Sociology Module 03 Quiz

Reviewing the literature

A graduate student is almost done with his dissertation when he is informed that twenty years ago someone did a very similar project and already demonstrated what he had hoped to be the first to discover. What basic step of the scientific method could have saved him from this problem? Developing an operational definition Analyzing data Reviewing the literature Creating relevant variables Hypothesis testing

American college students

A research team is curious about the relationship between diet and exercise habits and academic performance among American college students. In order to get their data the researchers randomly select 17 colleges by pulling names out of a hat and travel to campuses, where they stand in prominent public places and ask for volunteers until they have 10 people from each campus willing to be interviewed. What is the researchers' target population? Students at the 17 colleges they visited The 10 students who were interviewed American college students Young people All college students in the world

It creates social solidarity

The adhan is the Islamic call to prayer, recited five times each day. This means that, in theory, five times each day every Muslim is doing the exact same thing at the exact same time. What function or dysfunction of religion does the adhan help to bring about? It provides rules and norms It creates social solidarity It reinforces sexism It creates a bias against homosexuals It makes our lives meaningful

the tendency of research subjects to change their behavior in response to being studied

What is reactivity? the way that the experimental group reacts to the independent variable the independent variable in an experiment one of the ways that bias can creep into a research project, often without the researcher even realizing the tendency of research subjects to change their behavior in response to being studied the goal of applied research, to create a reaction

both A and C

Which of the following are disadvantages of using existing sources of data for research? Researchers often seek answers to questions that the data doesn't directly address Researchers have to spend a great deal of time and money to get the data Researchers do not always understand how the data was interpreted or what it meant in its original context both A and B both A and C

quantitative

If the federal government conducts research on the value of checking batteries in home smoke detectors, what method will produce data that is most easy to transmit to many people? ethnography commercial research quantitative qualitative interviews

ask about multiple issues

Researchers should try to avoid double-barreled questions, or questions that: ask about multiple issues use emotional language that may bias the respondent are vague or ambiguous have a hidden agenda allow for a wide variety of responses

Quantitative

Sociologists who study gender report that the amount that women make, compared to men doing the same job, is around 78 cents on the dollar. Finding this figure required researchers to gather data from a large number of men and women and compare average salaries. What sort of research is this? Quantitative Qualitative Comparative historical Journalistic Content Analysis

Interviewees are allowed to speak in their own words

Which of the following is NOT a disadvantage of using interviews to conduct social research? Interviewees are allowed to speak in their own words Interviewees are not always truthful Interviewees can be difficult to talk to Interviews are time consuming It can be difficult to generalize from interviews because the sample size is usually small

Face-to-face interviewing is a very time consuming process

Why do social scientists who use interviews rarely speak with large numbers of people for a project? It is hard to find people willing to be interviewed The transcription process is very expensive There are usually very few people who are interesting enough to be interviewed Face-to-face interviewing is a very time consuming process Too many interviews may bias the results