Sociology Exam 1

Comparative Historical Research -____ _____ is of central importance in sociology because it enables researchers to document whether social behavior varies across time and place and by one's social group membership. -comparative research: Research that compares one set of findings on one society with the ____ type of findings on ____ _____.

comparative research, same, another society

Babbie Selective Observation -Once we have concluded that a particular pattern exists and have developed a general understanding of why it exists, we tend to focus on future events and situations that ____ ___ ____, and we tend to ____ those that do not. -Sometimes a research design will specify in advance the _____ of ______. -Social researchers make a special effort to find "____ ___"-precisely those who do not fit into the general pattern.

fit the pattern, ignore, number, observations, deviant cases

Babbie No Harm to Subjects -The fundamental ethical rule of social research is that it must bring no _____ to research subjects. -You'll see that while deception is often necessary in the execution of some kinds of research projects, researchers are committed to avoiding _____ except when it is _____. -When it is deemed necessary to deceive people as to our research purposes, however, we must ask whether the potential _____ of the research justifies the act of deception.

harm, deception, inescapable, value

Babbie Overgeneralization -We overgeneralize on the basis of ____ _____. -Another safeguard is provided by the _____ of inquiry. Basically, replication means ______ a study and checking to see whether the ____ ____ are produced each time.

limited observations, replication, repeating, same results

Asking and Answering Sociological Questions: Historical Context -_____ _____: wanted theories to relate directly to the actual lives of people and to be based on the careful accumulation of evidence about people's lives; the most important thing for a sociologist to do was to go around all the neighborhoods of the city and find out what was going on by meeting the people who were the subjects of the sociologists' theories; community; immigration and the life of the city; oriented toward improving conditions in the city and around the US -_____ _____: argued that sociology needed to become a science; sociologists could study anything that could be measured with numbers; goal was not to improve life but only to discover new knowledge

Robert Park, William Ogden

Babbie Introduction -The basis of knowledge is _______.

agreement

Babbie Inaccurate Observations -Most of our daily observations are _____ and _______.

casual, semiconscious

Babbie Ordinary Human Inquiry -Practically all people, and many other animals as well, exhibit a desire to predict their future circumstances. Humans seem predisposed to undertake this task by using ______ and _______ reasoning. -First, we generally recognize that future circumstances are somehow _____ or _____ by ____ ____. -Second, people, and seemingly other animals, also learn that such patterns of cause and effect are ______ in nature. That is, the effects occur more often when the _____ occur than when the _____ are _____ - but not ____. -This agreement reality both assists and hinders our attempts to find out for ourselves. To see how, consider two important sources of our secondhand knowledge-______ and _____.

causal, probabilistic, caused or conditioned by present ones, probabilistic, cause, causes are absent, always, tradition, authority

Babbie Authority -We do well to trust in the judgment of the person who has special training, expertise, and _____ in a given matter, especially in the face of controversy. -At the same time, inquiry can be greatly hindered by the legitimate authorities who ____ within their own province. -Inquiry is also hindered when we depend on the authority of experts speaking ______ their realm of expertise.

credentials, err, outside

Can We Really Study Human Social Life In a Scientific Way? -Science is the use of systematic methods of ______ ______, the analysis of data, theoretical thinking, and the logical assessment of arguments to develop a body of knowledge about specific subject matter. -empirical investigation: _____ _____ carried out in any area of sociological study.

