Exam Study Guide Questions

Megan wants to study bullying in high school. She randomly selected 1,000 students at a high school, and 400 students completed the survey. What is the response rate?

40%

The most commonly used value for confidence levels by social science researchers is ____.

95%

George is researching the relationship between racial animosity and political preference. However, he tells his subjects that his study is about undergraduate political party preferences, which is false. This false reason for participation in an experiment is known as ____.

A cover story

There are approximately equal numbers of men and women in the U.S. population. If a researcher wants to study the impact of gender on whether teenagers decide to apply to college, but only includes women in the study, which of the following would be in jeopardy?

External validity

Which of the guidelines below needs to be considered by the writer of this question: "Should loving soon-to-be mothers take prenatal vitamins?"

Avoid leading questions

Dr. Luther has accessed a list of all public elementary schools in the state of California. He randomly selects 20 schools from the list and then randomly selects 100 students at each school to survey. What type of sampling method has Dr. Luther used?

Cluster

This figure depicts three different ways to draw a probability sample of 12 from six-person groups. Which type of sampling is illustrated from top to bottom of the figure? https://ibb.co/7kKfzL3

Cluster Sampling; Stratified Sampling; Simple Random Sampling

A document that lists all variables in a survey and provides information about each variable, including question and response categories, is called a(n) ____.

Codebook

In scientific research, an idea that can be clearly names, defined, and eventually measured is called a ____.

Concept

Twila designs a sociology research study about gender-based violence. After she proposes the study, she decides that she really wants it to be applied research. Accordingly, she refines the study to ____.

Evaluate a local nonprofit organization devoted to reducing domestic violence

A factory owner wants to know whether the assembly line workers feel adequately rewarded and appreciated. He hires a social scientist to conduct ____.

Evaluation research

The ____ condition is a condition in an experiment where the independent variable is manipulated.

Experimental

Will wants to lose 75 pounds. Which of the following represents the constraining influence of social structure against his agency?

High-quality food and gym memberships are costly, and Will's income is low

Dr. Lang plans a study of why some high schoolers join Honor societies. Which of the following is the unit of analysis?

High-school students

Raj is interested in the impact of race and social class on interactions with the police. He has created a factorial design experiment. What is a characteristic of this experiment?

His study has two independent variables--race and social class

Professor Flaeger hypothesizes that when college students participate in local service activities, their views toward human rights are strengthened. In this hypothesis, what is the dependent variable?

Human rights attitudes

In the course of his study on nursing homes, Inger inadvertently learned about specific instances of elder abuse. She had promised her subjects confidentiality, but ____.

In some states, she is required to report abuse, even is she learned it in the course of research

Dr. Han plans a large-scale panel study, with prospective design, and secures funding. There are many challenges to the project, and in an effort to minimize attrition, he ____.

Incentivizes participants with moderate cash payments

Compared to behavioral measures, what is a characteristic of an attitudinal measure?

Researchers prefer attitudinal measures when they are interested in understanding why an outcome occurs

The split-half method is when ____.

Researchers randomly split the set of items for a measure into two sets to create two separate measures instead of one

Before she conducted her research on Hurricane Katrina survivors, Mary Waters carefully considered whether the study would produce useful knowledge and whether her subjects would be traumatized by talking about the experience. Such an assessment of ____ and ____ is central to the IRB review process.

Risks; Benefits

A survey in which a randomly selected subset of respondents, typically 50% of those persons selected to participate in the survey, receives one topical module while the other 50% receives a different topical ballot is called a(n) ____ design.

Split-ballot

Dr. Nguyen is interested in better understanding which students at the University of Houston study abroad. Her target population is all ____.

Students at the University of Houston

A researcher distributes a survey to college students. One question asks, "How many hours per night do you sleep?" and another asks, "What is your GPA?" If the study has a cross-sectional design, which conclusion is possible?

Students who sleep more have higher GPAs

Which of the following is an example of a quantitative method?

Surveys

____ is an example of an omnibus survey.

The General Social Survey (GSS)

When sociologists consider whether research is ethical, they are referring to if ____.

The actions are right or wrong, good or bad

Lisa is analyzing the results of her pretest. What would indicate to her that a question needs revision?

The cognitive interview showed that they question was confusing

Which of the following is a variable?

The number of illegal activities in which a person has engaged over the last year

What was the ethical breach in the Milgram obedience experiment?

The people administering shocks might have experienced psychological harm

In establishing causality, which of the following conditions, in practice, is the most challenging?

The relationship between the independent variable and dependent variable must not be caused by some other factor

The test-retest method is an approach in which ____.

The same measure is administered to a sample and then re-administered to the same sample later

Which best explains why the Literary Digest poll failed to predict the winner of the 1936 presidential election?

