Applied Social Research Exam Preparation Guide
Course Introduction
Applied Social Research explores the fundamental principles and practices of conducting systematic investigations in social contexts, emphasizing real-world problem-solving and data-driven decision-making. The course covers the design and implementation of qualitative and quantitative research methods, including survey development, interviews, focus groups, and observational techniques. Students gain practical skills in sampling, data collection, analysis, and interpretation, while considering ethical issues and cultural sensitivity in research. Through hands-on projects and case studies, learners apply various research tools to address contemporary social issues, evaluate programs, and inform policy development, preparing them to undertake research in academic, public, and private sector settings.
Recommended Textbook
Research Methods for Social Work 8th Edition by Allen Rubin
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Chapter 1: Why Study Research
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Q1) Provide an example of how we can learn things from the popular media and an example of how we can be misled by them.
Answer: An example of how we can learn things from popular media is through educational documentaries or news programs that provide accurate and well-researched information on various topics. For instance, a documentary on climate change can educate viewers on the science behind global warming and its potential impact on the planet.
On the other hand, an example of how we can be misled by popular media is through sensationalized or biased reporting. For example, a news story that presents only one side of a complex issue or uses misleading statistics to support a particular agenda can mislead viewers and shape their understanding of the topic in a way that is not fully accurate. Additionally, fictional movies or TV shows may present unrealistic or exaggerated portrayals of certain events or phenomena, leading viewers to believe in misinformation. It is important to critically evaluate the sources and content of popular media to discern between accurate information and potential misinformation.
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Chapter 2: Evidence-Based Practice
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Q1) Evidence about practice effectiveness will
A) always be conclusive.
B) sometimes indicate what actions NOT to take.
C) usually indicate what is effective with every client or situation.
D) will point toward taking an action that the client is certain to want.
Answer: B
Q2) The evidence supporting the influence of common factors on treatment outcome implies that the choice of intervention does not matter at all.
A)True
B)False
Answer: False
Q3) Some evidence-based practice questions do not specify a particular intervention in advance of the search for evidence.
A)True
B)False
Answer: True
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Chapter 3: Philosophy and Theory in Social Work Research
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Q1) The idiographic model seeks to understand everything about a particular case,through the use of as many causative factors as possible.
A)True
B)False
Answer: True
Q2) A frame of reference for interpreting the world is referred to as a A) paradigm.
B) theory.
C) hypothesis.
D) law.
E) concept.
Answer: A
Q3) Which of the following are variables?
A) female, Jewish, high school graduate.
B) plumber, professor, dentist.
C) occupation, political party preference, birth date.
D) 21, violent, poor.
E)none of the above.
Answer: C
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Chapter 4: Comparing Quantitative, Qualitative, and Mixed
Methods of Inquiry
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Q1) Designing the study is the first phase of the research process in mixed-methods studies.
A)True
B)False
Q2) Interpretivist paradigms are more likely to be used in qualitative studies than in quantitative studies.
A)True
B)False
Q3) Which of the following is/are an example of a qualitative research question?
A) How does feel to be homeless?
B) How many clients receiving our agency services are homeless?
C) How effective is our agency in reducing homelessness?
D) All of the above.
Q4) Mixed-methods studies cannot implement quantitative and qualitative methods concurrently; they must start with one or the other.
A)True
B)False
Q5) Identify and briefly describe seven main phases in the research process.
Q6) Describe the contrasting emphases of quantitative and qualitative studies.
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Chapter 5: The Ethics and Politics of Social Work Research
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Q1) Which of the following statements CORRECTLY describes the social research profession?
A) Social researchers can never be totally objective.
B) Social researchers are humanly subjective.
C) Different scientists can and should arrive at the same results when they employ accepted research techniques and set personal values and views aside.
D) Social researchers attempt to be value-free.
E) all of the above.
Q2) Which of the following does NOT harm subjects?
A) having them face aspects of themselves that they do not normally consider.
B) asking them to reveal their unpopular attitudes.
C) asking them to identify their deviant behavior.
D) allowing them to easily identify themselves in the final report.
E) All of the above may harm respondents.
Q3) Institutional Review Boards [IRBs]:
A) emerged in response to unethical research experiments.
B) aim to protect the rights and interests of research participants.
C) may continue to oversee studies after they are implemented.
D) all of the above
Q4) Illustrate how ethics and politics affect social work research.
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Chapter 6: Culturally Competent Research
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Q1) The best time to read about the culture of a population you seek to research is after you design your investigation.
A)True
B)False
Q2) Which of the following statements is true about culturally competent interviewing?
A) All interviewers must be of the same ethnicity as the respondent.
