Deck 2: Asking and Answering Sociological Questions

Question 1

Which of the following is the best example of a puzzle-solving research question?

A) What proportion of the population holds strong religious beliefs?
B) What accounts for the recent decline in the proportion of the population voting in presidential elections?
C) How much has the divorce rate declined since the early 1980s?
D) How far do the earnings of professional women lag behind those of men?

Answer 1

B

Question 2

For a research project in his sociology class, Jose is studying dating preferences among college students. He has already decided to conduct a survey of his classmates and has developed a hypothesis. What should be his next step?

A) carry out the research
B) define the research problem
C) interpret the results
D) report the findings

Answer 2

A

Question 3

Sociological research projects usually:

A) provide the public with clear-cut and definitive answers to the research problem
B) end up influencing the behavior of subjects rather than observing it
C) create more research questions and problems
D) allow us to use anecdotal information to illuminate social processes

Answer 3

C

Question 4

A recent study of Facebook users that attempted to predict whether our romantic relationships would last found that:

A) if two people had the same group of friends, they had a higher likelihood of staying together
B) if two people had different groups of friends, they had a higher likelihood of staying together
C) the more friends people had, the less time people would spend single in between romantic relationships
D) the fewer friends people had, the less time people would spend single in between romantic relationships

Question 5

For a research project in his sociology class, Joe is studying cheating among college students. He is currently deciding between creating a questionnaire and conducting interviews. What stage of the research process is he in now?

A) define the research problem
B) carry out the research
C) interpret the results
D) select an appropriate research design

Question 6

For a research project in his sociology class, Jamal is studying eating disorders among college students. He is currently interviewing several subjects. What stage of the research process is he in now?

A) define the research problem
B) carry out the research
C) interpret the results
D) select an appropriate research design

Question 7

The research method that relies on personal and group interviews and observation is called a(n) ________ approach.

A) experimental
B) sampling
C) quantitative
D) qualitative

Question 8

Sociologists studying a population to which they do not belong-for example, a white researcher studying Chinese Americans or a male researcher studying women-should employ which research standard?

A) generalizability
B) replicability
C) uncertainty
D) reflexivity

Question 9

For a research project in her sociology class, Joan has decided to study gender wage differences between men and women. What should be her next step?

A) develop a hypothesis
B) interpret the results
C) report the findings
D) review the literature

Question 10

In her 1986 book Uncoupling, Diane Vaughn uses what kind of research to focus on the rich details of how individuals dissolve their relationships?

A) statistical
B) interviews
C) observation
D) experiment

Question 11

Which of the following statements is an example of a hypothesis?

A) Minority women are overrepresented in our sample.
B) Nonmarital births accounted for one-third of all U.S. births in 2000.
C) Most women, even unwed mothers, eventually marry.
D) Unmarried mothers are less likely to marry men with college degrees.

Question 12

What are the four basic standards that establish social research as scientific?

A) generalizability, replicability, uncertainty, and reflexivity
B) applicability, legibility, fluency, and sophistication
C) certainty, quantifiability, size, and historicity
D) abstraction, coherence, visualization, and objectivity

Question 13

A good hypothesis will be formulated in such a way that the:

A) existing literature will have already answered the question
B) factual material gathered will always disprove it
C) factual material gathered will always support it
D) factual material gathered will provide evidence either supporting or disproving it

Question 14

The strongest sociological research begins with problems that:

A) answer socially pertinent questions related to policy
B) are puzzles created by a gap in our
C) detail factual evidence that can be standardized
D) explore new social phenomenon or events

Question 15

Sasha, a student in a sociology class, lost points on a graded research paper for not citing a famous study done five years earlier that was nearly identical to his own research. What step in the research process should he have done more carefully?

A) define the research problem
B) carry out the research
C) interpret the results
D) review the evidence/literature

Question 16

Beginning in the 1920s in American sociology, largely at the University of Chicago, the discipline of sociology began to transform in what way?

A) There was a stronger attempt to make theoretical speculations more generalizable.
B) There was a stronger attempt to ground sociological concepts and theories in facts and data.
C) Sociological findings were increasingly applied to business and industry.
D) Sociology began to look more like an art than a science.

