Soc 208- Reading quizzes
External validity involves two basic questions: (1) How representative is the group being studied? and (2) : [which of the following?]
How "real" is the study?
By reporting a margin of error, researchers are able to quantify:
How confident they are that the true value of a population parameter is close to the value they measured with sampling
Match the type of research question to the research goal. --Explanatory
Identifying general patterns and relationships
Which of the following statements about a research protocol is true?
In some cases, the research protocol can be approved without a complete committee discussion.
A researcher who begins her work with a hypothesis, then collects data with the goal of testing that hypothesis to improve knowledge about a particular concept, is most likely conducting research with which goal?
Testing and refining theories
Match the type of research question to the research goal -- Exploratory
Making predictions
Which of the following statements about national population-based censuses is true?
Many social scientists believe that the U.S. Census achieves lower-quality results than it would if it were based on sampling.
Close-ended questions must have response categories that are both __________ and _______________.
Mutually exclusive, Exhaustive
If Dr. Lintz tried to make inferences about the outcomes of individuals based on her data of state legislatures, what mistake would she be making?
an ecological fallacy
The two dimensions of criterion-related validity are predictive validity and ____________ .
concurrent validity
when participants' identifying information is only accessible to the research team
confidentiality
Dr. Pedulla applies to jobs with hypothetical candidates by sending résumés to employers and waiting to see if they respond and ask the candidate to come in for an interview. He does this to see how employers respond to different employment histories (e.g., stretches of unemployment, work history) listed on each résumé. What is Dr. Pedulla's manipulation in this field experiment?
employment histories listed on each résumé
Definitively establishing causality is least difficult within which of the following methods?
experiments
Which of the following is usually considered the most internally valid method?
experiments
Which event lead to the establishment of the Nuremberg Code?
experiments conducted by the Nazis during World War II
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
Because it is so difficult to establish causality, researchers more often focus on ________ than attempting to test a ________.
hypotheses of association; causal hypothesis
Megan conducts a study that tests the following hypothesis: "Frequency of posting online comments varies by gender, such that men comment more often than women." This statement is a
hypothesis of difference.
Which approach to theory observes patterns and builds to an explanation?
inductive
the freedom to say yes or no to participating in a research study once all the possible risks and benefits have been properly explained
informed consent
In the United States, ____________ boards ensure that research adheres to all ethical principles.
institutional review
Dr. Larsen is having three graduate research assistants classify the race of people portrayed in different pictures. Which type of reliability should Dr. Larsen be concerned about with this measure?
intercoder reliability
Dr. Ortiz is currently working on a research project that examines the effect of on-campus mental health resources on student persistence in college. She finds that mental health outreach programs and longer clinic hours greatly improve the likelihood that first generation college students will stay in college. What is Dr. Ortiz's dependent variable?
persistence in college
Which of the following is a reason why web-based surveys might be ethically problematic?
there is no way to verify a respondent's age
Linda hypothesizes that increasing wealth does not increase happiness. In this hypothesis, what is the independent variable?
wealth
Under which scenario should subjects be debriefed?
when researchers use deception
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)
set of conceptual relations.
Which of the following types of observations would be generalizable to a broader population?
survey of a random selection of the population
What is the most widely used quantitative method in sociology?
survey research
A sports website has a poll on its web page asking who readers think is the best NBA player in history: Michael Jordan or LeBron James. This poll will yield results that are biased by ________ error.
systematic
A sociologist picks every 10th person from a list of motor vehicle registrations to create a sample of registered drivers.
systematic sample
In political exit polling, where no sampling frame can be made in advance, which type of sampling makes the most sense?
systematic sample
Which of the following is a continuous variable?
temperature in Fahrenheit
Which of the following is a variable?
the number of illegal activities in which a person has engaged over the last year
Which statement best describes the sampling error made by the Literary Digest in predicting the 1936 presidential election?
the sample was biased toward people who were higher income
Whereas qualitative research tends to have _______ cases, quantitative research tends to have _______ cases.
A cross-sectional group of, A longitudinal group of
Which of the following statements about weighting is true?
A probability sample in which different people have different probabilities of being selected must be weighted for estimates to be accurate.
Which of the following is an example of deductive disclosure?
A researcher notices that she can figure out an individual's identity by combining four variables in a data set.
Which of the following is an example of a deductive approach to theory?
A sociologist reads Durkheim's theories about social relationships and designs a study to test these ideas.
