Sociology Quiz 2
which of the following affect the methods used by sociological researchers
what they want to accomplish the methods they are trained in and feel comfortable with the time available to complete their projects the resources and funds available ***all of the above
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?
quantitative
What can an institutional review board do if it has reservations about the safety or ethics of a research project?
It may stop the project from going forward, at least until changes have been made.
Which of the following is an advantage of replicability in experiments?
Experiments can be performed again and again over time in order to measure change.
Which of the following is a disadvantage of using ethnography as a method of social research?
It is very difficult for another researcher to repeat or replicate any particular ethnography.
When conducting experiments, how is the experimental group different from the control group?
The experimental group receives the independent variable, and the control group does not.
Many kitchen tools today are made with easy-to-grip silicone handles, a vast improvement over old wire tools, which were often painful to use. Although the advantages of silicone over wire might seem obvious, kitchenware makers were unaware of the problems with wire tools until they hired ethnographers to visit people at home, see how they worked in the kitchen, and determine what sorts of things could be sold to them. This ethnography was an example of:
a nonacademic use of research methods.
What kind of question usually produces a wide variety of responses by allowing respondents to answer in whatever way seems appropriate to them?
an open-ended question
Lili is conducting a sociological research study on the underground music scene. She has just finished collecting data for the study. What is the next step that Lili should take in the sociological research or approach or method?
analyze data
if a researcher allows his own values and opinions to affect his analysis, he is guilty of
bias
Jai is conducting a sociological research study on differences in interactions between similar and dissimilar co-workers. After reviewing the literature, he developed a hypothesis that interactions between co-workers who are more similar will be more positive and he has operationalized study variables. What is the next step that Jai should take in the sociological research or approach or method?
choose a research design or method
Which method of social research might involve shifting between participating in a social situation and being an observer?
ethnography
Which research method most closely resembles the scientific method?
experimental research
ethnographic research projects can be designed so that there is a minimum of outside interference
false
in a random sample, everyone who happens to be available when a researcher is seeking participants could be included in a study
false
According to sociological research methods, what are the steps in research, and in what order should they be completed?
identify a problem, review the literature, formulate hypotheses, chose a research design, collect data, interpret results, disseminate
Sociologists who administer interviews can only gather data from a limited number of people because:
interviews are too time consuming.
After researchers conduct a series of interviews, they usually transcribe the responses. The transcription process is fairly time consuming, but it is valuable in part because it allows researchers to:
look for patterns in their data
A paradigm shift is a major break in the assumptions that are used to understand the world. What causes a paradigm shift?
new data forces a new way of looking at the world
what do you call broad theoretical models of the social and natural world
paradigms
Which of the following research techniques focuses on gaining an insider's perspective of the everyday lives of subjects under investigation, often dispelling stereotypes about the group being investigated?
participant observation
before beginning a research project, what will a good researcher always
review the literature in order to become familiar with earlier research that relates to his topic
Ethnographers using participant observation must always be aware of reflexivity, which occurs because:
the presence of ethnographers may alter the behavior of the people they are observing.
If a piece of sociological research is representative, it means that:
the smaller group of people studied can tell us something about a larger group.
what is the scientific method or approach
the standard procedure for acquiring and verifying empirical knowledge
what is reactivity
the tendency of research subjects to change their behavior in response to being studied
Ethnographers sometimes write down key words or quotations while they're interacting with people. Given that they will write much more detailed fieldnotes later, what is the advantage of these brief, sketchy notes?
they are an aid to memory when writing more detailed fieldnotes
If a researcher has obtained informed consent from all his participants, it means that:
they have all explicitly agreed to participate in the research and they all understand the nature of the study and what will be asked of them
what are the goals of ethnography
to describe activities sociologists observe and to understand what those activities mean to the people involved
as long as correct sampling techniques are used, researchers can make generalizations about a large population from a much smaller sample
true
market research is probably the most common use of sociological methods for nonacademic
true
You're doing a research project on the effects of contemporary media. If your hypothesis is that "watching violence on television causes an increase in violent behavior," then what are your variables?
violence on television and violent behavior