Chapter 5: How Sociologists Do Research

________ may be a problem with research from participant observers.

Generalizability

Which of the following is a macro-level topic of sociological research?

The military

The independent variable causes a change in the

dependent variable.

What is a valid sociological topic?

All human behavior

Sharon had spent months carrying out her sociological experiments. She had collected a ton of data. What was Sharon's next step?

Analyze the results.

Explain how research and theory work together in sociology

Neither research nor theory can stand alone. Every theory must be tested-which requires research. The results of research must be explained-and for that we need theory.

In which stage of the research model might you discover that the question you are interested in answering has already been answered?

Reviewing the literature

What are the eight steps of the research model?

The eight steps of the research model (in chronological order) are: 1. Select a topic 2. Define the problem 3. Review the literature 4. Formulate a hypothesis 5. Choose a research method 6. Collect the data 7. Analyze the results 8. Share the results

What are the three necessary conditions for causation?

The three necessary conditions necessary to establish causation: Correlation Temporal priority No spurious correlation

What are the three ways sociologists measure average, and how do they differ?

The three ways sociologists measure average are the mean, median, and mode. The mean is calculated by adding up a group of numbers and then dividing by the number of cases that you added. The median is the middle case in an ordered range of cases. The mode is the number of cases that occur most often.

Which of the following is a research method?

Unobtrusive measures

________ are used to study people who are unaware that they are being studied.

Unobtrusive measures

Why can't common sense replace sociological research?

What is considered common sense may or may not be true. In order to answer a question, we need to move beyond guesswork and common sense, in order to know what is really going on.

A case study reveals a lot about ________ situation(s).

a particular

When you select a sample for a sociological study, your aim is to get

a representative sample

________ is a precise way to measure a variable.

an operational definition

In the research model, collecting the data comes before the step of

analyzing the results.

Open-ended questions are questions that respondents

answer in their own words

In order to collect data on your topic, you need to

choose a research method

Questions followed by a list of possible answers that the respondent can select are called

closed-ended questions.

________ means that two or more variables are present together.

correlation

Which of the following is an example of an open-ended question? a. Should public officials who accept bribes be jailed? b. In your opinion, should public officials who accept bribes be required to perform community service? c. Should public officials who have been convicted for accepting bribes be registered in a public list, in the same manner that sex offenders are registered? d. What do you think should be done to a public official who accepts bribes?

d. What do you think should be done to a public official who accepts bribes?

In the research model, specifying what it is that you want to learn about a topic is the stage of

defining the problem

The best method of sociological research to use

depends on the type of question.

Police reports, photographs, and videos are examples of ________ used by researchers.

documents

The subjects in an experiment who are exposed to the independent variable make up the

experimental group.

Another term for "participant observation" is

fieldwork

A ________ predicts a relationship between or among variables.

hypothesis

What you expect to find according to predictions from a theory is known as a(n)

hypothesis.

The direct questioning of respondents is called a(n)

interview.

Li, a sociology undergraduate, was required to participate in a research study being conducted by a graduate student in his department. He didn't know the topic until he got there, and the things the interviewer asked him were embarrassing. Li chose answers that weren't quite true-in fact, they weren't true at all-in order to save face himself and also to please the interviewer. This is example of

interviewer bias

In sociological research, gender

is influential

If the questions that you ask the people taking part in your study are not ________, you will end up with biased answers.

neutral

In a control group, subjects are

not exposed to the independent variable.

The unstructured interview uses

open-ended questions

In secondary analysis, researchers analyze data collected by

others

The target group to be studied in a research project is the

population

Professional handling of confidential sociological field notes entails

protecting respondents

After graduate-level study of sociology, sociologists trained in ________ research methods lean toward ________.

qualitative; participant observation

Halid spent some time drawing up the questions for his ________, which is a list of questions to be asked of respondents.

questionnaire

In a ________, everyone in the target population has the same chance of being included in the study.

random sample

______ is a feeling of trust between researchers and the people they are studying.

rapport

________ are the people who respond to a survey.

respondents

The ________ is made up of the individuals intended to represent the population to be studied.

sample

What is the first step in the research model?

select a topic

The lowest-cost method of administering a questionnaire is the

self-administered questionnaire

The eighth and final step of the research model is to

share the results.

The ________ is drawn from selected subgroups of a target population.

stratified random sample

A(n) ________ interview uses closed-ended questions.

structured

A(n) ________ is the collection of data by having people answer a series of questions.

survey

Reliability refers to

the extent to which research produces consistent or dependable results.

________ is the extent to which an operational definition measures what it is intended to measure.

validity

A(n) ________ is a factor thought to be significant for human behavior, which can vary (change) from one case to another.

variable

Experiments use ________ to test ________.

variables; causation

Plagiarism in sociological research

violates research ethics.