Sociology Quiz CH 2

What term refers to the arithmetic average of a series of numbers?

Mean

What is the term for the value that occurs most often in a series of numbers?

Mode

Imagine that you are repeating research done by someone else in order to assess the accuracy of that research. You are doing which of the following?

Replication

Which sociological research method saves the time and expense of data gathering, but the researcher has no control over possible data bias?

Secondary analysis of existing sources

What concept refers to any change in a subject's behavior that is caused by the awareness of being studied?

The Hawthorne effect

_________ refers to measuring exactly what one intends to measure.

Validity

Scientific sociology ________

favors quantitative data

Interpretive sociology refers to sociology that ________.

focuses on the meaning people attach to behavior

A theory states that increasing a person's formal higher education results in increased earnings over the individual's lifetime. In this theory, "higher education" is the ________.

independent variable

A researcher doing participant observation may often "break in" to a setting more easily with the help of a ________

key informant

Science can be defined as a ________

logical system that bases knowledge on direct, systematic observation.

It is difficult to establish all the cause-and-effect relationships in a social situation because ________.

most patterns of behavior are caused by many factors

Regarding ethical research guidelines, the American Sociological Association states that researchers ________.

must protect the privacy of subjects taking part in a research project

Critical sociology ________.

seeks to bring about desirable social change.

Three researchers wish to test the effects of playing soft music during an exam on the test performance of their sociology students. They conduct an experiment in which one test-taking class hears music and another does not. In experimental terms, the class hearing the music is called ________

the experimental group.

Two variables are said to display correlation if ________

they vary together

Inductive logical thought involves ________

transforming specific observations into general theory

Deductive logical thought involves ________

turning theories into hypotheses suitable for testing

In the process of measurement, reliability refers to ________

whether repeating the measurement yields consistent results.

Which research method asks subjects to respond to a series of items in a questionnaire or an interview?

A survey