Chapter 5: How Sociologists Do Research
________ may be a problem with research from participant observers.
Generalizability
Which of the following is a macro-level topic of sociological research?
The military
The independent variable causes a change in the
dependent variable.
What is a valid sociological topic?
All human behavior
Sharon had spent months carrying out her sociological experiments. She had collected a ton of data. What was Sharon's next step?
Analyze the results.
Explain how research and theory work together in sociology
Neither research nor theory can stand alone. Every theory must be tested-which requires research. The results of research must be explained-and for that we need theory.
In which stage of the research model might you discover that the question you are interested in answering has already been answered?
Reviewing the literature
What are the eight steps of the research model?
The eight steps of the research model (in chronological order) are: 1. Select a topic 2. Define the problem 3. Review the literature 4. Formulate a hypothesis 5. Choose a research method 6. Collect the data 7. Analyze the results 8. Share the results
What are the three necessary conditions for causation?
The three necessary conditions necessary to establish causation: Correlation Temporal priority No spurious correlation
What are the three ways sociologists measure average, and how do they differ?
The three ways sociologists measure average are the mean, median, and mode. The mean is calculated by adding up a group of numbers and then dividing by the number of cases that you added. The median is the middle case in an ordered range of cases. The mode is the number of cases that occur most often.
Which of the following is a research method?
Unobtrusive measures
________ are used to study people who are unaware that they are being studied.
Unobtrusive measures
Why can't common sense replace sociological research?
What is considered common sense may or may not be true. In order to answer a question, we need to move beyond guesswork and common sense, in order to know what is really going on.
A case study reveals a lot about ________ situation(s).
a particular
When you select a sample for a sociological study, your aim is to get
a representative sample
________ is a precise way to measure a variable.
an operational definition
In the research model, collecting the data comes before the step of
analyzing the results.
Open-ended questions are questions that respondents
answer in their own words
In order to collect data on your topic, you need to
choose a research method
Questions followed by a list of possible answers that the respondent can select are called
closed-ended questions.
________ means that two or more variables are present together.
correlation
Which of the following is an example of an open-ended question? a. Should public officials who accept bribes be jailed? b. In your opinion, should public officials who accept bribes be required to perform community service? c. Should public officials who have been convicted for accepting bribes be registered in a public list, in the same manner that sex offenders are registered? d. What do you think should be done to a public official who accepts bribes?
d. What do you think should be done to a public official who accepts bribes?
In the research model, specifying what it is that you want to learn about a topic is the stage of
defining the problem
The best method of sociological research to use
depends on the type of question.
Police reports, photographs, and videos are examples of ________ used by researchers.
documents
The subjects in an experiment who are exposed to the independent variable make up the
experimental group.
Another term for "participant observation" is
fieldwork
A ________ predicts a relationship between or among variables.
hypothesis
What you expect to find according to predictions from a theory is known as a(n)
hypothesis.
The direct questioning of respondents is called a(n)
interview.
Li, a sociology undergraduate, was required to participate in a research study being conducted by a graduate student in his department. He didn't know the topic until he got there, and the things the interviewer asked him were embarrassing. Li chose answers that weren't quite true-in fact, they weren't true at all-in order to save face himself and also to please the interviewer. This is example of
interviewer bias
In sociological research, gender
is influential
If the questions that you ask the people taking part in your study are not ________, you will end up with biased answers.
neutral
In a control group, subjects are
not exposed to the independent variable.
The unstructured interview uses
open-ended questions
In secondary analysis, researchers analyze data collected by
others
The target group to be studied in a research project is the
population
Professional handling of confidential sociological field notes entails
protecting respondents
After graduate-level study of sociology, sociologists trained in ________ research methods lean toward ________.
qualitative; participant observation
Halid spent some time drawing up the questions for his ________, which is a list of questions to be asked of respondents.
questionnaire
In a ________, everyone in the target population has the same chance of being included in the study.
random sample
______ is a feeling of trust between researchers and the people they are studying.
rapport
________ are the people who respond to a survey.
respondents
The ________ is made up of the individuals intended to represent the population to be studied.
sample
What is the first step in the research model?
select a topic
The lowest-cost method of administering a questionnaire is the
self-administered questionnaire
The eighth and final step of the research model is to
share the results.
The ________ is drawn from selected subgroups of a target population.
stratified random sample
A(n) ________ interview uses closed-ended questions.
structured
A(n) ________ is the collection of data by having people answer a series of questions.
survey
Reliability refers to
the extent to which research produces consistent or dependable results.
________ is the extent to which an operational definition measures what it is intended to measure.
validity
A(n) ________ is a factor thought to be significant for human behavior, which can vary (change) from one case to another.
variable
Experiments use ________ to test ________.
variables; causation
Plagiarism in sociological research
violates research ethics.