Deck 2: Studying Social Life: Sociology Research Methods

Question 1

According to the scientific method,what are the steps in conducting research and in what order should they be completed?

A) form a hypothesis, define variables, choose research method, collect data
B) form a hypothesis, choose research design, define variables, analyze data
C) define variables, form a hypothesis, choose research design, review the literature
D) analyze data, form a hypothesis, choose research design, define variables

Answer 1

A

Question 2

You are conducting research on violence in the media.In what part of the research process are you engaged if you are trying to decide whether "violence" includes words as well as actions?

A) choosing a topic
B) analyzing the data
C) defining the variables
D) reviewing the literature

Answer 2

C

Question 3

Charles Darwin suggested that,rather than being superior to the rest of the animal kingdom,human beings are simply one part of a larger system governed by natural laws.This radically changed how people thought about almost everything.What would we call this?

A) a paradigm shift
B) an ethical issue
C) an example of reactivity
D) a research proposal

Answer 3

A

Question 4

A paradigm shift is a major break in the assumptions that are used to understand the world.For social scientists,what causes a paradigm shift?

A) the study of history
B) new data forcing a new way of looking at the world
C) religion and theology
D) increased awareness of the current paradigm

Question 5

In recent years,sociologists who study deviance have learned that they can measure the quantities of narcotics consumed by a community by testing its sewage before treatment.What part of the research process would the sociologists be carrying out when they visit the sewage treatment plant to test its sewage?

A) analyzing data
B) forming a hypothesis
C) collecting data
D) developing an operational definition

Question 6

What uses an inductive method that involves collecting data and then generating theory by looking for relationships among categories?

A) grounded theory
B) chaos theory
C) conflict theory
D) scientific theory

Question 7

Lili is conducting a sociological research study on the underground music scene.She has just finished collecting data for the study.What is the next step Lili should take in the scientific method?

A) share findings
B) analyze data
C) provide operational definitions for variables
D) choose a research design or method

Question 8

You want to conduct some sociological research on whether people on social networking sites are less likely to meet in person as a result of their online community participation.What is the next step in the scientific method?

A) conduct a literature review
B) form a hypothesis
C) choose a research design or method
D) collect data

Question 9

Survey research tends to produce quantitative data.One key advantage of this kind of data is that it

A) is easy to transmit to the public.
B) includes observations and informal interviews.
C) allows the researcher to review the literature.
D) affords easy access to the norms, values, and meanings held by members of a group.

Question 10

A social research methods class wants to study smoking.First,the professor asks how many people in the class are smokers.Two people indicate that they are.Then she asks how many people have smoked a cigarette in the past week and ten people indicate that they had.From this,the class decides,for the purposes of the survey,a smoker will be anyone who has smoked a cigarette in the past week and currently owns a pack of cigarettes.This is a(n)

A) operational definition.
B) hypothesis.
C) spurious correlation.
D) ethical challenge.

Question 11

A graduate student is almost done with his dissertation when he is informed that twenty years ago someone did a similar project and already demonstrated what he had hoped to be the first to discover.What basic step of the scientific method should have saved him from this problem?

A) developing an operational definition
B) selecting a research method
C) analyzing data
D) reviewing the literature

Question 12

What is the scientific method?

A) the use of statistics to analyze numerical data
B) the appearance of causation
C) the procedure for acquiring and collecting concrete data
D) research that translates the social world into numbers

Question 13

What will a good researcher always do after formulating a general research question?

A) review the literature relevant to his or her topic
B) clearly define his or her variables
C) look for correlations between at least two phenomena
D) form a hypothesis

Question 14

What do you call broad theoretical models of the social or natural world?

A) paradigms
B) hypotheses
C) interviews
D) grounded theory

Question 15

A sociologist wants to study popular attitudes and perceptions about astrology among college students in California.She believes that people who have astrological signs associated with fire will have a greater knowledge of astrology because fire signs tend to have more interesting and attractive symbolism.What are the variables in this study?