Which of the following is a hypothesis of association?
As educational attainment increases, life expectancy also increases.
What is the second step in the scientific method?
Construct a hypothesis, or prediction, about the answer to this question.
When selecting a case for an ethnographic study of gender and engineering programs, a researcher chooses to study a school where women make up more than 50 percent of the engineering students. Given that most engineering programs have a small percentage of female students, this sampling method represents the selection of a ________ case.
Deviant
construct
Do the items in a measure connect to the underlying concept?
criterion
Does it correlate with a measure that is should predict?
content
Does it cover all of the different meanings of a concept?
face
Does it seem appropriate and sensible?
____________ is the first, and most shallow, assessment of validity that a researcher can make.
Face validity
Which of the following is a possible variable that could be used to measure the concept of "academic achievement"?
GPA
What is the third step in the scientific method?
Gather data that allow the researcher to assess the accuracy of this prediction.
A researcher who is interested in telling a story about a specific community and enhancing their visibility in society is most likely conducting research with which goal?
Giving voice
Match the type of researh question to the research goal. -- Descriptive
Giving voice
Which of the following statements about informed consent is true?
Informed consent can be given by signing a form or by agreeing orally.
Which of the following statements about sampling is true?
It is possible to survey millions of people and get misleading results.
Which of the following is the best example of a concept?
Job satisfaction among American adults
____________ testing is a key feature of many large-scale data collections.
Pilot
Arianna is interested in understanding the experiences of Catholic women who have been divorced. Which research approach would be best for discerning the commonalities among women's emotional and social experiences?
Qualitative methods - interviews
____________ researchers typically view operationalization as an end result of the conceptualization process; ____________ researchers often do not follow this same linear path.
Quantitative; qualitative
Which statement about reliability and validity is true?
Reliability and validity are independently important standards for evaluating the link between conceptualization and operationalization.
Which of the following is a causal hypothesis?
Requiring students to take a quiz increases retention of key concepts.
________ error refers to the difference between the estimates from a sample and the true parameters that arise due to random chance.
Sampling
The sampling strategy used by qualitative researchers in which they make decisions about what additional data to collect on the basis of ongoing research and analysis is known as:
Sequential sampling
Units of analysis that are aspects of social life that can be counted (newspaper articles, political posters, and license plates are all examples) are known as:
Social artifacts
Which statement about reliability and validity is true?
Validity is much more difficult to assess than reliability.
Anurak is designing a study on the importance of parent-child relationship quality for children's social adjustment in school. For parent-child relationship quality, he has decided to focus on the children's perceptions of how much their parents love them, respect them, and make them feel important. In making this choice, Anurak is creating ________ that represent the level of parents' love and respect and children's importance.
Variables
Dr. Smith has just received research funding from a foundation to examine the effects of attending a charter school on a child's learning, behavior, and future economic prospects. However, the foundation that provided her funding is a charter school advocate and spends millions in pushing a pro-charter school agenda with attempts to get federal legislation passed. What potential risk does this scenario present?
a conflict of interest
Which of the following is required to perform the test-retest method of examining robustness?
a longitudinal design
Which of the following is the best operationalization of the concept of poverty?
a measurement of individuals who make less than $12,000 per year
when no identifying information can be linked to respondents and even the researcher cannot identify them
anonymity
Dr. Jackson wants to evaluate whether the Big Brothers Big Sisters mentoring program increases the likelihood that low-income youth attend college. What type of research is Dr. Jackson conducting?
applied
Which of the following is the most serious drawback to panel studies?
attrition
Match each of the three ethics principles outlined in the Belmont Report with the correct definition. -- researchers have a responsibility to do good
beneficence
Which ethical guideline was violated in Philip Zimbardo's Stanford prison experiment?
benefits clearly outweighed harm
yes/no
binary or dichotomous (nominal)
A sociologist first divides registered drivers from a list of motor vehicle registrations into five-year age groups (e.g., 18-22, 23-27, 28-32, etc.), then randomly selects four age groups, and finally randomly selects individuals only from those four age groups.
cluster sample
To keep expenses down from having to travel to every state to conduct a survey, a researcher could instead implement which type of sampling strategy in which they would only survey randomly selected individuals in randomly selected states?
cluster sample
Research in which respondents are asked questions when they walk by the corner of an intersection is based on which type of sample?
convenience
A ____________ design is the only type of time design that collects data at one time point.
