Textual analysis
B) Operationalization
C) Deductive reasoning
D) Theory building

Question 8

Which of the following is NOT a characteristic of ethnography?

A) It enables comprehensive understanding of participants
B) It observes naturally occurring behavior
C) It generates qualitative data
D) It requires little time and effort

Question 9

How is participant observation different from ethnography?

A) It is unobtrusive
B) It is conducted "in the field"
C) It generates qualitative data
D) It is suitable for an inductive approach to research

Question 10

Unlike ethnography, survey research:

A) does not use sampling
B) generates less information about a large number of cases
C) can only be used to generate qualitative data
D) is not suitable for hypothesis testing

Question 11

Research has found that people get more leads in job searches from acquaintances than from close friends. Which of the following is the most appropriate method for this kind of study?

A) Participant observation
B) Panel-data analysis
C) Social network analysis
D) Document analysis

Question 12

Which of the following is an advantage of qualitative interviewing?

A) Easiness
B) Low cost
C) Standardization
D) Flexibility

Question 13

Which of the following is NOT a suitable research topic for the focus group method?

A) Intimate relationships
B) Political opinions
C) Responses to advertising messages
D) Usefulness of study groups for test preparation

Question 14

What is the advantage of manifest over latent coding in content analysis?

A) High validity
B) High reliability
C) Low visibility
D) Low cost

Question 15

Which of the following is the best method to examine the frequency of appearances of Native Canadians in TV news broadcasts?

A) Textual analysis
B) Discourse analysis
C) Content analysis
D) Social network analysis

Question 16

Why can experimental results not be generalized to the real world?

A) Because subjects often lie to researchers
B) Because experimental measurements are unreliable
C) Because experimental measurements are imprecise
D) Because subjects know that they are being observed

Question 17

List common mistakes of personal observation in everyday life. How does science attempt to avoid these mistakes?

Question 18

Define ethnography. How can ethnography be made systematic? Illustrate your answer with an example.

Question 19

What are the most important differences between surveys and qualitative interviewing?

Question 20

What are the most important differences between content analysis and textual analysis? Illustrate your answer with one example of each.

Question 21

What is the main advantage and the main disadvantage of laboratory experiments?

Question 22

Define field experiment and describe an example of it. What is its advantage over laboratory experiment?