Deck 3: Studying the Social World

Question 1

What role do values play in sociological research?

A) Values have no part in shaping the research interests of sociologists.
B) Values influence sociologists' research questions, but they do not determine findings.
C) Values determine findings almost exclusively in sociological research.
D) Values have very little influence on sociologists' research questions, but they impact findings in significant, albeit hidden, ways.

Answer 1

B

Question 2

Qualitative research relies on __________.

A) standardized surveys
B) words, observations, or pictures
C) statistical analysis of data
D) extended cases

Answer 2

B

Question 3

What is an institutional review board?

A) a body that reviews colleges to assure that institutions sustain viable research
B) a body that reviews researchers' proposals before work begins in order to assess potential harm and possible benefits to participants
C) a body that certifies participants for research study inclusion
D) a body of sociologists that decides which research questions should be officially endorsed by the American Sociological Association

Answer 3

B

Question 4

In a hypothesis about crime that makes a causal claim that an increase in the level of inequality in society will result in an increase in the crime rate in that society, __________ is the dependent variable.

A) the crime rate
B) the level of equality
C) the level of inequality
D) the ratio of crime to inequality

Question 5

For which of the following reasons do sociologists and other social scientists abide by codes of ethics?

A) Government regulations require all sociologists to abide by these standards.
B) Given the nature of their research, social scientists must commit to do no harm to those they study.
C) Codes of ethics affect the validity of a project's findings.
D) Scientists, as a group, tend to be highly competitive and have always readily endorsed the usefulness of such codes in keeping other scientists in check.

Question 6

Which of the following statements about a code of ethics and sociological research is true?

A) Sociologists often disagree about the contents of their code of ethics.
B) The sociological code of ethics is not relevant for human subjects.
C) All social scientists commit to a shared code of ethics.
D) Informed consent satisfies the requirements of the code of ethics.

Question 7

Sociologists are usually committed to a particular __________ they use to make sense of the world.

A) religious ideology
B) research topic
C) theoretical tradition
D) code of ethics

Question 8

In hindsight, what was the primary flaw of the Stanford Prison Experiment conducted in the 1970s?

A) Confidentiality of the participants was violated.
B) The experiment inflicted harm on its participants.
C) The researchers lacked professional competence.
D) The study did not draw on a proper sample.

Question 9

In a hypothesis about crime that makes a causal claim that an increase in the level of inequality in society will result in an increase in the crime rate in that society, __________ is the independent variable.

A) the crime rate
B) the level of equality
C) the level of inequality
D) the ratio of crime to inequality

Question 10

How is historical research best conducted?

A) by surveying large numbers of people and comparing the responses of different groups
B) by talking directly to a subsample of people
C) by observing historical reenactments
D) by looking at records and documents about different groups of people from other times and places

Question 11

Sociologists decide what to research and what questions to ask once they are familiar with __________.

A) what other sociologists have already discovered
B) what sources of funding are available
C) what mainstream Americans believe about sociologists
D) what expenses they are likely to incur

Question 12

Informed consent has two components. Research participants must understand that their participation is __________ and based on a full understanding of possible risks and benefits involved.

A) compensated
B) not compensated
C) voluntary
D) involuntary

Question 13

An independent variable is predicted to__________.

A) influence or cause a particular outcome
B) correlate positively with other variables
C) fluctuate in relation to other variables
D) invalidate the research question

Question 14

What does it mean to operationalize a research question?

A) Operationalizing is finding out how research subjects will behave under test conditions.
B) Operationalizing is testing the research question to find out if it will work.
C) Operationalizing is determining the operations and techniques to be used to assess a research question's key concepts.
D) Operationalizing is making agreements with publishers to produce copies of research study results.

Question 15

Along with informed consent, what other ethical obligation do sociologists have regarding their professional responsibilities and conduct?

A) They must disclose their epistemological orientations.
B) They must disclose their identity as researchers.
C) They must disclose their theoretical traditions.
D) They must disclose the true identities of their subjects.

Question 16

Good research questions are both feasible and __________.

A) broad
B) cross-sectional
C) uncharted
D) relevant

Question 17

When research questions center on patterns of behavior among large groups, what research method is usually best?

A) a survey
B) in-depth interviews
C) ethnographic observation
D) a social experiment

Question 18

What type of research method is good at generating data about an entire population?

A) in-depth interviews
B) quantitative data analyses
C) surveys
D) experiments

Question 19

How do sociological researchers define the term dependent variable?

