foundations of sociological inquiry review session
TRANSCRIPT
Foundations of Sociological Inquiry
Review Session
In comparison to nonscientific inquiry, scientific inquiry
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1. takes special precaution to avoid error.
2. is a semiconscious activity.
3. is an activity where we are less concerned about making mistakes.
4. guards against all errors.
5. None of these choices is true.
The two pillars of science are
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1. qualitative and quantitative data.
2. logic and observation.
3. idiographic and nomothetic explanation.
4. variable and attributes.
5. tradition and authority.
Georgette observed a few preschool children at play and saw what she thought was a pattern in all preschool children’s play behavior. She committed which error?
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1. inaccurate observation
2. overgeneralization
3. selective observation
4. illogical reasoning
5. immature observation
Nora observed people in her Sunday School for several months and then determined if there was a pattern in the different responses of men and women. Which one of the following approaches is
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1. deductive
2. transductive
3. applied
4. inductive
5. reductice
reflected?
If a reader asks, “Who originally collected the data being reanalyzed?” or “When were the data collected?”, that reader is most clearly examining issues that focus on
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1. research design.
2. survey research.
3. theoretical orientation.
4. field research.
5. analysis of existing statistics.
Questions about the unit of analysis and the purpose of the study reflect which section of the evaluation criteria to be used in reading research reports?
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1. theoretical orientations
2. research design
3. measurement
4. sampling
5. summary and conclusion
Questions about who was studied and how they were selected reflect which section of the evaluation criteria to be used in reading research reports?
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1. experiments
2. research design
3. theoretical orientations
4. sampling
5. results
Ethical obligations to one’s colleagues in the scientific community
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1. require that technical shortcomings and failures of the study be revealed.
2. encourage researchers to ignore negative findings.
3. encourage researchers to describe their findings as the product of a carefully preplanned analytical strategy.
4. require researchers to report only the positive discoveries.
5. all of these choices reflect the ethical obligations owed to colleagues.
Which of the following techniques of data collection is MOST likely to make a guarantee of anonymity difficult?
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1. interviews
2. mailed questionnaires
3. secondary data analysis
4. unobtrusive measures
5. The data collection technique does not effect the guarantee of anonymity.
The main reason that codes of ethics exist are that
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1. ethical issues are both important and ambiguous.
2. both the state and federal governments require them.
3. researchers would be both unwilling and unable to make ethical decisions without them.
4. the directors of the professional associations require and enforce them.
5. people are naturally unethical.
Cameroon did a study in which he could identify a given person’s responses but promised not to do so publicly. He employed:
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1. anonymity
2. deception
3. value free research
4. confidentiality
5. informed consent
Professor Smith examines the dating behaviors of college students. Smith decides to track the dating behaviors of college students throughout their college careers. She decides to begin her research using her introductory class. After explaining the
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study, she assures students that their responses will be confidential. The students complete her survey during class. Her research most clearly impinges on
1. deception.
2. no harm to participants.
3. voluntary participation.
4. the value placed on anonymity.
5. value-free reports of the data.
Among the advantages of field research is(are) that it
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1. yields precise descriptive statements about a large population.
2. involves the uniform application of precise operational definitions.
3. allows for the modification of research design.
4. produces definitive conclusions.
5. is an extremely reliable technique.
Harry, an ethnographer, lived among the homeless in Queens, New York, for a year, and has recently written a book on his observations. Based on his experiences that the homeless took care of each other in Queens, he concludes
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1. ecological fallacy.
2. individual fallacy.
3. group fallacy.
4. aggregate fallacy.
5. ethnographic fallacy.
that homeless people will take care of one another. In stating that conclusion, Harry has committed the
Code notes
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47%1. cover reflections about the dimensions of concepts.
2. cover relationships among concepts.
3. identify the code labels and their meanings.
4. discuss the deeper meanings of concepts.
5. do all of these choices.
Alicianna examined the levels of competition among high school students. Which way of looking for patterns does this example reflect?