B) Although matching interviewer and interviewee ethnicity is not a foolproof guarantee that an interview will be culturally competent, it is a good rule of thumb to follow whenever possible.
C) Interviewers should NOT be of the same ethnicity as the respondent.
D) Avoiding cultural bias is ensured if interviewer speaks the respondent's language.
Q3) Describe the steps you would take to maximize the measurement equivalence of a study that compares the degree of caregiver burden among White,African American,Hispanic,and Asian American caregivers for relatives with Alzheimer's disease.
Q4) No ethnic minority group is homogeneous.
A)True
B)False
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Chapter 7: Problem Formulation
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Q1) A follow-up study of how the same clients discharged from a mental hospital in 1990 were functioning in 1991,1992,1993,and so on through 2000 would be
A) a cohort study
B) a trend study
C) a panel study
D) a cross-sectional study
Q2) When a researcher is deciding what information will be gathered (and from whom),that researcher is dealing with which of the following stages of the research design process?
A) purposes of research.
B) units of analysis.
C) topics for research.
D) time dimension.
E) motivations for research.
Q3) Reductionism refers to an overly strict limitation on the kinds of concepts and variables to be considered as caused.
A)True
B)False
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Chapter 8: Conceptualization in Quantitative and Qualitative Inquiry
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Q1) The specification of concepts in a scientific inquiry depends on
A) nominal, operational, and real definitions.
B) real definitions.
C) nominal and operational definitions.
D) nominal and real definitions.
E) operational and real definitions.
Q2) If we study whether motivational interviewing is effective in treating substance abuse by the mechanism of increasing the likelihood that clients will complete substance abuse treatment programs,then whether clients complete such programs is our mediating variable.
A)True
B)False
Q3) Construct two hypotheses of interest to social workers.One should predict a positive relationship,the other a negative relationship: Identify the independent and dependent variables in each hypothesis.Identify a control variable for each hypothesis.Operationally define each variable.
Q4) Illustrate how a child's level of behavioral problems could be operationally defined in three different ways using three different sources of data.
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Chapter 9: Measurement
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Q1) Reliability and validity are handled precisely in the same ways in qualitative inquiry as they are in quantitative inquiry.
A)True
B)False
Q2) Professor Lum asked respondents,"How old are you?" Later in the interview Lum asked,"What is your date of birth?" This illustrates that Lum was interested in the ________ of the measurement.
A) face validity
B) validity
C) precision
D) reliability
Q3) Professor Myth asked respondents whether or not they had ever been divorced.One year later Professor Myth asked respondents the same question.Myth found that with repeated applications of the measure different responses were obtained for the same subject.This means that the measuring instrument was
A) unreliable.
B) invalid.
C) unreliable or the value on the variable had changed.
D) lacking in face validity.
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Chapter 10: Constructing Measurement Instruments
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Q1) Always include at least one item in an index for which all respondents give the same answer.
A)True
B)False
Q2) Identify acceptable options for handling missing data in an index or scale.
Q3) Which of the following statements is/are INCORRECT?
A)Closed-ended questions should limit respondents to three or four choices.
B) Closed-ended questions should have response categories that are mutually exclusive and exhaustive.
C) Closed-ended questions should provide uniformity of response.
D) Closed-ended questions should cover the range of likely responses.
Q4) The result of combining several indicators of a variable is a composite measurement of the variable.
A)True
B)False
Q5) Qualitative measures often rely on interviews that are usually open-ended with in-depth probes.
A)True
B)False
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Chapter 11: Causal Inference and Experimental Designs
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Q1) Which of the following statement best describes the criteria for inferring or causality?
A) A relationship must exist between variables.
B) One variable must precede the other in time.
C) A third variable did not cause the changes observed in the first two variables.
D) A relationship must exist between two variables, with the cause preceding the effect in time, and the relationship cannot be explained away by the influence of a third variable.
Q2) The classical experiment with random assignment of participants does NOT necessarily control for:
A) history.
B)measurement bias.
C)statistical regression.
D)maturation.
Q3) Explain the elements of the classical experimental design.Is this design especially useful in dealing with causal relationships? If yes,why? If not,why?
Q4) Briefly describe how a study would be particularly vulnerable to the threat of statistical regression.
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Chapter 12: Quasi-Experimental Designs
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Q1) Case-control designs have a high degree of internal validity because they eliminate the problem of recall bias.
A)True
B)False
Q2) Quasi-experiments using nonequivalent comparison groups without random assignment can be credible,assuming that the comparability of the experimental and comparison groups is plausible-especially if the researcher provides substantial evidence of that comparability.
A)True
B)False
Q3) When we switch replications in a non-equivalent comparison group design,we:
A) administer the treatment to the control group before posttesting.