A) A dependent variable is the aspect of the hypothesis that researchers expect will have a positive correlation to other variables under study.
B) A dependent variable is the aspect of the hypothesis that researchers expect to fluctuate in relation to other variables under study.
C) A dependent variable is a variable that is artificially created by researchers to simulate real-life situations.
D) A dependent variable is a variable that does not exist in real life.

Question 20

When research questions are about the thought processes that lead people to have certain opinions, what research method is usually best?

A) a survey
B) in-depth interviews
C) ethnographic observation
D) a social experiment

Question 21

In order to be deemed reliable, the results of a scientific study must be able to be __________.

A) replicated
B) rescinded
C) recycled
D) replaced

Question 22

Researchers whose research questions entail important time dimensions are likely to use which research method?

A) demographic analysis
B) comparative-historical perspective
C) survey
D) ethnography

Question 23

Why do researchers use representative sampling versus random sampling?

A) Representative sampling is considered more scientific than random sampling.
B) Representative sampling is faster and easier than random sampling.
C) Random sampling requires lists of entire populations, which researchers may not have access to.
D) Random sampling, it is universally acknowledged, is reliable only 50 percent of the time.

Question 24

Data from which research method arguably takes the longest to acquire?

A) comparative-historical data
B) ethnographic data
C) survey data
D) experimental data

Question 25

What are two types of generalizability relevant to sociological research?

A) qualitative and quantitative generalizability
B) political and analytical generalizability
C) experimental and historical generalizability
D) empirical and theoretical generalizability

Question 26

Why is studying motivation difficult?

A) Simply looking at behavior doesn't allow researchers to say much about motivation.
B) People act in largely consistent ways, making distinguishing among possible motivators difficult to discern.
C) Reading motivations from actions takes years of practice.
D) Rapport building, necessary to motivational studies, is expensive and time consuming.

Question 27

The National Election Study on Americans' political participation, policy, and political views is an example of a type of a(n)__________.

A) cross-case analysis
B) in-depth interview
C) social experimental study
D) national survey

Question 28

When research questions have more to do with how people interact and less with how they say they interact, what research method is usually best?

A) a survey
B) in-depth interviews
C) ethnographic observation
D) a social experiment

Question 29

Primary-source data are data __________.

A) collected by researchers themselves
B) collected from primary-source documents, such as diaries
C) expected to overturn previous findings
D) provided to the research community by the American Sociological Association

Question 30

In terms of survey research, what is a respondent?

A) an individual who fills out a survey
B) an individual who conducts a survey
C) an individual who is being studied in a survey
D) an individual who is excluded from a survey

Question 31

Cross-sectional data is collected __________.

A) at one point in time
B) over a period of a few weeks
C) over a period of several months
D) at two points in time several decades apart

Question 32

What is data coding?

A) ridding data of partial responses
B) organizing data according to key categories and concepts
C) transferring data to pictorial displays
D) encrypting data for purposes of confidentiality

Question 33

When is longitudinal data desirable?

A) when studying a group of people who are hard to contact
B) when studying a sample via survey over a prolonged period of time
C) when studying a population that is spread out geographically
D) when studying a group that historically provides unreliable data

Question 34

The textbook authors suggest that in the real world researchers __________ deviate from the traditional order of the scientific method.

A) always
B) never
C) often
D) predetermine whether they

Question 35

What is a spurious relationship?

A) an apparent relationship among three or more variables having causal relationships with each other
B) an apparent relationship between two factors that has the appearance of linkage but, in reality, does not
C) an apparent relationship between two factors with an established causal relationship
D) an apparent relationship between two variables for which a causal link has yet to be established

Question 36

Data displays are __________ patterns in data.

A) coded examples of
B) numerical references to
C) visual images of
D) pull-down menus that access

Question 37

How does the text answer this question: Why is generalization, in terms of sociological research, so tricky?

A) Sociologists do not want to limit their conclusions to what they study directly; they also want their conclusions to be reliable and valid if applied more generally.
B) Loose generalizations rarely capture the attention of scientists in other fields of study.
C) Conclusions that are too generalizable risk being sanctioned by the American Sociological Association.
D) When conclusions are not sufficiently generalizable, other sociologists cannot validate them.

Question 38

What are cross-national comparisons?