empirical investigation, factual inquiries

Asking and Answering Sociological Questions Today: Research Methods -research methods: The diverse methods of investigation used to gather _____ (factual) material. Different research methods exist in sociology, but the most commonly used are ____ (or participant observation) and ____ methods. For many purposes, it is useful to combine two or more methods within a single research project. -ethnography: The _____ study of people using _____, in-depth _____, or both. Also called _____. -participant observation: A method of research widely used in sociology and anthropology in which the ____ takes part in the activities of the group or community being studied. -Three of the Main Methods Used in Sociological Research: Ethnography: Usually generates richer and more in-depth _____ than other methods. Can provide a ____ understanding of social processes. Can be used to study only relatively ___ groups or communities. Findings might apply to only groups or communities studied; not easy to _____ on the basis of a single fieldwork study. Surveys: Make possible the ____ collection of data on ____ numbers of individuals. Allow for precise _____ to be made among the answers of respondents. Material gathered may be ____; if questionnaire is highly standardized, important _____ among respondents' viewpoints may be glossed over. Responses may be what people profess to believe rather than what they _____ believe. Experiments: Influence of specific _____ can be controlled by the investigator. Are usually easier for subsequent researchers to _____. Many aspects of ____ ___ cannot be brought into the laboratory. Responses of those studied may be affected by the ________ situation.

empirical, ethnography, survey, firsthand, observation, interviewing, fieldwork, researcher, information, broader, small, generalize, efficient, large, comparisons, superficial, differences, actually, variables, repeat, social life, experimental

3. Make the Problem Precise -hypotheses: ideas or educated guesses about a given state of affairs, put forward as bases for ______ testing. -At this stage, hunches sometimes become _______-educated guesses about what is going on.

empirical, hypotheses

Babbie Looking for Reality -_____ is the science of knowing; _____ (a subfield of epistemology) might be called the science of finding out.

epistemology, methodology

Ethnography -One widely used qualitative method is _______, or firsthand studies of people using observations, interviews, or both. -In the case of _____ ____, the researcher participates directly in the activities he or she is studying.

ethnography, participant observation

Experiments -_____ are often used in the natural sciences and psychology, as they are considered the best method for ascertaining ______, or the influence of a particular factor on a study's outcome. -The first, called an _______ _____, receives some special attention based on the researcher's theory; the second, the _____ _____, does not receive this attention. -experiment: A research method by which variables can be analyzed in a ______ and ______ way, either in an _____ situation constructed by the researcher or in a naturally occurring setting.

experiments, causality, experimental group, control group, controlled, systematic, artificial

Basic Concepts -First, the goal of sociological research is ______. By this we mean that when we make observations particular to a specific setting or group, the goal is to be able to generalize beyond that specific entity to others of its kind. -This is called _______. For social scientists, its is particularly important to acknowledge that the investigator is a crucial part of the world she studies and cannot necessarily divorce herself from it.

inference, reflexivity

Babbie Tradition -By accepting what everybody knows, we are spared the overwhelming task of starting from scratch in our search for ______ and ______. -Knowledge is cumulative, and an _____ body of information and understanding is the jumping-off point for the development of ____ _____. -More to the point, however, it rarely occurs to most of us to seek a _____ ______ of something we all "know" to be true.

knowledge, understanding, inherited, new knowledge, different understanding

Statistical Terms -The most common are _____ __ ____ ____ (ways of calculating averages) and ______ ______ (measures of the degree to which one variable relates consistently to another). -The ____ corresponds to the average, arrived at by adding together the personal wealth of all the people and dividing the result by the number of people in the sample (13). -The _____ is the figure that occurs most frequently in a given set of data. -The third measure is the _____, which is the middle of any set of figures. -More often, a researcher will calculate the _____ ____ for the data in question. -This is a way of calculating the _____ ___ _____, or the range, of a set of figures. -measures of central tendency: The ways of calculating ______. -correlation coefficients: The measure of the degree of ____ between _____. -mean: A statistical measure of ____ ___, or average, based on dividing a total by the number of individual cases. -mode: The number that appears most often in a given set of data. This can sometimes be a helpful way of portraying ____ ____. -median: The number that falls halfway in a range of numbers-a way of calculating central tendency that is sometimes more useful than calculating a ____. -standard deviation: A way of calculating the ____ of a group of numbers. -degree of dispersal: The _____ or ______ of a set of figures.