A) astrological signs and knowledge of astrology
B) college students and symbolism
C) popular attitudes and perceptions
D) California and college students

Question 16

In the 1980s,many politicians argued that listening to heavy metal music led teenagers to die by suicide.Though you might find this belief silly,it is a(n)

A) variable.
B) paradigm shift.
C) hypothesis.
D) operational definition.

Question 17

A study found a strong correlation between parental bonding and adolescent drug use.Children with stronger bonds to their parents were far less likely to try drugs or alcohol.However,the researchers,after examining their data more closely,discovered that parental bonding was really a predictor for teen religiosity.Consequently,high levels of religiosity prevent drug use rather than parental bonding.This means that religiosity was a(n)

A) spurious variable.
B) issue of reflexivity.
C) paradigm shift.
D) intervening variable.

Question 18

A famous social scientist tells you that the most important task in her research was entering the social world of the people she was studying.What can you say about this researcher?

A) She worries about ethical issues in her research.
B) She is a qualitative researcher.
C) She cannot use interviews as a methodology.
D) She exclusively uses quantitative methods.

Question 19

You are doing a research project on the effects of contemporary media.What are your variables if your hypothesis is "watching violence on television causes an increase in violent behavior"?

A) violence on television and violent behavior
B) watching television and violence on television
C) watching nonviolent television
D) causes of violent behavior

Question 20

Jai is conducting a sociological research study on differences in interactions between similar and dissimilar co-workers.After reviewing the literature,he developed a hypothesis and has operationalized the variables he will study.What is the next step Jai should take in the scientific method?

A) identify a problem or ask a question
B) analyze data
C) choose a research design or method
D) collect data

Question 21

Ethnographers using participant observation must always be aware of reflexivity,which occurs because

A) participants may not consider their own motivations and act out of reflex.
B) ethnographers' conclusions may not be applicable to any larger group.
C) the presence of ethnographers may alter the behavior of the people they are observing.
D) ethnographers intervene in the lives of the people they are studying.

Question 22

What are the goals of ethnography?

A) to develop quantitative data sets that allow researchers to discover correlations
B) to conduct interviews with people who have very different ways of life
C) to understand the meanings people attach to their activities
D) to develop ethics and standards for sociological research

Question 23

What does it mean if a sample of sociological research is representative?

A) The researcher has avoided any overt bias.
B) The research has been conducted systematically using the scientific method.
C) A smaller group of people studied can tell us something about a larger group.
D) The researcher avoided using any double-barreled questions.

Question 24

In her ethnography Wheeling & Dealing,Patricia Adler investigates the social and professional worlds of midlevel cocaine and marijuana smugglers.Her research started unexpectedly when she discovered that her next-door neighbor and friend was a drug smuggler.This was a huge advantage for her because it meant that she already had ________ with one of her informants.

A) informed consent
B) rapport
C) sampling
D) causation

Question 25

Which method of social research might involve shifting between participating in a social situation and being an observer?

A) interviews
B) surveys
C) comparative-historical research
D) ethnography

Question 26

Which of the following is a DISADVANTAGE of using ethnography as a method of social research?

A) Participants are self-selected.
B) Participants are not completely honest when asked to describe their attitudes and behaviors.
C) It is difficult for another researcher to repeat or replicate any particular ethnography.
D) Ethnographies tend to have ethical problems that are of central concern to most sociologists.

Question 27

Which of the following is an advantage of using ethnography to study social life?

A) Ethnography is a quick and easy form of social science research.
B) Ethnography requires the researcher to spend little time gaining familiarity with research subjects.
C) Ethnography allows the researcher to gather abundant data on a small population.
D) Ethnography requires no training since it is something we all do as human beings.