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1. frequencies
2. magnitudes
3. structures
4. processes
5. content analysis
Orthelia did a qualitative study of drug users, with a particular focus on the factors associated with greater or lesser use of drugs. Which one of the following did she study?
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1. frequencies
2. structures
3. processes
4. causes
5. groups
Conversation analysis is most closely linked with which theoretical paradigm?
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36%1. naturalism
2. conflict
3. ethnomethodology
4. structural functionalism
5. content analysis
Walking with an open umbrella on a beautiful day or using hands to eat mashed potatoes are techniques used by _____ to understand the social world.
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1. social Darwinists
2. conflict theorists
3. structural functionalists
4. symbolic interactionists
5. ethnomethodologists
Operationalizing a concept refers to
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1. clarifying the meaning of the concept.
2. specifying how a concept is related to other concepts.
3. interpreting the results from the study of a concept.
4. selecting indicators to measure the concept.
5. comparing one concept to another.
The difference between the experimental and control groups should be that the
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1. experimental group receives the dependent variable and the control group does not.
2. experimental group receives the independent variable and the control group does not.
3. control group receives the dependent variable and the experimental group does not.
4. control group receives the independent variable and the experimental does not.
5. Nothing; these are synonyms that refer to the same group.
Sammy did an experiment on children in a classroom. He measured their social anxiety on Monday, randomly assigned half of them to be taught yoga on Wednesday, and measured their social
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anxiety again on Friday. The half of the children who were not taught yoga are known as the
1. independent variable.
2. experimental group.
3. pretest.
4. control group.
5. posttest.
Sammy did an experiment on children in a classroom. He measured their social anxiety on Monday, randomly assigned half of them to be taught yoga on Wednesday, and measured their social anxiety again on Friday. Measuring the children’s social anxiety on Friday is the
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1. independent variable.
2. posttest.
3. pretest.
4. experimental group.
5. control variable
Latona did an experiment at a military barracks over the space of a few months to examine the effect of group size on group morale. He randomly assigned soldiers to the experimental and control groups and did a pretest and posttest. At the time of the posttest, several soldiers realized that they received the same questions on the pretest, and used the same answers they had originally given on the pretest even though their morale may
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1. history
2. maturation
3. instrumentation
4. testing
5. mortality
have changed. Which source of internal invalidity does this example reflect?
The loss of subjects over the duration of an experiment is known as _____.
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1. maturation
2. testing
3. history
4. statistical regression
5. mortality
A measure of dispersion describes
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2. which data are the most important.
3. how the data are distributed around some central value.
4. which data are appropriate for analysis.
5. discrete data only.
Two factories (Apparel and Shoe) show annual average wages of $30,000. However, the range of salaries in the Apparel factory is $5,000, while the range of salaries in the Shoe factory is $15,000. Which of the factories has a larger variation in income?
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1. apparel factory
2. shoe factory
3. neither
4. Both factories have equal variation in income.
5. The range is not the appropriate measure.
As a measure of dispersion, a _____ tells us how far the mean is from individual scores.
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1. range
2. standard deviation
3. mode
4. regular distribution
5. median
If a researcher is interested in studying the effects of different training regimens on a team’s performance, the unit of analysis in this study is
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1. the team member.
2. the team.
3. the coach.
4. the different training regimens.
5. the researcher’s perception of performance.
Reliability involves
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1. whether a particular technique applied repeatedly to the same object would yield the same results each time.
2. ensuring accuracy.
3. ensuring that your measure measures what you think it should measure.
4. ensuring precision.
5. All of these choices are correct.
Myrna measured class level of students at her university, which has graduate programs with these attributes: first-year, sophomore, junior, and senior. Which quality of measures does this measure lack?
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1. must be exhaustive
2. must be mutually exclusive
3. must be ratio level
4. must be a real definition
5. divergent validity
Elmer worked hard to establish the meaning of the term “prejudice” for his study on students. He consulted the literature and colleagues who have studied prejudice in order to come to an agreement about what the term means. Elmer engaged in
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2. dimensionalization.