The sample didn't represent the American population

When researchers want to test robustness, or how well an operational protocol is working, they might use which of the following techniques?

The test-retest method

The ____ experiment is the most common type of experiment.

Laboratory

The most important difference between macrosociology and microsociology is that macrosociology focuses on ____ and microsociology focuses on ____.

Large-scale social systems; Personal concerns and interpersonal interactions

If you were conducting a sociology study and had particular concern about you, as the researcher, deceiving people by misrepresenting your identity, which study and subsequent scholarly dialogue would be most helpful to consult?

Laud Humphreys' Tearoom Trade

Which accurately describes how sociologists view macro-level issues and micro-level issues?

Macro-level issues and micro-level issues are linked because large-scale systems affect personal experiences

Sociologists model social life with three levels that move from specificity to abstraction. Which words represent these levels, in order from the widest point of the triangle to the narrowest? https://ibb.co/56Cy5NB

Macro; Meso; Micro

The NAS poverty line may offer a more accurate picture of poverty in the United States than the FPL, but it ____.

May not be as reliable a measure over time

An experiment in which the independent variable is manipulated by "nature," not by the experimenter, is known as a ____ experiment.

Natural

Affonso plans to study the effect of degree type on the income of college graduates. He chooses to represent degree type with college major and to represent income with individual annual income (in dollars). In this study, college major is a(n) ____ variable and individual annual income is a(n) ____ variable.

Nominal; Ratio

Amy applies status characteristics theory to student government at her university. This theory predicts that student government officials gain power and prestige when ____.

Their race, gender, and social class characteristics are highly valued in the broader society

Concepts such as socialization, deviance, and self-control can be linked to explain crime. When concepts are systematically linked in such a way that they generate an explanatory chain of relations, they become a(n) ____.

Theory

In a research study, which of the following steps typically occurs first?

Write literature review

What is a strategy survey designers use for avoiding response set?

Word some questions positively and others negatively

Among professional social scientists, what is the most common form of research report?

A peer-reviewed article in a refereed journal

A researcher is getting ready to gather data from a nationally representative sample of 5,000 Americans on their attitudes towards voting in local elections. In order to make sure our measures are reliable, we might gather a random sample of 100 Americans and test the study. What would we call this preliminary study?

A pilot study

Sampling is necessary because ____.

A researcher cannot study every member of the population of interest

There are different types of confusion that can emerge around a study's unit of analysis. If a researcher draws conclusions about individuals using group-level data, the mismatch is called ____. If he or she draws conclusions about a group based on individual-level data, the mismatch is called ____.

An ecological fallacy; Reductionism

A sociology study about employment seeking and criminal backgrounds collects data from publicly available databases, and then de-identifies the data. No one, not even the researcher, can trace a piece of data back to the person it describes. This researcher has achieved ____.

Anonymity

What kind of institutions must have institutional review boards?

Any institution that receives research money from the federal government

Agata is planning two different studies. One will be a content analysis of how often romantic storylines occur among older adult movie characters. The second will be a study of whether those who see older adults in romantic film roles have different attitudes about older adults' sexuality than those who do not see older adults in romantic film roles. The form of measurement Agata will most likely use for the first study is ____. Alternatively, she will probably use ____ as the form of measurement for the second study.

Artifact counts; Manipulation

If a researcher is struggling with the data in a longitudinal study of job satisfaction because the composition of the sample has changed over time, he or she is most likely dealing with a problem of ____.

Attrition

Mary is a researcher studying sexual harassment. What can she use to make the face-to-face interview setting more comfortable when discussing this topic?

Audio Computer-Assisted Self-Interview (ACASI) technology

Junmey conducts a study on water quality in a village where people are suffering from poor water. Junmey does not use her findings to help the people, even when she could, stating that the purpose of this study is for her to earn a dissertation. She says she will apply findings in later work, but not this one. Junmey has violated which Belmont principle?

Beneficence

Elise finishes her study of child actors in theater settings and decides to publish it as a monograph. She writes a ____.

Book-length publication that includes the research question, methods, and findings

Dr. Machi writes an abstract as part of his research report. The purpose of the abstract is to ____.

Briefly summarize the research report

In a study of family process, a sociologist finds that the relation between poverty and childhood problems is influenced by parental support. When parents provide strong support, poor children's problems are less numerous and less severe. The three concepts are poverty, childhood problems, and parental support. Which category of relations within a theory best describes these findings? https://ibb.co/z7CvXbL

C

In the course of her study on drug use, Eileen finds many instances of criminal activity. She ensures her subjects confidentiality, because before the study began she received a(n) ____.

Certificate of confidentiality

The ____ refers to the probability that a confidence interval includes the population parameter.