Question 17

A researcher will survey college students concerning their attitudes toward lowering the legal drinking age to 18. Which of the following is a good research hypothesis for this particular study?

A) Students under age 21 will be more supportive of lowering the drinking age than students 21 and older.
B) Opinions toward lowering the drinking age will not affect legislation.
C) Most college students' parents will oppose lowering the drinking age to 18.
D) A majority of college students have consumed alcohol before age 21.

Question 18

Which statement best characterizes sociology in its early development?

A) It focused on biological and physical phenomena.
B) It focused on face-to-face interaction.
C) It was a very empirical field.
D) It was a very theoretical field.

Question 19

Which of the following studies best exemplifies a qualitative methodological approach?

A) comparing test scores between students who had free breakfast versus those who did not
B) observing the interactions between parents at a series of school-related meetings
C) the correlation between gender and feeling represented in the political realm
D) administering a survey asking objective questions about religious attendance and age

Question 20

A research project sets out to use large amounts of objective data to describe the rates and averages of several characteristics of a population and the correlations between them. The method it will most likely need to use is _________.

A) hypothesis testing
B) observation
C) quantitative
D) qualitative

Question 21

Why are experiments much less common in sociology than in the natural sciences?

A) It is too difficult to find willing participants who meet the criteria of sociological studies.
B) Sociological researchers must control all of the conditions, making experiments more laborious for them.
C) Sociological researchers can bring only small groups into a laboratory setting, where people may behave unnaturally because they are being watched.
D) Sociological researchers exercise unconscious prejudices while choosing experiment subjects.

Question 22

Philip Zimbardo's prison experiment involved setting up a make-believe jail and randomly assigning male student volunteers to the roles of guards and prisoners. The researcher concluded that:

A) existing personal relationships interfered with students' ability to assume their assigned roles
B) behavior in prisons reflects individual personality characteristics of guards and prisoners
C) behavior in prisons is strongly influenced by the nature of the prison setting
D) students who were assigned to be guards developed leadership skills

Question 23

Tom develops a questionnaire for his study on Facebook usage that allows subjects to indicate whether they strongly agree, agree, disagree, or strongly disagree with various statements. These types of questions are known as:

A) experimental
B) fieldwork
C) open-ended
D) standardized

Question 24

Which of the following describes an advantage of survey research?

A) It allows us to see a situation from inside a particular group.
B) It provides richer detail about a population than other methods.
C) The response rates are usually high.
D) Results can be easily quantified and analyzed.

Question 25

Kelly develops a questionnaire to test on a few subjects to find potential problems with it before conducting the full study. What is this trial run called?

A) population study
B) pilot study
C) empirical study
D) developmental study

Question 26

Using participant observation in the sociological research process requires:

A) establishing a formal relationship with the leaders and members of the group
B) creating a formal boundary between the researcher and the group
C) using great skill and sensitivity in gaining the trust of numerous members of the group being studied
D) having little interaction with the group members or leaders, just the observation group

Question 27

Robert Park's vision of sociology included:

A) heavy use of statistics
B) quantifying observations as much as possible
C) a strong focus on theory
D) a focus on careful firsthand observation

Question 28

Kevin is interested in doing a study on student attitudes toward the general education requirements on his campus. He surveys 50 students. This small group of students he surveyed is known as the:

A) population
B) control group
C) experimental group
D) sample

Question 29

Frank develops a questionnaire for his study on Internet dating. One of his questions asks, "How do you feel about Internet dating?" What type of question is this?

A) contingency
B) experimental
C) fieldwork
D) open-ended

Question 30

For a sample to accurately reflect the characteristics of the study population, it must be:

A) very large
B) public
C) representative
D) standardized

Question 31

The main purpose of sampling is to:

A) enhance the quality of your observations
B) select cases that will support your research hypotheses
C) select cases who are the most willing to participate in your study
D) select a set of people who are representative of the population

Question 32

Reilly, a sociology master's student, wants to do research on the homeless in her city. She would like to provide a rich, detailed, inside view of being homeless. What research method should she choose?

