Sociology 101 Chapter 2

Identify each research method as either qualitative or quantitative. a) Each person at a gathering of academics is invited to talk about his or her political views. b) The number of people in a large gathering is recorded. c) An observer takes notes on the nonverbal behavior of members of a focus group for car commercials. d) Each person in a sample group is recorded as being either a U.S. citizen or a citizen of another country.

Qualitative: a and c Quantitative: b and d

Identify the measurement methods that would yield results generalizable to the student population of a large university. a) Five students are randomly selected for in-depth interviews, each lasting half an hour. b) Students passing by a campus booth are invited to fill out a questionnaire. Several hundred students do so. c) Comprehensive school records are used to randomly select a sample group of 100 students, who will fill out a short questionnaire. d) School records are used to select 100 students from different categories (male and female, white and non-white, etc.) in numbers that mirror the overall student population. These students will fill out a short questionnaire.

Generalizable: c and d Nongeneralizable: a and b

What is the function of comparative research? a) It examines two or more entities in order to learn more about how and why they resemble each other. b) It examines two or more entities in order to learn more about how and why they differ. c) It examines two or more entities in order to learn more about how they influence each other.

b

Identify the findings of Ann Morning's 2004 content analysis study of 92 high-school textbooks in biology and the social sciences. a) Biology texts still used a traditional conception of race. b) Social science texts treated race as a constructed concept, with no biological basis. c) The majority of texts did not overtly critique the traditional concept of race.

findings: a and c

A researcher hypothesizes that marriage improves an individual's health because it improves economic well-being. However, he argues that the relationship between marriage and health may differ for men and women. Based on this hypothesis, match each variable to the corresponding term. a)mediating variable b) independent variable c)dependent variable d)moderating variable A)health B)gender C)marriage D)economic well being

health- dependent variable marriage- independent variable gender- moderating variable economic well being- mediating variable

Identify the reasons why some city officials and statisticians advocate using sampling to adjust official census counts. a) Evidence suggests that rural areas are undercounted in the census. b) Evidence suggests that the census undercounts some populations, such as African Americans, more than others. c) Evidence suggests that the census undercounts the U.S. population by 1.2 percent. d) Evidence suggests that some groups are overcounted by the census.

reasons: b and c

Fill in the blanks. Participant observation tries to find out what meanings people give to their social behavior by observing it in ______, rather than by asking questions later on in _______. This enables researchers to get past survey respondents' tendency to give what the respondents think are the "right" answers. However, this method requires the researcher to invest time at the _______ of the study to become an accepted _______. a) real time b) an artificial setting c) member of the community d) end e) authority f) start

1. a 2. b 3. f 4. c

What is the function of historical methods of research? a) They make comparisons between the past and the present. b) They study earlier societies using methods that would have been available at the time. c) They draw on written materials from an earlier historical time.

C

What did sociologist Duncan Watts do to investigate how some pop songs become hits? a) He manipulated songs' ratings and download numbers to observe the effects on songs' popularity. b) He conducted a survey of users of two music streaming sites, asking the users what they liked best about their favorite songs. c) He conducted a participant observation study at several live pop concerts.

a

A researcher is trying to estimate how long a certain nomadic tribe has lived in its present location. Identify each measurement outcome as describing either high validity or high reliability. a) When asked how long the tribe has lived in the area, tribe members give answers that vary somewhat, but average out to the true answer. b) Age tests on artifacts said to date from the tribe's arrival in the area produce a very narrow range of results, but the range is known to be incorrect by at least 200 years. c) When asked how long the tribe has lived in the area, all members of the tribe give the same answer: "100 months." This is known to be nowhere near the truth. d) Age tests on artifacts said to date from the tribe's arrival in the area produce a range of results. The average is very close to the tribe's actual length of stay.

