Research Methods in Sociology
Exam Questions
Course Introduction
Research Methods in Sociology introduces students to the systematic approaches and tools used by sociologists to investigate social phenomena. The course covers both qualitative and quantitative research designs, emphasizing the formulation of research questions, hypothesis development, and procedures for gathering and analyzing data. Students will learn about survey methods, interviews, ethnography, content analysis, and experiments, as well as ethical considerations in conducting research. Practical assignments and case studies are incorporated to help students develop essential skills in designing, conducting, and evaluating sociological research, ultimately enhancing their ability to critically assess empirical studies in the field.
Recommended Textbook
The Practice of Social Research 14th Edition by Earl R. Babbie
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Chapter 1: Human Inquiry and Science
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Sample Questions
Q1) Exceptions to social regularities should be disregarded.
A)True
B)False
Answer: False
Q2) In any given study,sex is a(n)________,whereas being male or female is a(n)________.
A)attribute; variable
B)definition; choice
C)choice; definition
D)variable; attribute
E)variable; choice
Answer: D
Q3) Today,social scientific theory addresses
A)how things should be.
B)how things are.
C)why things are as they are.
D)how things are and why.
E)how things should be and why.
Answer: D
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Page 3
Chapter 2: Paradigms,theory,and Social Research
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Q1) Social scientists generally believe that the succession from one paradigm to another represents progress from a false view to a true one.
A)True
B)False
Answer: False
Q2) Constructed knowledge is a major concept in positivism.
A)True
B)False
Answer: False
Q3) In deduction,we start from observed data and develop a generalization that explains the relationship between the observed concepts.
A)True
B)False
Answer: False
Q4) Axioms are fundamental assertions,assumed to be true that a theory is based upon.
A)True
B)False
Answer: True
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Page 4
Chapter 3: The Ethics and Politics of Social Research
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Sample Questions
Q1) The most problematic element of Laud Humphrey's homosexuality study was:
A)conducting the research in a public location.
B)the controversial topic.
C)tracking subjects and visiting their home under false pretenses.
D)not identifying himself as a researcher.
E)not conducting a debriefing with participants.
Answer: C
Q2) When names are removed from questionnaires and are replaced with identification numbers so that only the researcher can later link a response to a particular name,the researcher should tell the respondent that the information is
A)anonymous.
B)confidential.
C)anonymous and confidential.
D)harmless.
E)safe.
Answer: B
Q3) The ethical issues are readily apparent in research projects.
A)True
B)False
Answer: False
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Chapter 4: Research Design
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Sample Questions
Q1) Cross-sectional data can never be used to approximate longitudinal data.
A)True
B)False
Q2) There is a strong correlation between the number of firefighters that show up at a fire and the amount of damage produced by the fire.The size of the fire influences both the number of firefighters and the amount of damage.This illustrates that the relationship between the number of firefighters and the amount of damage is
A)spurious.
B)causal.
C)not correlational.
D)a real relationship.
E)non-spurious.
Q3) The positive relationship between shoe size and IQ is what kind of relationship?
A)causal
B)negative
C)spurious
D)nonspurious
E)qualitative
Q4) Describe the steps involved in the research process.
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Chapter 5: Conceptualization, operationalization, and Measurement
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Sample Questions
Q1) When you are worried about whether you are actually measuring what you think you are measuring,you are worried about __________.
A)internal validity
B)external validity
C)reliability
D)theory
E)content reliability
Q2) A nominal measure is one that is already quantified and ready to measure
A)True
B)False
Q3) Region (East,West,South,Midwest)is what level of measurement?
A)nominal
B)ordinal
C)interval
D)ratio
E)convergent definition
Q4) Distances between attributes in ordinal data is meaningful and quantifiable.
A)True
B)False
7
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Chapter 6: Indexes, scales, and Typologies
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Sample Questions
Q1) The coefficient of reproducibility refers to the ability of a Guttman scale to reproduce the pattern of individual responses.
A)True
B)False
Q2) Semantic differential scales employ judges to develop the scale
A)True
B)False
Q3) Explain the logic of index validation.What methods are used to validate a composite index? Give examples.
Q4) Marissa conducted a research study to examine the relationship between hospital location (rural,urban,suburban)and doctor reputation in order to find observable patterns.Which approach should she use?
A) semantic differential.
B) index construction.
C) Thurstone scaling.
D) typologies.
E) index validation.
Q5) Discuss how you would use a Bogardus Social distance scale to measure attitudes of prejudice and racism among college students.
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Chapter 7: The Logic of Sampling
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Sample Questions
Q1) John is looking to randomly select 100 students in his college to take part in a graduate research study on underage drinking.He has a list of all students that is numbered.To select participants,he uses a random number table to choose them.What form of sampling is John using?
