Methods of Sociological Inquiry
Chapter Exam Questions
Course Introduction
Methods of Sociological Inquiry examines the foundational techniques and principles used by sociologists to study society and social behavior. The course covers qualitative and quantitative research methods, including interviews, surveys, participant observation, and content analysis. Students learn to construct research questions, design studies, gather and analyze data, and interpret findings within ethical guidelines. Emphasis is placed on understanding methodological strengths and limitations, as well as on critical thinking about how evidence shapes sociological knowledge and theory.
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The Art and Science of Social Research 1st Edition by Deborah Carr
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Chapter 1: The Art and Science of Social Research: An Introduction
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Q1) 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?
A)Social media use causes loneliness.
B)Loneliness causes increased social media use.
C)Social media use and loneliness are correlated.
D)Social media use correlates with dozens of variables,one of which is loneliness.
Answer: C
Q2) In her study of 50 middle-class heterosexual black women,sociologist Averil Clarke found that the women's singlehood was due to
A)personal choice.
B)a decision to prioritize career over romance.
C)persistent social inequalities.
D)personal reasons that varied by individual.
Answer: C
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Chapter 2: Research Foundations: Linking Sociological
Theory to Research
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Q1) Give an example of an abstract concept.List three different variables that might be used to capture this concept,and explain why you chose these variables.
Answer: Students may offer abstract concepts such as poverty,love,despair,or wealth.Incorrect answers are concrete,observable behaviors or objects such as pennies,frequency of crying,or a car.
Variables are representations that capture the different dimension of a concept.So,for example,if the concept is wealth,the variables could include value of properties owned,value of non-income assets,income records,expensive objects owned,or cost of leisure activities over the course of a year.
Q2) In mediation,a new variable may be introduced that links the independent variable to the dependent variable.This new "connecting variable" is called a(n)________ variable.
A)null
B)moderating
C)underlying
D)intervening
Answer: D
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Chapter 3: Ethical Issues in Social Science Research
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Q1) Linda writes a poem about the mayor of her town,including identifiable details.Linda's poem is NOT considered human subjects research because
A)poetry is not systematic;it is not designed to develop generalizable knowledge.
B)she is only "studying" one person,not a research sample of multiple persons.
C)her work does not fall within a social science discipline.
D)there is no risk of harm to the mayor.
Answer: A
Q2) When sociologists consider whether research is ethical,they are referring to if
A)the sociologist is a good or evil person.
B)the actions are right or wrong,good or bad.
C)laws and policies,even unjust ones,have been followed.
D)all sources are properly cited.
Answer: B
Q3) If researchers used the model of the Human Terrain System,they might A)shift cultural study from real-world settings to online settings.
B)embed sociologists in another country to generate deep cultural understanding.
C)request high-level security clearances for researchers.
D)begin their cultural study with Facebook data.
Answer: B
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Chapter 4: From Concepts to Models: Hypotheses,
Operationalization, and Measurement
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Q1) Josephina is designing a study on how school-level graduation rates predict students' risk of illegal drug use.Her research question is focused on the effect of being
A)a student with a higher risk of using illegal drugs.
B)a student with a certain likelihood of graduation.
C)a college-bound senior.
D)in a school with a certain graduation rate.
Q2) If a researcher studying poverty decides to measure poverty solely in terms of income,very wealthy people with no income would be erroneously counted as poor.This example shows the problem of measures being
A)too precise.
B)overly broad.
C)relative standards.
D)at the wrong unit of analysis.
Q3) Write two paragraphs distinguishing the formation and timing of the operational definition in the research design process for a researcher who wants to study family norms for (1)a quantitative study (such as a survey),and (2)a qualitative study (such as ethnography).
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Chapter 5: Evaluating Research: Reliability and Validity
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Q1) The CBCL,HOME,and CLASS are measures often used in research because they
A)are almost always 100% accurate.
B)are applicable to all populations,and therefore can be used in many different research contexts.
C)have been vetted and therefore researchers can have confidence in using them.
D)only attempt to gather small amounts of information and therefore are less likely to be inaccurate.
Q2) The terms validity and reliability would be most applicable to which of the following projects?
A)an interview-based study with 50 respondents on attitudes toward political engagement
B)a focus group including 10 participants on the subject of religious affiliation
C)participant observation carried out in a hospital to identify how patients of different ages are treated by doctors
D)a nationally representative survey of 1,200 Americans about their TV viewing habits
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Chapter 6: Sampling Strategies
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Q1) List and describe two reasons why it may be more effective to test hypotheses in nonrepresentative samples than representative samples.
Q2) Compare and contrast cluster sampling and stratified sampling.Offer two points of comparison and two points of contrast.
