UNIT 3

Interview surveys are recommended to open with

A brief conversation

Professor Smidlapp mailed a questionnaire to students on the issue of academic dishonesty. Smidlapp planned to use inferential statistics in the analyses and was concerned about the response rate. You tell Smidlapp that technically the use of inferential statistics assumes that:

All members of the initial sample complete and return the questionnaire

The paradigms associated with field research differ on: - What is data? - How should we collect data? - How should we analyze data? - All of these choices

All of these choices

Which of the following is not a part of grounded theory? - Analyses of patterns - Analyses of themes - Analyses of common categories - All of these choices

All of these choices

Which of the following is NOT an advantage of interviews? - They are more effective than self-administered questionnaires for dealing with complicated issues - You can conduct a survey interview based on a sample of addresses - You can conduct a survey interview based on a sample of phone numbers - All of these choices are TRUE

All of these choices are TRUE

Among the advantages of field research is(are) that it:

Allows for the modification of research design

A questionnaire item, distributed to a random sample of adults, reading "Are you not in support of nationalized health care", with a yes or no possible response, would violate which concept?

Avoid negative items

A return-rate graph:

Begins on the day the questionnaires were mailed

A variety of methods are available for the presentation of response categories. Which of the following methods does Babbie prefer?

Boxes

Which of the following is NOT recommended for conducting online surveys? - Change terminology to keep the respondent interested - Use plain, simple language - Offer to share selected results from the study with everyone who completes the survey - Plan the time of day and day of week to send the email

Change terminology to keep the respondent interested

During an interviwer training session, Jones, a trainee, asks you, "What should I do if . . . ?" You tell Jones:

Check the specifications

The number of potential respondents that a researcher encounters, whether they participate or not, is labeled by the American Association For Public Opinion Research is

Contact rate

Grounded theory begins with _____.

Data collection

One of the most important abilities that good interviewers have is the ability to:

Determine very quickly the kind of person with whom the respondent feels most comfortable

Which of the following is POOR advice for a qualitative field interviewer?

Do not deviate from the schedule of preestablished questions

The questionnaire item,"Did you file federal and state income tax reports last year?" with a response set of yes, no, can't remember, other, is an example of a(n):

Double-Barreled question

Which of the following statements about contingency questions is FALSE? Contingency questions are designed to: - Increase the likelihood of responses from those whom the questions are relevant - Square respondents the frustration of reading and puzzling over questions that are irrelevant to them - Enable the researcher to ask several questions that have the same set of answer set - Facilitate the respondent's task in completing the questionnaire

Enable the researcher to ask several questions that have the same set of answer set

Bias in a questionnaire item:

Encourages respondents to answer questions in a particular way

Michael is spending three months living in a commune doing participant observation in order to fully understand and document the lives of the people who reside there. What is the likely result of Michael's research?

Ethnography

_____ is a study that focuses on giving detailed and accurate description rather than explanation.

Ethnography

Which of the following techniques tends to have the highest response rate? - Mail surveys - Fax surveys - Telephone surveys - Face-to-face interviews

Face-to-face interviews

Which of the following lists the three main methods of administering survey questionnaires? - Self-administered questionnaires, face-to-face interviews, and mail surveys - Face-to-face interviews, mail surveys, and electronic surveys - Face-to-face interviews, telephone interviews, electronic surveys - Face-to-face interviews, self-administered questionnaires, and telephone surveys

Face-to-face interviews, self-administered questionnaires, and telephone surveys

"Push polls" are useful for predicting what voters really think about candidates.

False

All forms of field research involve participant observation.

False

Babbie's recommendation is to place the demographic questions first in a printed questionnaire because they are the most inviting to a respondent.

False

Because of the work of sociologists and journalists are different, they should not use the same interviewing techniques.

False

Case studies focus on people or groups only.

False

Compensating respondents for their participation is frowned upon for ethical reasons.

False

Focus group participants are typically selected via probability samples.

False

In qualitative interviewing, interactions can only be done in a face-to-face or telephone interview context.

False

Limit contingency questions to one page.

False

One of the advantages of the field research is that it raises very ethical concerns.

False

Qualitative field researchers must always participate in what they are studying.

False

Reserachers who assume the role of the complete participant are unlikely to affect what they are studying.

False

Surveys are excellent devices for studying the context of social life.

False

The best survey design involves fitting as many questions as possible on a single page in order to save time and cost.

False

The biasing effect of particular question wording is easily anticipated.

False

The complete participant must always be a genuin member and participate in what he or she is studying?