Question 28

In their ethnography Promises I Can Keep: Why Poor Women Put Motherhood before Marriage,Kathryn Edin and Maria Kefalas studied the realities of single motherhood for poor,urban women.Before beginning their research,they immersed themselves in the community.Edin moved her family to the city and they both volunteered in community programs.Immersing themselves in the community is an example of

A) gaining access.
B) field notes.
C) thick description.
D) sampling.

Question 29

The sociologist Mitch Duneier wrote his ethnography Sidewalk about street vendors in New York City's Greenwich Village.While writing the book,Duneier was particularly concerned that the people he was studying would alter their behavior when he was present,especially since his background was different from theirs.This caused him to think critically about his activities and role as a researcher.What do sociologists call this?

A) response rate
B) reflexivity
C) validity
D) thick description

Question 30

When engaging in participant observation,researchers can study others as well as themselves.
Research that focuses on one's own thoughts,feelings,and experiences is known as

A) life history.
B) autoethnography.
C) internal investigation.
D) content analysis.

Question 31

Which of the following research techniques focuses on gaining an insider's perspective of the everyday lives of subjects under investigation,often dispelling stereotypes about the group being investigated?

A) participant observation
B) surveys
C) analysis of existing data
D) experiments

Question 32

In his research,the ethnographer Richard Mitchell kept his identity a secret while studying militant survivalist groups.Sometimes he even presented himself as a believer in the survivalists' paranoid,racist ideologies,in order to establish

A) reflexivity.
B) thick description.
C) rapport.
D) replicability.

Question 33

Julie Bettie wrote her ethnography Women without Class: Girls,Race,and Identity to examine the role of race and class in the lives of girls in California's Central Valley.She did most of her work at a high school,hanging out with students and writing down her observations.What do ethnographers call her written observations?

A) interviews
B) representativeness
C) nonverbal communication
D) field notes

Question 34

What kind of research are you doing if you observe a group in order to determine its norms,values,rules,and meanings?

A) comparative historical
B) quantitative
C) qualitative
D) applied

Question 35

If changing one variable seems to lead to a change in another variable,this shows ________ but does not necessarily prove ________.

A) a paradigm shift; causation
B) correlation; causation
C) causation; correlation
D) applied research; a paradigm shift

Question 36

Frances is assigned a research project in which she is to attend a celebratory family meal and analyze her experiences as she participates in the meal.She is asked to make a detailed account of the meal that includes her thoughts and feelings about the event.What type of research is Frances assigned?

A) comparative-historical
B) survey
C) autoethnography
D) experiment

Question 37

What does it mean if ethnographers are overt about their roles?

A) They maintain narrow and limited definitions of appropriate research methodologies.
B) They spend a great deal of time reflecting on their roles in the research process.
C) They observe and record data without letting anyone know they are doing research.
D) They openly admit that they are doing sociological research.

Question 38

A researcher must identify a target population before engaging in sampling.What is the target population?

A) the group of people whose behavior he or she wishes to change
B) the group of people from whom he or she will gather data
C) the group of people least often studied in the past
D) the larger group of people about whom he or she wishes to generalize

Question 39

Which methodology MOST closely resembles the scientific method?

A) ethnography
B) survey research
C) experimental research
D) interviews

Question 40

Sociologists who conduct interviews can only gather data from a limited number of people because

A) it is impossible to find enough people through a random sample.
B) researchers are only allowed to talk to people who are eighteen and older.
C) it is extremely difficult to guarantee confidentiality to large groups.
D) interviews are too time-consuming.

Question 41

Researchers are often worried that interviewees have not been completely honest or forthcoming,especially when asked about sensitive subjects.How did Arlie Hochschild attempt to deal with this problem?

A) She asked each question in a different way to try to trap respondents in contradictions.
B) She interviewed spouses separately to see if their stories matched.
C) She observed some respondents as they went about their daily routines to see if their actions matched their answers.
D) She confronted respondents when they gave answers that seemed dubious.