Confidence level

When participants' identifying information is only accessible to member of the research team, this is called ____.

Confidentiality

Survey researchers must take care to protect respondents' ____. It is unrealistic and impractical for survey researchers to promise ____ to respondents.

Confidentiality; Anonymity

Suppose a researcher wants to measure difficulties for college students whose parents did not attend college. The researcher writes survey questions about grades, quality of support on campus, and financial resources, but does not ask about whether the student has family support or a good advisor. If the researcher has not tapped into all the dimensions of difficulties for first-generation college students, which of the following would be at risk?

Content validity

Julio needs to collect data for his senior honors thesis and has decided to administer surveys to 500 students who are currently enrolled in an Introductory Sociology course at his college. Julio's sample is a good example of a ____ sample.

Convenience

Eli is a family life educator and wants to intervene at the micro level to influence the issue of domestic violence. What should Eli do?

Counsel a family affected by domestic violence

Lincoln and Guba (1985) argue that instead of validity and reliability, qualitative research should instead be judged based on ____.

Credibility and dependability

Sierra conducts a student of unemployment and reaches a conclusion: "In 2016, the unemployment rate in Dover County was 6%." Such a conclusion may be reached with which type of study design?

Cross-sectional

Herman is a U.S. Census statistician and notices that in one zip code there is only one Arab-American family in an otherwise white neighborhood. He chooses the statistical technique that will make the Arab-American family's presence in society noticeable, but not traceable to the actual zip code where they live. Herman chooses ____.

Data swapping

Johann took part in a study that he was told initially was about test-taking strategies. After the experiment was over, he was surprised to learn that the actual purpose of the experiment was to determine whether exposure to negative racial stereotypes causes changes in test performance. The interview after the study when Johann was informed of the actual purpose of the experiment is known as the ____.

Debriefing

Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) regression is a statistical procedure that does what?

Estimates how well changes in the independent variable predict changes in the dependent variable

The central ethical principle at stake in Laud Humphreys' Tearoom Study was ____; in contrast, the central ethical principle at stake in the study of Harvard Facebook users was ____.

Deception; Privacy

Megan is collecting data for a research project. She has decided to increase her sample size from 500 participants to 1,000 participants. As her sample size increases, her sampling error ____ and her margin of error ____.

Decreases; Decreases

Dr. Sarty submits a manuscript to the American Journal of Sociology and receives a brief letter that states his manuscript is not being considered and was not even sent out for peer review. This is an example of a(n) ____ reject.

Desk

The goal in research involving a hypothesis is to ____.

Disprove the null hypothesis

Emile plans a study about the health of deep-sea divers. In determining whether to use a cross-sectional design or a longitudinal design, Emile should ask, "Do I want to know about ____?"

Divers health in a single moment in time, or diver health overtime

Which question would most likely be used as the basis for evaluation research?

Do housing subsidies reduce overcrowded housing?

A question that asks about two or more ideas or concepts in a single question is known as a(n) ____ question.

Double-barreled

____ refers to the extent to which the conclusions drawn from a study generalize to a larger population or to a different setting.

External validity

Suppose a researcher wants to measure whether people have experienced racial discrimination in their neighborhood. The researcher might ask questions about whether subjects ever felt they were turned away from renting or buying a home because of their race. The researcher might also ask about whether they have ever been treated unfairly by store clerks or their neighbors. After writing the questions on their survey, the researchers felt they had accurate measures of discrimination because they seemed right. Which kind of validity would they feel they achieved?

Face validity

If a researcher creates a measure of exercise frequency by averaging individual reports of exercise behavior across a neighborhood, this researcher is studying exercise at the ____ level.

Group

For which of the following would it make sense to measure using a composite variable?

Happiness

An author submits a journal article and receives an editorial decision of "revise and resubmit." The author is probably ____.

Happy, because this is the most common path toward publication, and she will be able to improve the article with the feedback of her peers

Lucinda completes her study of people's attitudes towards affirmative action and finishes collecting her data, but while analyzing the data, she realizes she should have reworded certain questions in her questionnaire. What should Lucinda do with this insight?

Include this limitation in the discussion section; It is a sign of having a critical mind

This figure describes the relations between variables in a causal hypothesis. 1 refers to ____ variable; 2 refers to ____ variable. https://ibb.co/DLHmWTp

Independent; Dependent

Social scientists prefer the active voice over the passive voice because the active voice ____.

Indicates who took action in the sentence

Structural functionalism and conflict paradigms are more often criticized for neglecting ____; symbolic interaction is criticized for ignoring ____.

Individuals; Social structures

The degree to which a study establishes a causal effect of the independent variable on the dependent variable is known as ____.