3. conceptualization.
4. validity.
5. must be corroborated by colleagues
You are doing research on hospital personnel—orderlies, technicians, nurses, and doctors. You want to be sure you draw a sample that has cases in each of the personnel categories. You want to use probability sampling. An appropriate strategy would be
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1. simple random sampling.
2. quota sampling.
3. cluster sampling.
4. stratified sampling.
5. accidental sampling.
A summary description of a variable in a sample is called a
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1. variable.
2. parameter.
3. confidence level.
4. confidence interval.
5. statistic.
_____ of people fall within TWO standard deviations of a normal distribution.
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2. 90%
3. 95%
4. 99.7%
5. 34%
In her research project, Ella wants to study the processes involved in lesbian partners adopting children. She starts off by interviewing lesbian couples who have adopted in the past, and they in turn, give her names of other lesbian couples who have adopted.
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1. quota sampling.
2. convenient sampling.
3. snowball sampling.
4. systematic sampling.
5. judgmental sampling.
The process by which Ella gets her sample is called
One of the most important natural abilities of good interviewers is their ability to
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to that of the people being interviewed.
2. determine very quickly the kind of person the respondent will feel most comfortable with.
3. rephrase questions in their own words.
4. probe for responses.
5. pry into the respondent’s personal life.
Regarding sensitive issues and complicated issues, which one of the following is correct?
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1. use questionnaires for both
2. use interviews for both
3. use self-administered questionnaires for sensitive issues and interviews for complicated issues
4. use self-administered questionnaires for complicated issues and interviews for sensitive issues
5. the use of either questionnaires or interviews depends on the rapport the interviewer is able to form with the interviewee
The formula Y = f(X) tells us that
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1. X is the dependent variable.
2. Y is the dependent variable.
3. f is the dependent variable.
4. need to know what Y, f, and X represent to determine the dependent variable.
5. None of these choices is correct.
A statistical significance level of .05 means that
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1. the probability that a relationship as strong as the observed one can be attributed to sampling error alone is 5 percent.
2. we can be 5 percent sure that the relationship is real and not due to sampling error.
3. there is an .05 percent chance that a relationship as strong as the observed one can be attributed to sampling error.
4. the difference we observed in the table is 5 percent different.
5. there is a 5 percent standard error in the observations.
After examining the FBI Crime Reports for a 30-year period, Professor Hall claimed that the incidence of rape has increased. After examining the same reports, Professor Shine claimed that the reporting of rape, not the incidence of rape, has increased. This illustrates
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1. the problem of reliability in using existing statistics.
2. the problem of validity in using existing statistics.
3. the need to replicate existing statistics.
4. the ecological fallacy.
5. pre-testing.
Using existing statistics, Professor Ford finds that towns with low median incomes tend to have higher crime rates than towns with high median incomes. Ford concludes that poor people are more likely to commit crimes than people with high incomes. Ford is
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1. committing the ecological fallacy.
2. using verstehen.
3. doing content analysis.
4. developing ideal types.
5. doing replication.
Being clear on the unit of analysis in content analysis has particular implications for
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1. measuring latent content.
2. measuring manifest content.
3. determining the ideal types.
4. selecting a sampling strategy.
5. coding the data
Gigi did a content analysis of school board meeting minutes to determine who was the most influential. She developed an initial hypothesis that men carried more power, but she then searched her data to find all the cases that would contradict her initial hypothesis. This process is
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1. systematic reduction.
2. analytic induction.
3. analytic deduction.
4. corroboration.
5. systematic deduction
known as
Content analysis is not appropriate for
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1. evaluating census data.
2. want ads.
3. diary entries.
4. email messages.
5. newspapers.
What type of sampling is used in content analysis?
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1. simple
2. random
3. stratified
4. all of the above
5. none of the above
In conducting content analysis research, ethical issues can arise from
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1. how we collect the data.
2. protecting the privacy of individuals/organizations.
3. analyzing the data.
4. a and b
5. all of the above
Questions?