measures of central tendency, correlation coefficients, mean, mode, median, standard deviation, degree of dispersal, averages, correlation, variables, central tendency, central tendency, mean, spread, range, distribution

Sampling -Researchers concentrate on a _____, or a small proportion of the overall group. -But to achieve such accuracy, we need a _____ ___; the group of individuals studied must be typical, or representative, of the population as a whole. -Because ______ is highly complex, statisticians have developed rules for working out the correct size and nature of samples. -A particularly important procedure that ensures that a sample is representative is ____ ____, in which ever member of the sample population has the same probability of being included. -sample: a _____ ____ of a larger population. -representative sample: A sample from a larger population that is _____ typical of that population. -sampling: Studying a proportion of individuals or cases from a ______ _____ as representative of that population as a ____. -random sampling: Sampling method in which a sample is chosen so that every member of the population has the ____ _____ of being included.

sample, representative sample, sampling, random sampling, small proportion, statistically, larger population, whole, same probability

Babbie Errors in Inquiry, and Some Solutions -Let's look at some of the common errors we make in our casual inquiries, and at the ways ____ guards against those errors.

science

Babbie Main Points -The subject of this book is how we find out about _____ ____. -_____ is a natural human activity. Much of ordinary human inquiry seeks to _____ events and predict future events. -When we understand through ____ ____, we make observations and seek patterns of regularities in what we observe. -Much of what we know, we know by _____ rather than by experience. In particular, two sources of agreed-upon knowledge are _____ and _____. However, these useful sources of knowledge can also lead us astray. -____ seeks to protect against the mistakes we make in day-to-day inquiry. -Whereas we often observe inaccurately, researchers seek to avoid such errors by making observation a ____ and _____ activity. -We sometimes jump to general conclusions on the basis of only a few observations, so scientists seek to avoid illogical reasoning by being as careful and deliberate in their reasoning as in their observations. Moreover, the ____ nature of science means that others are always there to challenge faulty reasoning.

social reality, inquiry, explain, direct experience, agreement, tradition, authority, science, careful, deliberate, public

Standardized and Open-Ended Questions -With ______, or ____-____, questions, only a fixed range of responses is possible-for example, Yes, No, Don't Know or Very likely, Likely, Unlikely, Very unlikely. -A ____ ____ is a trial run in which just a few people participate. -pilot study: A ___ __ in ____ research.

standardized, fixed-choice, pilot study, trial run, survey

2 Asking and Answering Sociological Questions -Sociology today relies increasingly on ______ _____ that use big ____ ____. -quantitative methods: Approaches to sociological research that draw on _____ and statistical data and often focus on documenting ____, comparing ______, or exploring ______. -qualitative methods: Approaches to sociological research that often rely on ____ and/or _____ interviews, accounts, or ______ of a person or situation. -Increasingly, studies are relying on statistical or ______ _____ and computer programs that make it possible to analyze the vast amounts of data the Internet generates. -Sociology has a rich tradition that also includes _______ ______, which rely on observations, interviews, and archival data.

statistical studies, data sets, objective, trends, subgroups, correlations, personal, collective, observations, quantitative methods, qualitative methods

Surveys -When conducting a ______, researchers ask subjects to provide answers to structured questionnaires, which are administered in person or mailed to a select group of people. -This group is known as a _____. -survey: A method of sociological research in which _______ are administered to the _____ being studied. -population: The people who are the focus of _____ ____.

survey, population, questionnaires, population, social

Babbie Illogical Reasoning -Surely one of the most remarkable creations of the human mind is "the ____ that _____ the ____." -What statisticians have called the _____ _____ is another illustration of illogic in day-to-day reasoning. -Scientists try to avoid this pitfall by using systems of _____ _____ and ______.

the exception that proves the rule, gamblers' fallacy, logic consciously, explicitly

Babbie Voluntary Participation -A basic ethical rule of social research is that participation should be _____.

voluntary