cross-sectional
To achieve reliable results, researchers make sure that their measures are capturing a concept in ways that allow for comparison across ____________.
data collections
Which activity did Sudhir Venkatesh engage in to conduct his research for "Gang Leader for a Day"?
deception
not at all, a little, somewhat, very much
degree (ordinal)
A research project examines how individuals gain access to opioids in the United States.
descriptive
The concept "socioeconomic status" often incorporates income, education, and employment characteristics. What is this an example of?
dimensions of conceptualization
One ____________ a bad or evil person to perform unethical research. Many instances of unethical research occur when researchers ____________.
does not have to be; have not fully thought through the ways in which their research could harm people
A research project examines why certain types of individuals begin using opioids in the United States.
explanatory
A research project examines the levels of opioid abuse in the United States
exploratory
Three general conditions guide a social scientist's formulation of his or her question: its social importance, scientific relevance, and ____________.
feasibility
0 times, 1-3 times, 4 or more times
frequency (ordinal)
Which of the following is a concept?
happiness
height of players on a basketball team in inches
interval
Match each of the three ethics principles outlined in the Belmont Report with the correct definition. -- the risks and potential benefits of the research be distributed equally among potential subjects
justice
Dr. Washington conducts a panel study and finds that although respondents answer a particular question about poverty consistently over time, other data on the respondents suggest they may be lying about their answers. He think this may be an issue because respondents are embarrassed to report their true poverty status. This is a problem of:
low validity
Match each category of relations with the example that best fits. -- Family economic struggles are positively associated with children's socioemotional problems, but harsh discipline partially explains this relationship.
mediation
Match each category of relations with the example that best fits. -- Family economic struggles are positively associated with children's socioemotional problems, but this relationship is conditioned on parental support.
moderation
Match each category of relations with the example that best fits. --Family economic struggles are positively associated with children's socioemotional problems, but this relationship is conditioned on parental support.
moderation
In general, there is (are) usually ____________ correct way(s) to define or measure a concept.
no single
When the goal of sampling is to describe a population, there should be ____________ between the people who are selected for the sample and the people who are not selected for the sample.
no systematic differences
sex listed on birth certificate (male or female)
nominal
____________ and ____________variables are always categorical.
nominal; ordinal
none, baseball, dancing, basketball, other
non-ordered categories (nominal)
What type of question is the following: "What are your main goals in life?"
open-ended
Which type of research typically does not count as human subjects research because it does not contribute to generalizable knowledge?
oral histories
the height of four brothers (expressed as tallest, tall, medium, short)
ordinal
Traditionally, researchers collect data on educational attainment by highest level achieved. For example, categories might include: high school degree or less, some college, bachelor's degree, greater than a bachelor's degree. If a research project instead collected data on educational attainment and asked where individuals went to college to create more refined rankings (e.g. bachelor's degree from flagship state university, bachelor's degree from elite private university), this would represent an increased level of________ within the study.
precision
Which type of sampling strategy is best for case-oriented research?
purposive sample
income in dollars
ratio
The discussion of the changing poverty rate from 1973 to 2010 at the beginning of Chapter 5 highlights how the poverty rates calculated from the federal poverty line are ____________ , but not ____________ .
reliable; valid
Which aspect of external validity is easiest to address?
representativeness
Which of the following is a challenge that researchers face in keeping data private?
researchers do not have a legal right to refuse to cooperate with law enforcement in order to protect research subjects
Match each of the three ethics principles outlined in the Belmont Report with the correct definition. -- people are to be treated as autonomous agents
respect
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
Which of the following is a type of nonprobability sequential sampling strategy?
snowball sample
Match each category of relations with the example that best fits. -- Ice cream sales are positively associated with murder rates, but season (e.g., spring, summer, fall, winter) fully explains this relationship.
spuriousness
Dr. Lintz has collected data on state legislatures including variables on the number of women and minorities in each state legislature, the number of bills passed, and the total budget of each. What is the unit of analysis?
state legislatures
A sociologist first divides registered drivers from a list of motor vehicle registrations into 5-year age groups (e.g., 18-22, 23-27, 28-32, etc.) and randomly selects 10% of the individuals from each age group.
stratified sample
To make sure that smaller groups are represented properly in a study, a researcher might implement which type of sampling strategy to avoid pure chance from causing their sample to be nonrepresentative?
stratified sample