B) can determine whether the difference between the groups at the first posttest may be attributed to the lack of comparability between the two groups.
C) decrease the chances of determining whether the difference between the groups at the first posttest may be attributed to a selection bias.
D)decrease the internal validity of the design.
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Chapter 13: Single-Case Evaluation Designs
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Q1) A social work student seeks to reduce her own general level of anxiety through self-desensitization.She used the lasive weeks of the fall semester for her baseline and the firsive weeks of the spring semester for her intervention period.Why is this a problem? What alternative do you propose?
Q2) Most social work target problems or goals cannot be defined in operational terms. A)True
B)False
Q3) Suppose you wish to measure progress in increasing the amount of time a child in institutional care spends studying as an indicator of the effectiveness of your group work intervention.Which of the following approaches most likely would be least vulnerable to reactivity problems?
A) Have the child record the amount of time and report back to you.
B) Have cottage parents run spot checks in the cottage at different intervals.
C) Interview the child each day about the time spent studying the previous day.
D) Show up at the cottage and observe the child yourself for one hour during the same period each day.
Q4) Discuss why it is best to have as many measurement points as possible in a single-case design.
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Chapter 14: Program Evaluation
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Q1) Agency administrators and practitioners are likely to encourage maximum scientific rigor in evaluations of program outcome,irrespective of the funding implications.
A)True
B)False
Q2) Because the rates under treatment approach to needs assessment only looks at those currently utilizing services,it is vulnerable to underestimating the true extent of need.
A)True
B)False
Q3) Describe the impact managed care has had on program evaluation.
Q4) External evaluators may not be objective and independent of stakeholder influences in the way they design,carry out,and report their evaluations.
A)True
B)False
Q5) What are the special problems that program evaluators encounter that other types of researchers are less likely to encounter?
Q6) What steps should program evaluators take in order to foster the utilization of their studies?
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Chapter 15: Sampling
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Q1) Stratifying a population prior to drawing a sample
A) generally occurs when the variables used to stratify are known to be associated with the dependent variable.
B) eliminates the need for simple random sampling.
C) is most useful for studying a homogeneous population.
D) eliminates the need for probability sampling.
Q2) The general guideline for the cluster design is to minimize the number of clusters selected while increasing the number of elements within each cluster.
A)True
B)False
Q3) A researcher randomly selects cities,then randomly selects churches in each selected city,and the randomly selects members to be interviewed in each selected church.This research is using
A) simple random sampling.
B) quota sampling.
C) multi-stage cluster sampling.
D) stratified sampling.
E) accidental sampling.
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Chapter 16: Survey Research
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Q1) The response rates to online surveys need to exceed 60 percent if the findings are to have any value.
A)True
B)False
Q2) Surveys are excellent devices to measure social action.
A)True
B)False
Q3) Mail surveys are the only method used in studies using self-administered questionnaires.
A)True
B)False
Q4) Give a comparative analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of survey research.
Q5) Assume that the following would be reasonable conversational questions/statements based on a respondent's previous statement about preferring to live on the streets.Which is a good probe?
A) "In what way is living on the streets better?"
B) "How is living on the streets better?"
C) "Tell me more about why living on the streets is better."
D) "How do you mean living on the streets is better?"
Q6) Discuss the advantages and disadvantages of online surveys.
Page 18
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Chapter 17: Analyzing Existing Data: Quantitative and Qualitative Methods
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Q1) In comparison to coding the manifest content of communication,coding the latent content
A) has a disadvantage in terms of validity.
B) has an advantage in terms of reliability.
C) is better designed for tapping the underlying meaning of communications.
D) has an advantage in terms of specificity.
Q2) Describe a study for which content analysis is the appropriate research method.Discuss how you would use manifest and latent coding.Discuss the advantages and disadvantages of the two coding schemes.
Q3) Which of the following statements is true about utilizing official records for data?
A) The reliability of the data is guaranteed.
B) The validity of the data is guaranteed.
C) The accuracy of the data is guaranteed.
D) Neither the reliability, validity or accuracy of the data is guaranteed.
Q4) Describe the difference between primary and secondary sources in historical research and the cautions to keep in mind when using each type of source.
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Chapter 18: Qualitative Research: General Principles
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Q1) Prolonged engagement is discouraged in qualitative research be4cause it increases the risk of reactivity and respondent bias.
A)True
B)False
Q2) Professor Smith was interested in reporting the reality of the experiences of teenage runaways living on the streets in their own terms.Smith is probably most interested in:
A) being a complete participant.
B) grounded theory.
C) ethnography.
D) hermeneutics.
Q3) In comparison to quantitative research methods,what are the major strengths and weaknesses of qualitative research methods?