A) comparative research
B) ethnography
C) experiment
D) survey

Question 33

Alice Goffman spent six years hanging out with and observing the everyday life of a group of black men who were on the run from the criminal justice system in a poor neighborhood in Philadelphia. Her research methods most closely resemble the work of:

A) Robert Park
B) William Ogburn
C) Émile Durkheim
D) Karl Marx

Question 34

Recently, social scientists using participant observation have written about how their race, class, gender, and sexual orientation:

A) affected their research due to power differences
B) allowed them to be completely objective about their work
C) caused many of them to go native
D) did not affect the research process

Question 35

Random sampling makes a sample representative by ensuring that __________.

A) the choice of the population being studied is arbitrary
B) the questions have been standardized regardless of who is answering them
C) everyone in the population has an equal probability of getting into the sample
D) the questions people in the sample are asked varies in a random pattern

Question 36

If a researcher would like to get in-depth information based on interviews and firsthand observations, she should use the methodological approach known as a(n) _________.

A) survey
B) pilot study
C) ethnography
D) experiment

Question 37

What kind of research method would be best if your goal was to learn how the residents in a gated community feel about racial desegregation?

A) surveys
B) participant observation
C) historical analysis
D) experiment

Question 38

In order for a sample to be representative, it must be selected with __________.

A) randomization
B) ethnography
C) census-based data
D) standardization

Question 39

Which research method would be best to use if you wanted a large, representative sample of people's attitudes toward married women with children working outside the home?

A) survey
B) life history
C) experiment
D) ethnography

Question 40

William Ogburn's vision of sociology included:

A) transforming sociology to look a lot more like the natural sciences
B) focusing on the emotional experiences of its subjects
C) getting involved in the lives of its subjects
D) focusing on theory more than data

Question 41

What calculation gives a researcher a good idea of how spread out a series of numbers is?

A) mean
B) median
C) mode
D) standard deviation

Question 42

In an experiment on the effects of caffeine on the alertness of college students, student volunteers are randomly assigned to two groups. One group is given caffeinated coffee while the other group is given decaffeinated coffee. All participants then play a video game to assess their mental acuity, measured as their final score on the video game. In this study, the group that is given caffeinated coffee is called the:

A) control group
B) experimental group
C) focus group
D) population

Question 43

Sociologists engage in historical analysis because:

A) societies were more complex in the nineteenth century
B) sociology is less equipped to study the modern world
C) survey research and fieldwork are inadequate research methods
D) a time perspective is frequently needed to make sense of a research problem

Question 44

Theda Skocpol's States and Social Revolutions is an example of what type of research?

A) survey
B) participant observation
C) experiment
D) comparative-historical research

Question 45

All sociological research on human subjects poses some sort of:

A) ethical dilemma regarding the subjects
B) historical analysis of present-day culture
C) need to use survey methods
D) risk to the safety of the sociologist

Question 46

Theda Skocpol's States and Social Revolutions:

A) applied comparative research in a historical context that examined the social change of revolutions
B) illustrated that enlisted men often ignored the commands of their officers
C) was an illuminating experiment that could not be conducted today under more stringent federal regulations
D) showed that social transformation is more common in a time of war than peace

Question 47

What is the most frequent figure in a series of numbers called?

A) mean
B) median
C) mode
D) standard deviation

Question 48

Where can you locate the subject of the data in Table 2.2? Opinion of the United States: Comparison of Selected Nations
PERCENTAGE OF PERSONS WHO HOLD A "FAVORABLE" (VS. "UNFAVORABLE") OPINION OF THE UNITED STATES
Source: Pew Research Center, 2017g.

A) in the title
B) in the headings along the top and left-hand side of the table
C) in the footnotes
D) in the sources at the bottom

Question 49

In Jeff's sample, the number of siblings each person has is as follows: one, two, three, four, and ten. What is the mean number of siblings in his sample?

A) three
B) four
C) five
D) six

Question 50

How are the social sciences different from natural sciences?

A) Social sciences study objects that are self-aware (that is, humans).
B) Social sciences cannot connect theory with data.
C) Social sciences cannot be systematic.
D) Social sciences cannot conduct empirical studies.

