Social Science Research Methods

A score that is 2.5 standard deviations below the mean would have a z score of ______.

-2.5

If you have a distribution of 20 scores, and you want 2 intervals, what should be the size of your class interval?

10

The entire normal curve contains _______ of scores.

100%

What is the standard deviation for the following set of scores: 10, 15, 12, 18, 19, 16, 12?

3.36

What is the standard deviation for the following set of scores: 20, 24, 26, 22, 18, 16, 18?

3.60

If you know M = 5, and the sum of scores is 20, what is n?

4

Which of the following sets of scores has the least variability?

5, 4, 5, 6, 5

If a distribution has a mean of 30 and a standard deviation of 5, how many standard deviations is 60 from the mean?

6

Which of the following sets of scores has the greatest variability?

7, 10, 11, 15, 19

If the number in cell A5 is 6 and the number in cell A6 is 8, then the Excel function = AVERAGE(A5:A6) would produce this answer.

7.

If ∑(X - M)2 = 235, and n = 29, what is s2?

8.39

Which of the following is NOT an essential component of informed consent:

A statement that once they begin participation, they cannot quit.

If you do not have the Data Analysis tools, you can load them by clicking ______.

Add-ins.

Which of the following was NOT suggested by Kathleen McKiinney as a way to ensure the right to privacy in doing research on sexuality?

Anonymous Interviews.

A(n) ______ in mathematical terms is a set of premises.

Argument.

Which of the following does NOT harm subjects:

Asking them to provide demographic information.

Which of the following visual representations uses bars to display the frequencies?

Histogram.

When humans first realized that counting was a good idea, this became a useful skill for people to have ______.

Collecting information

When names are removed from questionnaires and are replaced with identification numbers so that only the researcher can later link a response to a name, the researcher should tell the respondent that the information is:

Confidential.

What function returns the correlation coefficient between two data sets?

Correl.

Steve had a hunch that female students were more punctual than males in the classes that he taught. So, he began to keep track for a week in each class of how many male and female students came in after the class was scheduled to begin. His results supported his hypothesis. Steve is using

Deductive Reasoning.

Which of the following would be used to describe the type of statistical methods used to organize and describe the characteristics of a collection of data?

Descriptive Statistics.

What key can you use to get help when using Excel?

F1

Which of the techniques of data collection is MOST likely to make a guarantee of anonymity difficult:

Face-to-Face interviews.

Anonymity and confidentiality are two different names for the same concept:

False.

Everyone agrees that Tom's research does NOT inflict physical harm on subjects. Tom is pleased by this conclusion because it means that he no longer has to be concerned with the issue of harm to subjects:

False.

Once people are told that their participation in a research study is voluntary, there are no ethical problems:

False.

Only experimental research and face-to-face interviews are subject to ethical concerns:

False.

Only names, birthdates, and social security numbers are considered identifiable data:

False.

Social Scientist agree that objectivity is necessary for research:

False.

Social Scientist are totally objective in their research:

False.

Theo is excited because he received a grant from the National Institute of Health to conduct his study. As an undergraduate student, he is exempt from bringing his research before his school's IRB:

False.

Which of the following statements is FALSE reguarding University IRBs?

IRB must review all research.

__ Is a norm in which subjects base their voluntary participation in research projects on a full understanding of the possible risks involved:

Informed Consent.

Inferential statistics is most often used for which of the following?

Interpreting data.

Inferential statistics involve ______ the data.

Interpreting.

The process of debriefing, in the context of research serves to:

Interview subjects and discuss deception after their participation.

In order to say that a distribution is negatively skewed, which of the following must be true?

Left tail must be longer than the right.

What would be your preferred measure of central tendency if you had the following data: $31,550; $33,750; $34,700; $37,550; $39,275?

Mean

What you need to calculate first before calculating the kurtosis?

Mean and standard deviation.

What does the symbol M represent?

Mean.

Which of the following would help you compute averages more than variability?

Mean.

What is the central point of the class interval called?

Midpoint.

Which of the following best describes the mode?

Most frequently occurring values

Which of the following would a sociologist be LEAST likely to study?

Mr. Smith quitting his job.

Which of the following is most likely to be a list of variables?

Occupation, political party preference, birthrate.

What is the larger group from which a sample is drawn?

Population.

A distribution of scores in which almost the entire class scored very low but a few students scored fairly high would be ______.

Positively skewed.

Which measure of variability should never be used alone to reach conclusions regarding the variance of a distribution?

Range

The letter X with a bar over it is used to represent (a) ______.

Sample statistic.

A common goal in statistics is to generalize results from a ______.

Sample to a population.

In which of the following scenarios would confidentiality be of the LEAST concern?

Secondary Data Analysis.

What is the name of the letter ∑?

Sigma

What does the term skew mean?

Significantly distort.

Which measure of variability is a measure of the average distance from the mean?

Standard deviation.

Which of the following variables would be the LEAST ethical concern to an IRB?

Subjects Age.

Maureen is performing a study in which she interviews disabled military veterans about how they are adapting to being back home. She is focusing on questions about what it means to be perceived by others as both "disabled" and a "veteran." What paradigm is Maureen's work most likely shaped by?

Symbolic interactionism.

The largest class interval goes here on a frequency distribution?

The Top.

The Minamata disease, a disease which produced severe nervous disorders and birth defects, was traced to the fact that the Chisso chemical company dumped mercury into a bay where Japanese villagers fished. The villagers of Minamata, where the company was located, refused to sue the chemical company. However, the residents of Niigata, a fishing village forty miles up the river from the factory, sued the chemical company. Which of the following explanations flows from the conflict paradigm?

The chemical company controlled more of the village resources in Minamata than in Niigato.

Epistemology is best described as

The science of knowing

Which of the following is NOT a function of theory for research?

Theory helps to gloss over any shortcomings in research findings.

Ethical issues are distinguished from political issues in research in that:

There are no formal codes of accepted political conduct whereas there are codes of ethical conduct.

Which of the following is true of z scores that fall below the mean?

They are negative.

How are inferential statistics most often used?

To make inferences from the sample to the population

A good rule of thumb when creating an illustration is ______.

To make sure your graph communicates only one idea.

The norm of voluntary participation threatens the social research goal of generalizability:

True

Any agency wishing to receive federal funds for research must establish an institutional review board (IRB):

True.

It is often as important to report that two variables are unrelated as to report that they are related:

True.

Political issues tend to focus on substance and the use of research:

True.

When using Descriptive Statistics, how do you select the range?

Using the Collapse button.

Weber called the lack of intrusion of the researcher's own political position on research:

Value -free sociology.

Which of the following measures how much scores differ from one another?

Variability.

Professor Smith decides to track the dating behaviors of college students throughout their college careers. She decides to begin her research using her introductory class. After explaining the study, she assures students that their responses will be kept confidential. The Students complete her survey during class. Her survey most clearly impings on:

Voluntary Participation.

If you know the z score, standard deviation(s), and mean (M), what formula would you use to compute the raw score (X)?

X = z(s) + M

What is the symbol for the operator "power of?"

^