Chapter 02 Quiz [Sociological Investigation]

"A statement of a possible relationship between two or more variables" is the definition of which concept?

Hypothesis

The sociologist who called on his colleagues to be "value-free" in the conduct of their research was ________

Max Weber.

Which sociological research method is likely to be the most difficult to replicate (repeat)?

Participant observation

Which sociological research method provides the best chance to understand social behavior in a natural setting?

Participant observation

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

Which sociological research method is most likely to produce quantitative data that will identify cause-and-effect relationships?

The experiment

Which sociological research method is best used to study what cannot be directly observed, such as attitudes and values, among large numbers of people?

The survey

From a research point of view, what is the problem with the question, "Do you think that the government should spend less on defense and spend more on health care?"

Two different questions are being asked, so that a simple "yes" or "no" may distort the subject's actual opinion.

_________ refers to measuring exactly what one intends to measure.

Validity

Which German word meaning "understanding" was used by Max Weber to describe his approach to sociological research?

Verstehen

An apparent, although false, association between two variables that is caused by a third variable is called ________

a spurious correlation.

Imagine that you were going to measure the age of a number of respondents taking part in a survey. As you record the data, you are using the concept "age" as ________

a variable.

"A mental construct that represents some aspect of the world in a somewhat simplified form" is the definition of a ________

concept

Interpretive sociology refers to sociology that ________

focuses on the meaning people attach to behavior.

Sociologists cannot precisely predict any person's behavior because ________

human behavior is highly complex and has many causes.

One disadvantage of conducting interviews is that this research method ________

may easily allow the researcher to influence subjects' responses.

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.

In a cause-and-effect relationship

the independent variable must come before the dependent variable in time.

Inductive logical thought involves ________

transforming specific observations into general theory.

The ideal of objectivity means that a researcher must ________

try to adopt a stance of personal neutrality toward the outcome of the research.

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

A survey

In the process of measurement, reliability refers to ________

whether repeating the measurement yields consistent results.

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.

Sociologists use the term "empirical evidence" to refer to ________

information we can verify with our senses, particularly observation or experimentation.

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

key informant.

A small number of people that are selected to represent a much larger population is called a ________

sample.

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.

Deductive logical thought involves ________

turning theories into hypotheses suitable for testing.