Q3) ________ sampling allows researchers to oversample groups so that researchers have more data on those groups than they would with simple random sampling.
A)Systematic
B)Stratified
C)Convenience
D)Cluster
Q4) How could you create a snowball sample?
A)randomly select respondents from a list
B)ask the first 10 people you see to participate in your study
C)stratify respondents into groups and randomly select from each strata
D)ask a respondent to recommend another person to contact
Q5) Propose a study for which systematic sampling is a better choice than simple random sampling.Justify your choice for why it is a better sampling method for your topic.
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Chapter 8: Experimental Research
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Q1) What is a characteristic of a natural experiment?
A)Participants are assigned to conditions by experimental procedures.
B)Participants are randomly assigned.
C)Experimenters manipulate the independent variable.
D)It is more observational than a true experiment.
Q2) Compared to behavioral measures,what is a characteristic of an attitudinal measure?
A)It is less susceptible to social desirability bias.
B)Researchers generally prefer attitudinal measures to behavioral measures.
C)Researchers prefer attitudinal measures when they want to understand how people actually treat one another and respond to the social world.
D)Researchers prefer attitudinal measures when they are interested in understanding why an outcome occurs.
Q3) Measures collected by observing the overt and observable actions of participants are known as ________ measures.
A)behavioral
B)attitudinal
C)physiological
D)longitudinal
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Chapter 9: Evaluation Research
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Q1) Explain the concept of a cost-benefit analysis,and compare and contrast how at least two constituents might respond to a cost-benefit analysis of the Results-Only Work Environment intervention.Possible constituents may include,but need not be limited to,the company (Best Buy)or its employees.
Q2) Which of the following projects best illustrates the logistical challenges of evaluation research?
A)Researchers may want to apply the findings of their study on Uber driving in New York City to five additional cities across the United States.
B)A study of reduced-cost remedial college classes measures student progress by sorting program applicants into a treatment group,which would receive reduced-cost remedial college classes,and a control group,which would be enrolled in full-priced traditional college courses.
C)In an intervention in factory labor,researchers found 60% of jobs could be downsized or replaced by robots to save corporate profits.Local labor unions might challenge and object to the study's results.
D)To study an intervention in Uber driving,researchers must be able to locate large numbers of Uber drivers,who are often spread out throughout a city,and involve them in research.
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Chapter 10: Ethnography
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Q1) Sven begins an ethnographic study of luchadores (Mexican wrestlers).In his first weeks,his experience of ________,is fairly typical of early fieldwork interactions.
A)overconfidence,a false sense that he truly understands the luchadores
B)insecurity,anxiety,and loneliness,which are part of learning to adjust to a new world
C)a honeymoon period of elation,which is often part of meeting new people
D)deep depression and troubling anxiety,because he is detached from the world he has known
Q2) Fieldwork is a scientific method with a particular purpose: to develop
A)hypothesis-based knowledge.
B)persuasive,nearly artistic,portrayals.
C)objective facts.
D)interpretive understanding.
Q3) Max Weber's idea of verstehen continues to be an important ideal for ethnographers today because it is important to
A)conduct research in an ethical manner.
B)develop a deep,empathetic understanding.
C)choose a researcher role that allows for good data collection.
D)link contemporary fieldwork to classical theory.
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Chapter 11: In-Depth Interviewing
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Q1) When the interviewee goes off on a tangent,the interviewer must find a polite and effective way to ________ the interview.
A)redirect
B)probe
C)focus
D)redesign
Q2) Before interviewing 10 individuals about their approaches to pet care,Devon prepares an interview schedule by
A)organizing the contact information for each individual.
B)setting interview times and places that are equivalent.
C)writing a list of questions he will use in the interviews.
D)filling out all relevant Institutional Review Board forms.
Q3) A sampling strategy in which cases are deliberately selected on the basis of certain features is ________ sampling.
A)snowball
B)qualitative
C)purposive
D)range
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Chapter 12: Materials-Based Methods
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Q1) Sociologists categorize birth certificates as records because records
A)are documentation of human life and activity.
B)are about individuals,whereas reports are about issues.
C)document events or characteristics at a particular moment in time.
D)provide government-generated data about populations.
Q2) Which of the following is a first-person account?
A)a popular media song performed by the person who wrote it
B)a government agency document authored by a single person
C)a Facebook post by a person who observed a significant public event
D)full data records (birth,marriage,and death certificates)for a single person
Q3) Why do some sociologists find the term unobtrusive methods problematic? How does the term materials-based methods address these problems?
Q4) Dr.Harper seeks primary information for her study about the lives of Sudanese refugees in the Midwest,so she turns to ________ for ________.