Question 42

A research team is curious about the relationship between exercise habits and academic performance among American college students.In order to get their data,the researchers randomly select seventeen colleges by pulling names out of a hat.They travel to campuses and stand in prominent public places asking for volunteers until they have ten people from each campus willing to be interviewed.What is the researchers' target population?

A) students at the seventeen colleges they visited
B) the 170 students who were interviewed
C) young people
D) American college students

Question 43

Arlie Hochschild was concerned that her sample of interviewees was too small to guarantee representativeness.How did Hochschild attempt to overcome this problem?

A) by deciding that she did not need to generalize to any larger population
B) by asking only open-ended questions
C) by doing follow-up interviews with each interviewee
D) by comparing information about her interviewees with a national survey

Question 44

In her research for The Second Shift,Arlie Hochschild interviewed married couples to find out how they dealt with changing family roles as more women entered the workforce.What advantages came from her decision to use interviews as a research method?

A) It allowed her to include a large group of people in the study.
B) It ensured that the respondents were always honest and forthcoming about their family lives and marital roles.
C) It allowed her to gather direct quotations and construct an intimate portrait of married couples.
D) It created both a control group and an experimental group and allowed Hochschild to compare them.

Question 45

Every four years,when it is time to elect a new president,we pay much attention to surveys,which we usually call "polls." Even though there are more than 300 million people in the United States,most political pollsters ask about a thousand people who they plan to vote for and use that information to predict how the election will turn out.Who is the sample for a presidential poll?

A) every person who is planning on voting
B) every American
C) people who have strong political opinions
D) the 1,000 people who are asked whom they will vote for

Question 46

Maria is worried about the representativeness of her study.She is conducting interviews,but each one seems to last at least five hours.What strategy might she use to increase her sample size given that she only has one month to collect her data?

A) end interviews at two hours whether or not all questions have been answered
B) conduct a focus group
C) ask only open-ended questions
D) request that respondents write out answers during interviews instead of answering verbally

Question 47

Why do social scientists who use interviews rarely speak with large numbers of people for a project?

A) It is hard to find people willing to be interviewed.
B) There are usually very few people interesting enough to be interviewed.
C) Face-to-face interviewing is a very time-consuming process.
D) The data is so rich that few interviews are typically needed.

Question 48

Researchers must avoid negative questions when writing a survey,which are defined as questions that

A) ask about two different topics.
B) let the respondent know how the researcher hopes he or she will answer.
C) belittle or insult a group or individual.
D) ask respondents what they do not think rather than what they think.

Question 49

Some researchers suggest that interviews give "voice" to people who may never have been heard before and offer privileged access to authentic experience,private worlds,and true selves.How do interviews do this?

A) Interviews may contribute to unfair stereotypes.
B) Interviews are relatively quick and economical and can provide a vast amount of data.
C) Interviews allow respondents to speak in their own words, which can reveal their thoughts, feelings, and beliefs.
D) Respondents are not always forthcoming or truthful, are sometimes difficult to talk to, and may try too hard to be helpful.

Question 50

Researchers usually transcribe responses after they conduct a series of interviews.The transcription process is fairly time-consuming,but it is valuable,in part,because it allows researchers to

A) look for patterns in their data.
B) check for bias in how they asked questions.
C) think up new questions they did not ask.
D) determine the average age of their interviewees.

Question 51

It is always important to ask clear and unambiguous questions regardless of the method you use.Why is it especially important to avoid confusion when conducting surveys?

A) Survey research methods commonly use statistics.
B) Survey researchers are usually not present to clarify any misunderstandings.
C) Survey researchers talk to many people.
D) Survey researchers tend to look at large-scale social patterns.

Question 52

What kind of question usually produces a wide variety of responses by allowing respondents to answer in whatever way seems appropriate to them?

A) closed-ended
B) open-ended
C) double-barreled
D) leading

Question 53

Which of the following is an advantage of using interviews as a research method?