Internal validity

Why is validity a challenging ideal in a sociological study?

It is difficult to match a measure to the concept it is supposed to capture

Experiments might potentially be critiqued for problem with external validity. Why?

It is hard to know if what happens in a lab setting will happen in the real world

What is a characteristic of a natural experiment?

It is more observable than a true experiment

It is desirable for a ____ to have a ____ impact factor.

Journal; High

Annette Lareau's inductive approach to studying social class and child-rearing meant that she ____.

Observed how parents interacted with their children, and then developed theories regarding child-rearing

Qualitative research, often using an inductive approach, typically starts with data collection, which means that conceptualization and operationalization ____.

Often come later than the do in a quantitative study

Horace is studying how chronic pain affects people's work lives. He has collected a massive amount of scholarly literature related to his topic. He read some of it and plans to read more later. He used some of it in his study, while other parts will be useful in a future, related study, What belongs in the bibliography of his study about chronic pain and work lives?

Only the sources he cited in the research report

In the quantitative social science research process, moving from a concrete definition of a concept to an actual measure of the defined concept involves ____.

Operationalization

Lisa wants to survey mothers and examine the kinds of attitude changes about mothering that occur as their children grow older. Which type of survey would be best suited for this research?

Panel

If a researcher wanted to see how spouses' marital quality changed over time if and when children were born, he or she would probably use a ____ design.

Panel study

Observations about the noise level in the household, how well the respondent understood the questions, and whether another family member was present are examples of ____.

Paradata

Biological responses to stimuli are known as ____ measures.

Physiological

Raul wants to conduct a study on interracial dating by asking participants to read a description of a scenario and then answer questions about how they would react to the given situation. He would like the study to have high external validity. Which type of experiment would he choose?

Population-based survey

The word vulnerable has many meanings. In research, what is the most important quality that distinguishes a population as "vulnerable"?

Potential inability to give informed consent

An evaluation report is usually more ____, whereas a research report is usually more ____.

Practical; Theoretical

Critical race theory is part of the conflict paradigm because it ____.

Questions why some races are advantaged over others

The key difference between an interval and ratio variable is that only ____.

Ratio variables have a true zero point

Anh plans to study the effect of age on standardized test performance, and chooses to represent age with number of years of age and to represent standardized test performance with Graduate Record Examination (GRE) scores which are very similar to Scholastic Achievement Test (SAT) scores. In this study, age is a(n) ____ variable and GRE scores are a(n) ____ variable.

Ratio; Interval

Mateo has designed a survey study in which he asks about respondents' marital quality. He administers the survey to several different samples over the course of two years and discovers that the respondents do not seem to be answering the marital quality question in very consistent ways. This suggests Mateo's measure of marital quality has a ____ problem.

Reliabilty

If a researcher were interested in the general attitude trends of a society over time, he or she would probably use a ____ design.

Repeated cross-sectional

What did Nazi concentration camp experiments and the Tuskegee syphilis experiment have in common?

Researchers inflicted deliberate harm on research subjects

The ____ inspired Stanley Milgram's experiment.

Role of ordinary people in carrying out the Holocaust

Jamal wants to study racial representations on children's TV shows. He has made a list of every TV show that aired on Nick Jr. from 2000 to 2015. This list of TV shows is the ____ he will use to draw a probability sample.

Sampling frame

Thomas Kuhn's ideas about paradigms and paradigm shifts show that ____.

Scientists are predisposed to prefer certain theories

Chenguang has been very careful to clearly define the construct of job satisfaction in her study of employed parents. This is an important step to ensure that ____.

She and those reading her study are thinking of the same meaning of job satisfaction

Jenna is conducting a study on gender bias in hiring. She had recruited participants to evaluate job applications. What is an effective way to manipulate the independent variable?

She can randomly put common women's names and common men's names on similarly qualified applications

What is this figure an example of? https://ibb.co/2thBTPM

Skip pattern

Sociologists have studied social media use and loneliness for some time. What can most definitely be claimed, based on the research by Primack and colleagues?

Social media use and loneliness are correlated

The use of different types of research methods to study the same general research question is known as ____.

Triangulation

A sociologist takes a problem-based approach, identifying drug addiction as a social ill that should be addressed. An anthropologist's cultural relativistic approach would ____.

Try to grasp the drug user's view (the insider view)

If you are interested in studying a city that has similar features to the average city in the United States, what type of case should you select?

Typical

Which of the following terms refers to whether results are true or accurate?

Validity

Which of the following is a research question for a descriptive study?

What is the rate of home ownership in the United States?

Jasmine is doing research on poor single mothers. For which question is leaving the response open-ended most appropriate?

What kinds of assistance do you think the government can provide that does not currently exist?