Q4) Qualitative research differs from other forms of observation in that it is both a data-collecting and a theory-generating activity.
A)True
B)False
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Chapter 19: Qualitative Research: Specific Methods
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Q1) How does qualitative interviewing differ from quantitative survey interviewing?
Q2) Explain what is meant by reflexivity and why it is a key part of qualitative research.
Q3) Group conformity or groupthink is a potential disadvantage of focus groups.
A)True
B)False
Q4) Although there are no clear guidelines to follow,what ethical considerations should a researcher consider when choosing which role to assume in the field?
Q5) Which of the following is the best probe in an informal conversational interview?
A) "Is that job better or worse then your old job?"
B) "Is that a better job because of the hours?"
C) "Tell me more about why that's a better job."
D) "Are you sure that that's a better job?"
Q6) Establishing rapport in qualitative field research involves using active listening skills taught in some basic social work practice classes.
A)True
B)False
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Chapter 20: Qualitative Data Analysis
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Q1) The utility of case-oriented analysis is the fact that one case can make theory.
A)True
B)False
Q2) Define what is meant by variable-oriented analysis and what is meant by case-oriented analysis.Give an example of a research project in which you would use variable-oriented analysis and one where you would use case-oriented analysis.
Q3) In reading Court decisions,Professor Wofford notices that the decisions typically discuss the "rational male." Wofford begins to write notes in which she ruminates about the notion of the rational male as well as why the concept of the rational female is not mentioned.Wofford's memos are
A) code notes.
B) operational notes.
C) theoretical notes.
D) integrating memos.
Q4) Qualitative data processing is both a science and an art.
A)True
B)False
Q5) Identify at last one way that computer programs analyze qualitative data.
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Chapter 21: Quantitative Data Analysis
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Q1) An example of multivariate analysis would be
A) an examination of the ages of all women who are corporate executives.
B) an analysis of the relationship among age, sex, and type of nightsporequented in a given city in the Midwest.
C) an analysis of the relationship that exists between types of undergraduate major and position held in business.
D) an analysis of the relationship between type of offense and length of prison sentence for those who had a jury trial.
Q2) The mosrequent attribute,in either grouped or ungrouped data,is the A) mean.
B) median.
C) mode.
D) range.
E) marginal.
Q3) Given the following values,the median is 4,8,5,11,13,7,9,10,3
A) 8
B) 13
C) 7.8
D) 5
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Chapter 22: Inferential Data Analysis
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Q1) A Cohen's d effect size of .60 is
A) stronger than the average Cohen's d effect size reported in meta-analyses in social work and allied fields.
B) weaker than the average Cohen's d effect size reported in meta-analyses in social work and allied fields.
C) about the same as the average Cohen's d effect size reported in meta-analyses in social work and allied fields.
D) substantively significant.
E)not substantively significant.
Q2) A correlation of .60 indicates that 36 percent of the variance in the dependent variable has been explained.
A)True
B)False
Q3) The selection of the significance level
A)is fixed at .05 for social science research.
B)depends on the size of the population.
C)is arbitrary, although .05 is frequently used.
D)must be decided after finishing the analysis.
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Chapter 23: Inferential Data Analysis
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Q1) The t-test is appropriate to use when testing the significance of the relationship between two nominal level variables.
A)True
B)False
Q2) Identify four different tests of statistical significance and the conditions under which each would be used.
Q3) Chi-square should be used to test the significance of relationships between the ratio level variables.
A)True
B)False
Q4) The probability of a Type II error increases when A) lower significance levels are used.
B) larger sample sizes are selected.
C) a stronger relationship in the population is assumed.
D) statistical power is calculated on a post hoc bsis.
Q5) Describe the controversy regarding statistical significance testing with population data.
Q6) Identify the key things to look for when critically appraising the trustworthiness of meta-analysis.
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Chapter 24: Writing Research Proposals and Reports
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Q1) The presentation of data analyses in research reports should provide a maximum of detail without being cluttered.
A)True
B)False
Q2) Which of the following is NOT plagiarism?
A) Using another writer's exact words without using quotation marks.
B) Taking a passage of eight or more words without a citation.
C) Editing another's words and presenting them as your own.
D) Paraphrasing another's words and presenting them as your own.
E)All of these constitute plagiarism.
Q3) If you're reporting a qualitative study,presenting only those data that support your interpretations is sufficient.
A)True
B)False
Q4) The literature review section of a research proposal should:
A) include minute details about every relevant previous study.
B) show how the proposed research will relate to, yet go beyond, the previous studies.
C) mention a few relevant studies, but not many of them.
D)list each previous study in chronological order.
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