A) They allow the researcher to maintain strict control of the data-collection process.
B) They reveal attitudes and beliefs not accessible by any other means.
C) They can affirm preconceptions and stereotypes.
D) They allow researchers to analyze data statistically and draw correlations.

Question 54

Survey researchers often use Likert scales to construct the possible answers when they write closed-ended questions.How do Likert scales allow respondents to answer?

A) They allow respondents to answer along a continuum from "strongly agree" to "strongly disagree."
B) They allow respondents to answer with their own opinions.
C) They allow respondents to answer simply such as true/false or yes/no.
D) They encourage respondents to include detailed responses.

Question 55

Imagine that you are trying to rewrite a survey.You find a multiple-choice question that asks,"What is your favorite recreational activity?" and gives three response options: watching television,shopping,or sports.You add a fourth response option,"other," and invite respondents to write an activity of their choice.What kind of question have you just made?

A) open-ended
B) quantitative
C) reductionist
D) closed-ended

Question 56

What is it that interviewers seek when asking a respondent for his or her life history?

A) a chronological account of the respondent's life
B) biographical information on the maternal side
C) detailed accounts of early childhood memories
D) a genealogical map of family ancestry

Question 57

A closed-ended question is one that

A) allows for a wide variety of responses.
B) encourages respondents to answer creatively.
C) limits the possible responses.
D) can only be answered orally.

Question 58

Researchers should try to avoid double-barreled questions or questions that

A) ask about multiple issues.
B) use emotional language that may bias the respondent.
C) are vague or ambiguous.
D) have a hidden agenda.

Question 59

What does it mean if a researcher has obtained informed consent from all of his or her participants?

A) Participants have all agreed to participate in the study for monetary compensation.
B) Participants understand the nature of the research and are participating freely.
C) The confidentiality of all participants has been guaranteed.
D) Participants have conducted a literature review.

Question 60

A professor has been commissioned by a college to do research on its new academic system.The college has moved from a semester system to block scheduling.One of the questions asked is,"How have teachers and students responded to the new intensive block scheduling system?" What is this is an example of?

A) leading question
B) double-barreled question
C) closed-ended question
D) reflexivity

Question 61

The Yale sociologist Kai Erikson wrote a book called Wayward Puritans in which he drew on court records from colonial Massachusetts.He learned that the rate of out-of-wedlock births was much higher than it is now and that the amount of alcohol consumed per capita was higher as well.What research methodology was Erikson using?

A) ethnography
B) comparative-historical research
C) interviews
D) surveys

Question 62

What methodology would you use if you were to conduct a research project investigating the relationship between smoking and gender in blockbuster films?

A) quantitative research
B) content analysis
C) comparative or historical research
D) interviews

Question 63

Why would mentioning a sensitive issue,such as divorce or infidelity,in a survey question influence how respondents answer later questions?

A) Questions about sensitive issues are double-barreled.
B) The respondents may think about the sensitive issue when answering later questions.
C) Sensitive questions make the questionnaire confusing and difficult to fill out.
D) Sensitive questions spoil the representativeness of the researcher's sample.

Question 64

What is a pilot study?

A) a smaller study used to investigate the feasibility of a larger one
B) a study designed to improve the target population of a larger study
C) a study that concerns itself with media use and popular culture
D) a study that definitively answers a question that has been bothering sociologists

Question 65

For a survey to be considered valid,there must be a sufficiently

A) large target population.
B) large number of existing sources.
C) large pilot study.
D) high response rate.

Question 66

One of the key methods used to do political polling is random-digit dialing,in which every phone number in an area code has an equal chance of being selected to take part in a survey.However,researchers have noticed that young people are more likely to only use a cell phone and people with cell phones are less likely to answer a call from an unknown number.As a result,polling organizations often count responses from young people as being worth "more" than those from older people so that age,in the sample,is more accurately representative of the larger population.What is this technique called?

A) weighting
B) bias
C) probability sampling
D) Likert scales

Question 67

The analysis of documents such as medical records,photographs,diaries,letters,newspapers,and song lyrics uses which of the following types of data?