False

The phrasing used in closed-ended questions should allow respondent to attach their own meanings and interpretations to the question.

False

To overcome the effect of the order of questions on respondent's answers, it is important to randomize the order of the items.

False

Unstructured interviews are less appropriate for field research than structured interviews.

False

Whenever the interview contains open-ended questions, it is important that the interviewer summarize an paraphrase what has been said so that a more meaningful interpretation can be given to the data.

False

Your field notes should record what you know happened NOT what you think happened.

False

Which of the following is FALSE regarding qualitative field research? - Field research is well suited to studying social processes over time - Field research is well suited to studying behaviors within their natural setting - Field research is well suited to studying attitudes within their natural setting - Field research is well suited for quantitative analysis

Field research is well suited for quantitative analysis

Which of the following is NOT a disadvantage of focus groups? - Focus group moderators require special skills - Focus group data is difficult to analyze - Focus group are often difficult to assemble - Focus group allow for multiple viewpoints to be heard

Focus group allow for multiple viewpoints to be heard

The primary function of the probe is to:

Get the respondent to answer a question more fully

To examine the social interactions of online role-playing gamers, a relatively pick up social phenomena, Kyoko developed a rough outline of what to look for before setting out on observation. This outline was intended to guide, but not specifically structure the observations. What approach did Kyoko use?

Grounded theory

_____ combines a naturalist approach with a positivist concern for a "systematic set of procedures in doing qualitative research.

Grounded theory

In contrast to interviews, self-administrered questionnaires have the advantage(s) of:

Handling sensitive issues more effectively if the surveys are anonymous

Professor Miller planned to tape six focus groups to examine citizens' attitudes toward park development. As a research methods student, you told Miller that an advantage of the focus group method is(are) that:

High face validity

Monitoring self-administered questionnaire returns may enable you to detect which of the following threats to internal invalidity? - Standard errors - Statistical regression - Compensatory rivalry - History

History

Jennifer is interested in understanding the dynamics within an economically diverse high school. She interviews a wide variety of students, as well as the staff and faculty to understand how race has an effect on their education. Jennifer is using what sort of research paradigm?

Institutional Ethnography

Jamie asks women about their personal experiences in the labor market in order to uncover the power relations that govern those experiences. What paradign is Jami using?

Institutional ethnography

An example(s) of the complete participant role is(are):

Joining a sorority or fraternity to study initiation rituals without revealing your identity as a researcher

In comparison to experiments and surveys, field research has:

Less reliability and greater validity

The qualitative field research interview is typically:

Less structured

Researchers Glaser and Strauss have advocated that which part of a research study should be elminated when following the tenets of grounded theory?

Literature Review

_____ is an old tradition in qualitative research based on the assumption that an objective social reality exists and can be observed and reported accurately.

Naturalism

Jenny wants to do research that tells the stories of rape victims. She wants to tell" their stories" and the way they "really are." Jenny is using a _____ paradigm.

Naturalist

Sara wanted to learn about battered women. She entered the world of battered women's shelter and lived with the women in order to fully learn about the views of these women. She wanted to write a detailed and accurate description about the lives that women reported. Which of the following approaches best describes Sara's research paradigm? - Naturalist - Ethnomethodology - Grounded theory - Institutional ethnography

Naturalist

Which of the following is NOT an advantage of the telephone interview as compared to face-to-face interview? - Saves time - Less expensive - Safe - No interviewer bias

No interviewer bias

Which of the following is NOT true regarding closed-ended and open-ended questions? - Close-ended questions are more easily quantifiable - Open-ended questions need not be coded before analysis - Open-ended questions lead to a greater variety of responses - Close-ended questions are usually limited to three or four choices

Open-ended questions need not be coded before analysis

Which of the following is the best example of a breaching experiment? - Walking into an elevator and turning to face the door - Opening an umbrella on a beautiful day - Closing an umbrella after the rain ends - Looking at the sky when birds fly by

Opening an umbrella on a beautiful day

Professor Jefferson is interested in studying the dynamics and processes of three local hospitals? Which of the elements of social life is he studying?

Organizations

A well designed training session for new interviewers should include all but which of the following? - A review of the survey instrument to build familiarization - Strategies on how to probe for additional information when appropriate - A description of what the study is about - Practice interviewing on actual participants in the research

Practice interviewing on actual participants in the research

Professor Donnelly wants to conduct a training session for new interviewers working on his project. Donnelly asks you to review his plan for the training session. After reviewing the plan you should tell Donnelly to exclude _____ from the session?