High Validity: a and d High Reliability: c and b

Match each ethical concern to the corresponding research design. a)Uninformed consent b) involuntary participation c)possible harm to study participants A)A researcher sits in on a high-school class for two weeks, and interviews students from time to time. Participation in the study is part of the class grade on a credit/no credit basis B)Study subjects agree to a study in which their conversations with other participants will be recorded and analyzed. During the study, hidden devices secretly and noninvasively monitor the subjects' pulse, body temperature, and eye pupil size. C)Married couples agree to a study in which they will be asked highly personal and emotionally charged questions, and their resulting conversations with each other will be recorded and analyzed.

1. a and B 2. c and C 3. b and Aa

Imagine you were conducting a survey at your school to determine how many students are in favor of a fee increase to support the athletics program. Place the following methods of sample selection in order from those introducing the most to least amount of selection bias. a) Randomly select student names from a student roster and personally e-mail them, offering an incentive to participate. b) Stand outside the athletic center and ask students to complete the survey. c) Stand in the student cafeteria and ask students to complete the survey. d) Stand in the student cafeteria and ask them to complete the survey. e) Distribute the survey via e-mail to all students.

1. b 2. c 3. e 4. a

A sociologist wants to determine how people who shop at a particular grocery store decide what to buy. Match each research design to the potential problem it poses. a) experimenter effects b) poorly operationalized variables c) ethically questionable study A) Based on observation, the researcher will classify shoppers as "hunters" or "browsers." B) A researcher dressed as a store employee asks people what products they'd like to see stocked. C) A hidden camera films shoppers as they react to a potentially offensive store display

1. c and C 2. a and B 3. b and A

Fill in the blanks to complete the passage about a particular type of research. Drag word(s) below to fill in the blank(s) in the passage. ______, a subtype of _____, does systematic analysis on written or recorded material. It looks for _____ content, which is overt, and also _____ content, which is implied though not stated outright. a) manifest b) comparative research c) historical methods research d) latent e) content analysis

1. e 2. c 3. a 4. d

danah boyd's research is ____ because it conducts research and selects subjects ____ and follows up with - interviews. This allows her to identify ____ not identified by other researchers, and to distinguish the difference between exes and _____. a)romantic partners b)online c)cliques d)offline e)outcasts f)friends g)typical h)unique

1. h 2. b 3. d 4. c 5. e

Urban ethnographer Mitchell Duneier spent five years studying booksellers in Manhattan, trying to understand how street vendors—many of them homeless—functioned in the community. Identify the decisions that Duneier made in an attempt to avoid exploiting his participants. a) He made his research subjects coauthors on his book. b) He shared the output of his research with his participants before it was published. c) He remained in contact with the people he researched. d) He helped his research subjects make more money from their small businesses.

Decisions: b and c

Identify the factors needed to establish causality between variables A and B. a) correlation b) spuriousness c) time order d) reverse causality e) elimination of alternative explanations

Necessary factors: a, c, e

Michèle Lamont interviewed more than 160 upper-middle-class men in France and the United States about their tastes and values. Classify each statement as either an advantage of Lamont's approach (i.e., in-depth interviews) or an advantage of surveys. a) The study design allows researchers to study not only what a subject said, but how they expressed it. b)The study design permits comparisons between two or more groups of subjects using the same metric. c)The study design permits collection of data on a large sample of subjects. d) The study design gives study subjects time to open up about difficult topics. A)Advantage of In-Depth Interviews B) Advantage of Surveys

In-Depth interviews: d, a Advantage of Surveys: c, b

Identify the methods Sandra Harding proposes to make sociological research distinctly feminist. a) Ensure that sample populations for research have a balance of men and women. b) Focus on the ways women's experiences differ from those of men. c) Be aware of the power imbalance between researcher and research subject. d) Seek ways of practicing sociology that will bring about policy changes helpful to women. e) Treat women's experiences as a legitimate source of empirical and theoretical information.

Methods: c, d, e

Identify the reasons why the process used in the US Census is politically important. a) Census results can influence tax policies. b) Census results are used to decide representation in Congress. c) Census results affect the distribution of federal funds to state and municipal agencies. d) Census results are used to determine admission quotas at public universities.

