Deck 13: Methods of Discovery

Question 1

Which statement does NOT characterize commonsense ways of knowing?

A) People privilege their own experiences.
B) People tend to dismiss anything that contradicts what they've already decided is true.
C) People rely on simple heuristics.
D) People seldom accept the first reasonable explanation they come across.

Answer 1

People seldom accept the first reasonable explanation they come across.

Question 2

Heuristics are

A) multistage methods used by professional scholars to test theories.
B) a way of drawing a representative sample for a research study.
C) simple rules that allow people to interpret information without a great deal of thought.
D) a systematic process of carefully evaluating incoming data by using current schema.

Answer 2

simple rules that allow people to interpret information without a great deal of thought.

Question 3

Which is NOT a characteristic of scholarly research?

A) It uses simple heuristics
B) It is self critical
C) It is cyclical
D) It is self-correcting

Answer 3

It uses simple heuristics

Question 4

When we say that research must be replicable, we mean

A) researchers must avoid repeating earlier studies.
B) methods must be so objective that the same results would occur if it were conducted again.
C) research must always include a comparison between a treatment and a control group.
D) research involves inventive ingenuity.

Question 5

Which of the following is an example of an operational definition of credibility?

A) Credibility is the extent to which an individual is perceived as being worthy of belief.
B) Credibility is the amount of informational power a source possesses.
C) Credibility is the score a source achieves on a 7-point scale that asks subjects to indicate their responses to the statement: "I find the source believable."
D) All of the above

Question 6

Which of the following ways of investigating the topic of communication in cults is an example of rhetorical criticism?

A) Join a cult and observe cult members as they communicate.
B) Analyze the values in the cult leaders' speeches.
C) Send questionnaires to ex-members asking them to describe why they joined the cult and what they communicated about in the cult.
D) Take transcripts from cult members' diaries and perform these transcripts before an audience.

Question 7

Which of the following ways of investigating political communication is an example of ethnographic research?

A) Volunteer to work in the campaign of a senate candidate and observe his/her behavior.
B) View videotapes of campaign ads and identify the themes used at various stages of the campaign.
C) Interview a representative group of politicians, asking them to describe and rate strategies used in the campaign.
D) Create two different ads, one that attacks a candidate's opponent and the other than gives positive information about the candidate; show the ads to randomly selected groups of viewers to see which is most effective.

Question 8

Which of the following research questions most clearly calls for content analysis?

A) Is racial tension increasing at a certain high school, as measured by graffiti?
B) How are conversational openings and closing structured?
C) What is the average number of violent acts on prime-time television?
D) How did Mario Cuomo use metaphor to reach multiple audiences in his keynote address at the l984 Democratic National Convention?

Question 9

The research method that is an extension and refinement of the everyday impulse to evaluate and analyze the impact of messages is

A) triangulation.
B) conversational analysis.
C) rhetorical criticism.
D) survey research.

Question 10

A study in which the critic looked at the way cultural products represent a culture's basic ideals and principles would be an example of

A) Burkean dramatistic analysis.
B) unobtrusive measurement.
C) social movement study.
D) social values criticism.

Question 11

Which research method did Conquergood's study of gangs in Chicago use?

A) survey research
B) experimental
C) ethnography
D) performance studies

Question 12

Which of the following survey questions is phrased in an acceptable way?

A) How many ounces of cola beverage do you consume in a week?
B) When you cheat on tests, why do you do so?
C) Do you believe that the way women are portrayed on television as sex objects should be changed?
D) None of the above

Question 13

Vignes used which method in conducting her study of the Katrina survivors?

A) Questionnaire
B) Content analysis of open-ended responses
C) Survey
D) Performance Research

Question 14

Ray's study showed that

A) women never tried to gain the right to vote.
B) most people today don't believe women should be voting.
C) real social change, such as women earning the right to vote, requires hard work and overcoming obstacles.
D) before earning the vote, women would dress up like men to try to register to vote.

Question 15

Which of the following is NOT essential in a well-designed study?

A) use of naturally occurring groups
B) comparison of two or more groups
C) random assignment to treatment groups
D) a post-test

Question 16

According to the studies on reality television, which is NOT a motive for watching reality television programs?

A) The need to escape
B) The need to feel self important
C) An enjoyment of competition
D) To procrastinate from doing homework

Question 17

What was NOT a result of Lee's study on the developmental nature of robots?

A) Students that interacted with the developing robot felt it was more lifelike.
B) Students that interacted with the developing robot experienced more social presence.
C) Students that interacted with the developing robot felt emotionally closer to it.
D) Students that interacted with the developing robot felt that it was annoying.

Question 18

It is not just professional scholars who form and test hypotheses; everyone engages in hypothesis testing.

Question 19

According to your text, commonsense ways of knowing are often more careful and accurate than systematic ways of knowing.

Question 20

Good researchers must make special efforts to find flaws in their arguments and must try to disprove their own theories.

Question 21

In general, researchers should avoid reading previous studies in order to keep an open mind.

Question 22

An operational definition explains how a concept will be measured in a study.

Question 23

The research method that focuses on measures of erosion and accretion is called unobtrusive methods.

Question 24

The research method that describes the content, structure, and function of everyday spoken interaction by examining samples of talk is called conversational analysis.

Question 25

The term used to describe the process of approaching a research question from multiple perspectives is unobtrusive methods.

Question 26

When a critic evaluates a speaker's rhetorical choices, such as modes of proof, organization of argument, and choice of style, the critic is probably using Neo-Aristotelian criticism.

Question 27

According to Ray, the only way a social movement is successful is if it causes immediate, objective change.

Question 28

Ethnographers generally conduct research under controlled, laboratory conditions.

Question 29

Ethnographers begin by making presuppositions about a culture and then test to see if those presuppositions are true.

Question 30

According to Conquergood, gang communication lies somewhere between group and organizational communication.

Question 31

Probability sampling is generally MORE representative than non-probability sampling.

Question 32

Independent variables are hypothesized to cause changes in dependent variables.

Question 33

In general, Lee found that students liked robots that were fully developed.

Question 34

Performance researchers often study rituals such as pageants.

Question 35

The text describes researchers as "professional troublemakers." Explain what is meant by this statement.

Question 36

Why must systematic research be replicable, self-critical, and public? In answering, explain what these concepts mean as well as why they are important.

Question 37

What are the five common tasks in communication inquiry? Explain each task conceptually, then take as an example one of the studies described in the text and show how each task was followed.

Question 38

Describe Ray's study of the woman's suffrage. What research method did she use?

Question 39

Describe Conquergood's study of gang communication. What research method did he use?

Question 40

Describe the two studies on reality television. What research methods did each study use? How were they different?

Question 41

Describe Lee and colleague's study of developing robots. What research method did they use?

Question 42

Describe Vigne's study of Katrina victims. What research method did she use?