A)The Congressional Record;immigration bills considered by Congress
B)U.S.Department of State Human Rights Reports;stories of conditions in Sudan
C)interviews;stories of Sudanese refugees' lives
D)New York Times articles;accounts of immigration in recent years
Q5) What are three main reasons that researchers use materials-based methods?
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Chapter 13: Social Network Analysis
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Q1) Dr.Williams conducts a social network study of how parents express grief and receive support online following the death of a child.Dr.Williams is disappointed to find that selection bias strongly influenced the sample,as evidenced by the fact that the sample
A)is mostly affluent white parents in wealthy countries,because this population has disproportionate access to the Internet.
B)includes numerous "fake" participants who did not experience the death of a child.
C)is composed of people in Dr.Williams's own social network,those more likely to reply to his request to participate in the study.
D)offered memories that were more emotionally accurate than historically accurate,due to intense stress.
Q2) List and describe two significant drawbacks of collecting social network data via electronic networks.
Q3) List two of the four sources of social network change.Briefly describe how you could study these two sources of change in a social network analysis of a high school.
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Chapter 14: Univariate and Bivariate Analysis of Quantitative Data
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Q1) Rene compares the income distributions of male and female dentists.She finds that,among dentists,men's average income is higher than women's,but that the standard deviation of women's income is larger than the standard deviation of men's income.These results tell us that
A)there is more variation in women's income than men's income.
B)women's income is skewed,so average comparisons are inaccurate. C)men's income is skewed,so women and men make about the same income.
D)the range of men's income is larger than the range of women's income.
Q2) Martin is creating a cross-tabulation of categorical variables,and he wants to compare groups to one another.He would like your advice on whether he should compare frequencies or percentages.You suggest that he compare
A)frequencies because it allows for clearer comparison of groups of each size.
B)frequencies because it allows for clear understanding of the size of each group.
C)percentages because it allows for clearer comparison of groups of each size.
D)percentages because it allows for clear understanding of the size of each group.
Q3) Explain why it is important for sociologists to have a healthy skepticism about the statistics we encounter daily.
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Chapter 15: Multivariate and Advanced Quantitative Methods
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Q1) Paloma has conducted a study on whether religious attendance is related to attitudes about legal gun control,using a nationally representative sample of 145 adults.She is surprised to find no association between the two variables.If there is actually a small correlation between religious attendance and gun control attitudes,one factor that is likely to have affected Paloma's findings is that A)she only included adults in her sample instead of also including children and teens. B)her sample size was not large enough to detect the difference by religious attendance. C)religious attendance is too rare these days to be detected by national samples. D)there is reciprocal causality that hides the basic association between the two variables.
Q2) Reverse causality is an issue that comes up when
A)the independent variable occurs at the same time as the dependent variable. B)we have our independent and dependent variables switched around. C)the dependent variable is inversely related to the independent variable. D)the dependent variable is actually measured at multiple time points.
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Chapter 16: Analysis of Qualitative Data
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Q1) You are conducting a study of how beachgoers in San Diego deal with unexpected sunburns.Offer an explanation that is theoretically valid,and explain why it is theoretically valid.
Q2) Why would a researcher write a respondent memo?
A)to thank the respondent for participating B)to keep lists of respondents organized C)to note ideas or themes that emerge from a single respondent's data D)as a reminder list of analytic tasks remaining
Q3) You are designing a qualitative comparative analysis that compares corporations employing numerous female leaders with corporations employing no female leaders.How would you use a truth table to support your analysis?
Q4) After showing a correlation between intimate friendship and happiness,Jona tries to explain how intimate friendship causes happiness.This exploration of how is the study of A)causation.
B)cause and effect.
C)processes and mechanisms.
D)abductive research.
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Chapter 17: Communicating Social Science Research
Findings
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Q1) Dr.Kippley wants to publish her book-length manuscript about the sociology of aging.Like most academic sociologists,she hopes to publish a book with a highly ranked A)academic press.
B)monograph press.
C)publisher with many best-sellers.
D)refereed book publisher.
Q2) What are predatory journals,and why are they a problem?
Q3) The American Sociological Association (ASA)submitted an amicus brief to the U.S.Supreme Court in support of marriage equality because
A)the ASA was one of the plaintiffs.
B)one of the Supreme Court justices is a professional sociologist.
C)as a nonlitigant,the ASA wanted to contribute scholarly research to the process.
D)in order to be socially relevant,scientific organizations must participate in politics.
Q4) What is the difference between a policy brief and an amicus brief?
Q5) How is an editorial different than a research report?
Q6) Briefly describe a study for which a pilot study could be used effectively,and explain why.
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