A) ethnographic field notes
B) interview transcripts
C) existing sources
D) experimental data

Question 68

Why are respondents often more comfortable addressing sensitive subjects on surveys than in other research contexts?

A) They know that many other people will also answer the same questions.
B) They know that their answers will only be analyzed statistically.
C) They can answer in private and are usually assured of anonymity.
D) Surveys guarantee that their answers will be confidential, while other methods do not.

Question 69

What research method is a sociologist using if he or she watches a lot of television and counts the number of times women play roles with lower status than those played by men?

A) experimental research
B) content analysis
C) ethnography
D) interview

Question 70

Which of the following is a DISADVANTAGE of using existing sources of data for research?

A) Researchers often seek answers to questions the data does not directly address.
B) Researchers have to spend a great deal of time and money to get the data.
C) Researchers do not have access to existing sources.
D) Existing sources are irrelevant to the contemporary world because they are from a different time and place.

Question 71

Why are social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter so exciting to sociologists who study social networks?

A) For the first time, social networking sites offer sociologists a data set rich enough to test ideas that, until now, have only been theorized.
B) For the first time, sociologists do not have to spend the time and money to go talk to people and can do all their work from a computer.
C) For the first time, sociologists can find out what young people's social networks look like.
D) For the first time, sociologists can track the spread of urban legends.

Question 72

The consistency of a measurement tool,or the degree to which the same questions will produce similar answers,refers to

A) reliability.
B) ground theory.
C) unobtrusive measures.
D) value-free sociology.

Question 73

A researcher studying a particular community looks through the community's trash and litter.What best describes this research method?

A) experiment
B) content analysis
C) comparative historical research
D) unobtrusive measures

Question 74

A sociologist uses a survey to study the attitudes of adults in the United States concerning premarital sex among teenagers.In this study,the target population consists of all ________ and the group that is asked the survey questions is called the ________.

A) teenagers in the United States; reference group
B) teenagers in the United States who have engaged in premarital sex; experimental group
C) adults in the United States; sample
D) adults in the United States who have teenage children; units of analysis

Question 75

When conducting experiments,how is the experimental group different from the control group?

A) The experimental group includes people who are very different from those in the control group.
B) The experimental group is administered the dependent variable while the control group is not.
C) The experimental group is administered the independent variable while the control group is not.
D) The control group is administered the independent variable while the experimental group is not.

Question 76

What are researchers doing when they use a social networking site like Facebook to obtain data?

A) being ethically questionable
B) doing qualitative research
C) using interview data
D) using existing sources

Question 77

A simple random sample is defined as a sample

A) with only one variable.
B) that takes into account other demographic variables.
C) that weights one variable more than another.
D) that provides the same chance of being included to every member of the population.

Question 78

Why do high schools often use surveys rather than a more direct form of communication like interviews when they ask students about sensitive subjects like drug use or sexual health?

A) Surveys allow respondents to speak in their own words and can reveal respondents' thoughts, feelings, and beliefs.
B) Surveys allow researchers to ask much more complex questions than they could with any other methodology.
C) Surveys allow students to answer the questions in private and assure the confidentiality of their responses.
D) Surveys are more expensive and allow for larger staffs and budgets.

Question 79

Sometimes survey researchers reject randomness and instead use weighting techniques to construct a sample.How is a weighted sample different from a random one?

A) The weighted sample does not target any specific group within the population.
B) The weighted sample attempts to more closely resemble the larger population.
C) A weighted sample excludes some members of the population.
D) A weighted sample draws from a larger target population rather than a random one.

Question 80

What is the primary goal of comparative and historical research methods?

A) to enhance the validity of experiments
B) to understand relationships between parts of society in various regions and time periods
C) to uncover issues that have been neglected by mainstream social research
D) to select participants who are very similar so that the independent variable can be isolated