Practice interviews on people that Donnelly's selected for the sample

On a survey measuring respondents' fear of crime, including a question about one's political views would be an example of which of the problem in survey research?

Question should be relevant

Asking subjects "Did your children go to high school?" after they told you that they have no children violates which of the following criteria in question construction? - Avoid double-barreled questions - Questions should be relevant - Avoid biased items - Avoid negative items

Questions should be relevant

Which of the following statements is(are) FALSE about participatory action research (PAR)? - The researcher's function is to serve as a resource to those being studied - Researcher's should define their subject's problems, define the desired remedies, and take the lead in helping subjects realize their aims - Advocates of PAR often believe that the distinction between the researcher and the researched should disappear - Advocates of PAR often believe that traditional research is elitist

Researcher's should define their subject's problems, define the desired remedies, and take the lead in helping subjects realize their aims

When follow-ups are planned with mail surveys:

Response rates typically increase

Interactive Voice Recognition is a developing technology in what current method of conducting survey research?

Robopolling

An advantage(s) of field research is(are) that:

Social processes can be studied over time

In a complete qualitative interviewing process, a researcher will perform all but which of the following? - Thematize - Statistically analyze - Transcribe - Verify

Statistically analyze

In general, survey research is:

Strong on reliability and weak on validity

The difference between just a case study and the extended case method involves:

Testing social theory

Which of the following advantages of the interview may raise ethical issues? - Its higher response rate - Its fewer number of "don't knows" - The ability of interviewers to clarify questions - The ability of interviewers to observe respondents as well as ask questions

The ability of interviewers to observe respondents as well as ask questions

Jessica is concerned with the problem of reactivity in her study of a local diet group. Which of the following is NOT one of her reactivity concerns? - The members of the diet group might alter their behaviors they know they are being studied - The members of the diet group might alter their lifestyles and behavior because they joined the group to lose weight - The members of the diet group might expel her from doing research - The members of the diet group might alter their discussion of diet strategies because they know that she is studying the group

The members of the diet group might alter their lifestyles and behavior because they joined the group to lose weight

Interview surveys have a number of advantages over mail surveys; which of the following is NOT one of those advantages? - Higher response rates - There is generally a smaller number of "don't knows" and "no answers" - There is a smaller number of relevant responses given - Observations can be made

There is a smaller number of relevant responses given

Professor Milne was preparing to do qualitative interviewing in a field research project. Milne knew that you were a research methods student and asked for our advice. You told Milne:

To begin with a search of the literature

A demonstrated lack of bias is more important than a high response rate.

True

An "Audit trail" has been recommended for qualitative researchers to document each point of decision or interpretation during the research project.

True

Case studies may be descriptive or explanatory.

True

Field research typically alternates between deduction and induction.

True

For participant Action Researchers, access to information is equivalent to social power.

True

Probes are used more frequently in open-ended questions than in closed-ended ones.

True

Qualitative field research differs from other forms of observation in that it is both a data-collecting and a theory generating activity.

True

Qualitative researchers should take notes and record events as soon as possible to ensure the greatest accuracy.

True

Questionnaires can be both those that are mailed to respondents, as well as those administered on-site by a researcher.

True

Random-Digit dialing helps to circumvent the problem of unlisted telephone numbers.

True

Research assistants who are facilitating interview surveys should both be trained in the process of interviewing, as well as the purpose of the study.

True

Secondary analysis refers to the analysis of data collected earlier by another researcher for some purpose other than the topic of the current study.

True

Specific methods do not link to specific paradigms.

True

The "Convert" is more likely to run the risk of "going native" than the "Martian".

True

The extended case method looks for all the ways in which observations conflict with existing theory.

True

The higher the response rate, the less likely the chance of a significant nonresponse bias.

True

The interviewer should be a neutral medium through which questions and answers are transmitted.

True

The use of computer-assisted telepone interviewing (CATI) enables a researcher to begin analyzing data before the interviewing is complete.

True

Working with a very limited budget, Professor Jenner undertook a national survey of 3,000 households. Jenner felt that the topic under investigation would produce a low response rate. What advice would you give Jenner?

Use bulk rate for the outgoing mail and business reply for the return mail

A key problem of secondary analysis is:

Validity

Which of the following is POOR advice for recording observations in the field? - Don't trust your memory anymore than you have to - You must always take notes during the observation - You must take notes in stages - Advance preparation on recording anticipated observations better enable you to record unanticipated observations.

You must always take notes during the observation