Reasons: a, b, c

Identify the scenarios in which A might be correlated with B. a) C causes both A and B. b) A and B are unrelated. c) B causes A. d) A causes B.

Scenarios: a, c, d

In his sociological study, Duncan Watts identified factors that contribute to the success of pop songs. Suppose you were the head of a book publishing company and wanted to apply Watts's findings regarding music to your own industry. Identify the steps you would take. a) Encourage book clubs to adopt the books you publish. b) Rely on word-of-mouth marketing to produce a bestseller. c) Seek book recommendations from celebrities. d) Hide book rankings, so readers are incentivized to try new selections.

Steps: a and c

In a study aimed at gauging Americans' opinions on gun ownership, polling teams stand outside department stores in major cities across the country and record people's answers to a few brief questions. Within each city, the results are quite consistent from one team to the next. a) generalizability b) validity c) reliability

a and b

What is the function of comparative research? a) It examines two or more entities in order to learn more about how they influence each other. b) It examines two or more entities in order to learn more about how and why they differ. c) It examines two or more entities in order to learn more about how and why they resemble each other.

b

The research process includes many steps. Place the following steps in order from first to last. a) operationalization b) observation c) conceptualization d) analysis

conceptualization, operationalization, observation, analysis

Identify the correct and incorrect statements about power and its influence on research and research findings. a)Graduate students and junior faculty have to worry about staying on good terms with senior faculty, which can influence research choices. b) Research requires money, and those who control the funding control what gets studied. c) It is easier to generate interest in simple and controversial topics than in drier, more complex ones. d) Some research problems are more amenable to scientific investigation than others. e) The rich have more power than the poor to control the conditions under which they are studied.

correct statements: e, a, b,

Type the term that best completes the sentence. When two numeric variables are related in such a way that they go up and down together, or one consistently goes up when the other goes down, it is called a(n) _______________.

correlation

In a certain forest, dying trees are consistently found to be infested with beetles. Identify the hypotheses that could explain this correlation. a) Dying trees are more prone to beetle infestation. b) Beetle infestation is causing the trees to die. c) A fungus causes the trees to die and also lures beetles. d) Dying trees and invading beetles both attract other wildlife, such as small birds.

could explain: a, b, c

What is a common goal of qualitative and quantitative research? a) to determine which of all possible social arrangements work best b) to find out what people's behaviors mean to them c) to model sociological investigation on the methods of the natural sciences d) to determine the causal relationships between social elements

d

What is the difference between a census and a study that is not a census? a) A census involves a written survey. b) A census by definition extends over a long period of time. c) A census involves interviews. d) A census collects data on the entire study population.

d

Type the term that fits the blank. _____ study is another term for a panel survey.

longitudinal study

Identify the methods Sandra Harding proposes to make sociological research distinctly feminist a) Ensure that sample populations for research have a balance of men and women. b) Seek ways of practicing sociology that will bring about policy changes helpful to women. c) Treat women's experiences as a legitimate source of empirical and theoretical information. d) Focus on the ways women's experiences differ from those of men. e) Be aware of the power imbalance between researcher and research subject.

methods: b, c, e

Identify the examples of protected populations, whose study often requires an extra level of approval. a) minors b) people with disabilities c) prisoners d) ethnic minorities

protected populations: a, b, c

The textbook author believes that sociology is among the most difficult sciences. Identify the reasons why he believes this. a) Sociologists can only describe the social world, but cannot make predictions. b) Sociologists have only two methodologies from which to choose to study social processes. c) Sociologists are tasked with identifying causal pathways without the use of experimental methods. d) Reality is always changing as it is being studied.

reasons: c and d

A researcher notices that her interview subjects speak more freely when she puts away her tape recorder, and sometimes contradict what they say when being taped. What aspect of sociological investigation does the researcher's realization illustrate? a) reflexivity b) reliability c) validity d) generalizability

reflexivity