A) a type of historical analysis that focuses on explaining differences between countries
B) a type of survey that compares people from one part of a country with people who lived there at earlier points in history
C) a type of demographic study that compares ethnic or racial groups in a single neighborhood
D) a research methodology that combines features of different research methods into one

Question 39

The U.S. census is a good example of what kind of interview?

A) classic interview
B) survey interview
C) in-depth interview
D) oral history interview

Question 40

Research memos are to __________ thinkers as data displays are to __________ thinkers.

A) quantitative; qualitative
B) verbal; visual
C) convergent; divergent
D) independent; dependent

Question 41

What is the difference between representative sampling and random sampling? When would you choose to use representative sampling over random sampling?

Question 42

Typically, sociologists who work with quantitative data (such as surveys) wait until after they have concluded their research before they engage in data analysis. However, ethnographers usually engage in data analysis while they are conducting their investigations. Is this behavior reasonable given the nature of these types of methods? Why?

Question 43

What is the scientific method? Explain each step of the scientific method.

Question 44

Catherine is taking a research methods class in which the semester project involves conducting original research. Catherine is interested in finding out if viewing particular television programs has an impact on behavior. She wants to see if children are more likely to engage in aggressive behavior after they watch television shows that exhibit violent images. Catherine's tentative prediction is what scientists refer to as __________.

A) an operational definition
B) a hypothesis
C) reliability
D) validity

Question 45

You want to understand how American views on violence in the media differ from the views of Germans. To complete your comparison of these two populations, what type of research should you conduct?

A) ethnography
B) demographic analysis
C) longitudinal-historical research
D) cross-national comparison

Question 46

You are an ethnographer studying poverty in Chicago. Over the course of your research, you live in a low-rent apartment, join a number of social clubs, and take several jobs in the community. The total time you spend on this project takes several years. Given what you know about ethnography and proper data analysis, when should you analyze your data?

A) continually over the course of the project
B) only at the very conclusion of the project
C) at the midpoint and at the end of the project
D) at the beginning and at the end of the project

Question 47

When determining correlations, sociologists sometimes fall victim to spurious relationships. What is a spurious relationship, and how did the Coleman Report demonstrate a spurious relationship between school resources and test scores?

Question 48

You are studying homicide rates in a major city, and your data seem to be indicating something quite peculiar. You notice that ice cream consumption seems to be correlated with an increase in murder rates. Upon more careful reflection, you recall that murder rates tend to rise in the summer, when people are outside more (and, consequently, eating more ice cream). Your first conclusion is an example of __________.

A) a poor sample size
B) improper theoretical development
C) causality
D) a spurious relationship

Question 49

You want to conduct a research study on the sexual behaviors of married couples in rural America. You plan on interviewing individuals using an in-depth survey method. After finding individuals to interview, but before you conduct the interviews, what is needed to make sure that this project is ethical?

A) approval from the American Sociological Association
B) approval from the chair of your sociology department
C) the informed consent of all participants
D) agreement from another researcher to conduct follow-up interviews with all respondents

Question 50

You want to study a riot that occurred over 60 years ago. You have access to a handful of survivors, but they likely cannot provide all the information you need. Which two research methods should you use to complete the study?

A) ethnography and interviews
B) interviews and historical research
C) surveys and ethnography
D) interviews and experiments

Question 51

Which of the following responses best encapsulates why some sociologists strive for empirical generalizability?

A) Sociologists strive for empirical generalizability so that findings can be understood by those not well versed in sociological theory.
B) Sociologists strive for empirical generalizability so that findings can be applied to populations larger than their sample set.
C) Sociologists strive for empirical generalizability so that findings can be tested in physics laboratories.
D) Sociologists strive for empirical generalizability so that findings will more easily meet constitutional mandates for greater transparency in publicly funded enterprises.

Question 52

Which of the following potential projects studying convenience stores could be said to be utilizing a qualitative research method?

A) working at a convenience store and watching how people interact with the clerks
B) studying the inventory of a convenience store to determine which items are bought most often
C) using city population data to predict how many convenience stores should serve a given neighborhood
D) studying convenience store payrolls to determine if men are paid more than women for the same work

Question 53

Kordell is interested in distributing questionnaires to college freshmen regarding their study habits. He has targeted several colleges where he wants to carry out the research. What must Kordell do first?

A) Have students sign informed consent forms.
B) Submit his research proposal to each school's institutional review board (IRB).
C) Brief students on what he is interested in studying.
D) Identify which classes he wants to target.