Question 51

What should be your first step when reading a table?

A) Scan all of the information on the page to try to summarize the data provided.
B) Read the headings on the table; they will provide information about the content.
C) Read the full title; it is the researcher's attempt to describe the data in the table.
D) Read the footnotes; they contain the most important information.

Question 52

Which research method would best address the following research question: How much does participation in one session of an SAT preparation course affect students' SAT scores?

A) survey
B) participant observation
C) historical analysis
D) experiment

Question 53

If two variables were completely correlated, their correlation coefficient would be:

A) 0
B) 1
C) 10
D) 100

Question 54

In Jeff's sample, the number of siblings each person has is as follows: one, two, three, four, and ten. What is the median number of siblings in his sample?

A) three
B) four
C) five
D) six

Question 55

A classic social science research study involved setting up a make-believe jail and randomly assigning male student volunteers to the roles of guards and prisoners. This research used what method?

A) survey
B) participant observation
C) historical analysis
D) experiment

Question 56

The mean, median, and mode are all types of _______________.

A) measures of central tendency
B) correlations
C) degree of dispersal
D) ranges

Question 57

Scientific activity combines the creation of bold new modes of thought with the careful testing of hypotheses and ideas.

Question 58

In Waves of War, Andreas Wimmer reported the finding that since 1800, wars around the world have increasingly resulted from:

A) class differences between workers and capitalists
B) concerns over human rights violations
C) disputes over land
D) ethnic and nationalist concerns

Question 59

If the value of one variable goes up when the value of another variable goes down, a negative correlation exists.

Question 60

What can be concluded from the source note of Table 2.2? Opinion of the United States: Comparison of Selected Nations
PERCENTAGE OF PERSONS WHO HOLD A "FAVORABLE" (VS. "UNFAVORABLE") OPINION OF THE UNITED STATES
Source: Pew Research Center, 2017g.

A) The data were compiled in the past five years.
B) The data were gathered from organizations in one country.
C) The data have been taken from more than one source.
D) The data are unbiased.

Question 61

What are the pros and cons of conducting experiments in the field?

Question 62

What would the correlation coefficient be if two variables are not at all correlated?

Question 63

MATCHING
a. Standard deviation
b. Mode
c. Measures of central tendency
d. Mean
e. Correlation coefficient
f. Median
The figure that occurs most frequently in a given set of data

Question 64

MATCHING
a. Standard deviation
b. Mode
c. Measures of central tendency
d. Mean
e. Correlation coefficient
f. Median
The average

Question 65

MATCHING
a. Standard deviation
b. Mode
c. Measures of central tendency
d. Mean
e. Correlation coefficient
f. Median
Measure of the degree to which one variable relates to another in a patterned way.

Question 66

What is one advantage of experiments over surveys or ethnographies?

Question 67

What is one reason that sociologists might draw on other researchers' ideas?

Question 68

MATCHING
a. Standard deviation
b. Mode
c. Measures of central tendency
d. Mean
e. Correlation coefficient
f. Median
Ways of calculating sets of data

Question 69

Who are sociologists able to study by employing the method of ethnography?

Question 70

What are the characteristics of good puzzle-solving questions?

Question 71

In one or two sentences, summarize ethnographer Alice Goffman's findings about young black men.

Question 72

The best way to measure the degree of dispersal for quantitative data is by using the median.

Question 73

MATCHING
a. Standard deviation
b. Mode
c. Measures of central tendency
d. Mean
e. Correlation coefficient
f. Median
A way of calculating the degree of dispersal

Question 74

MATCHING
a. Standard deviation
b. Mode
c. Measures of central tendency
d. Mean
e. Correlation coefficient
f. Median
The middle of any set of figures

Question 75

What is one advantage that the median has over the mean when looking at skewed data?

Question 76

What are the three main methods used in sociological research?

Question 77

Social context may be causally linked to human behavior.

Question 78

To study the homeless, you must actually live among them.

Question 79

What is one major feature that helps distinguish science from other idea systems (such as religion)?

Question 80

What is one potential ethical dilemma of sociological research, and how might it have a negative effect on the subjects involved?