A)systematic sampling.
B)snowball sampling.
C)simple random sampling.
D)multistage cluster sampling.
E)stratified sampling.
Q2) What is the basic logic of probability sampling? How do such concepts as homogeneity,heterogeneity,sampling bias,representativeness,and probability of selection fit into this logic?
Q3) Jerome is worried about the periodicity in his sampling frame.Jerome should not use
A)simple random sampling.
B)stratified sampling.
C)systematic sampling.
D)disproportionate sampling.
E)probability sampling.
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Chapter 8: Experiments
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Sample Questions
Q1) Professor Rose was asked to design an experiment to test whether obese people would lose weight on a new diet plan.Professor Rose was not a methodologist.Rose asked for your help.You immediately told Rose that the selected design would have to be sensitive to the issues of statistical regression,diffusion or imitation of treatment,compensatory rivalry,and demoralization.Rose said,"I don't understand." Explain these issues to Rose.Suggest and explain a design that would control for these problems.
Q2) A researcher was conducting an experiment on a new method to reduce fear of flying and did not use a control group.During this experiment,a high-profile plane crash was reported in the media.What threat to internal validity is this?
A)history
B)experimental mortality
C)selection biases
D)testing
E)statistical regression
Q3) The problem of external validity refers to the generalizability of results.
A)True
B)False
Q4) Explain what is meant by internal and external validity.
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Chapter 9: Survey Research
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Sample Questions
Q1) Belinda wanted to ask several questions asking about which dimensions of feminism that respondents would agree with.All the items have the same answer categories.Which type of questions would be the best to use?
A)open-ended matrix
B)closed-ended matrix
C)contingency
D)interview
E)telephone
Q2) Which of the following is NOT an example of a new technology for doing survey research?
A)CATI (computer assisted telephone interviewing)
B)CASI (computer assisted self-interviewing)
C)BRS (biometric response system)
D)VR (voice recognition)
E)TDE (touchtone data entry)
Q3) To overcome the effect of the order of questions on respondent's answers,it is important to randomize the order of the items.
A)True
B)False
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Chapter 10: Qualitative Field Research
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Sample Questions
Q1) In a complete qualitative interviewing process,a researcher will perform all but which of the following?
A)thematize.
B)statistically analyze.
C)transcribe.
D)verify.
E)design.
Q2) Which of the following could NOT constitute a case in a case study?
A)WWII
B)The family Stone
C)Elvis Presley
D)Cuba
E)Violence
Q3) Journalists and social scientists differ with regard to interviews in their A) methods used.
B) relationship to data.
C) recording of interviews.
D) presentation to interviewees.
E) use of interview guides.
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Chapter 11: Unobtrusive Research
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Sample Questions
Q1) Studying ten years of college sociology classes,Rudy found that the first three years each class had a higher average GPA than the following seven.He then concluded that the students were smarter during those early years.What has Rudy done?
A) used verstehen.
B) using content analysis.
C) studying manifest content.
D) committing the ecological fallacy.
E) performing a replication.
Q2) Rita found letters written by soldiers during the American Revolution.According to Aminzade and Laslett,which of the following questions should Rita ask about these letters?
A)Why were the letters written?
B)Who wrote the letters?
C)Did the soldiers face any constraints in writing the letters?
D)How representative are the individuals who wrote the letters?
E)All of these questions are suggested by Aminzade and Laslett.
Q3) Content analysis by definition never involves quantitative analysis.
A)True
B)False
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Chapter 12: Evaluation Research
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Sample Questions
Q1) Walter is conducting a study to determine if funding a newly established program to reduce the number of graffiti-related incidents is more expensive than simply painting over the buildings that are vandalized.Walter is doing a(n)
A)needs assessment study.
B)monitoring study.
C)cost-benefit analysis.
D)classic experiment.
E)multiple time-series design.
Q2) Stakeholders are
A)persons who control the finances of projects.
B)found in Institutional Review Board panels
C)people or groups affected by a program.
D)applied researchers
E)another name for research assistants
Q3) Sometimes,structured quantitative questions can yield unexpected qualitative results.
A)True
B)False
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Chapter 13: Qualitative Data Analysis
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Sample Questions
Q1) Quincy did a qualitative study in which he wanted to identify the most important variables associated with participation in extracurricular activities.Which one of the following did he perform?
A)variable-oriented analysis
B)case-oriented analysis
C)cross-case analysis
D)semiotics
E)content analysis
Q2) Semiotics is a social science because
A)meanings are inherent in signs.
B)meanings reside in people's minds.
C)a particular sign may have a particular meaning to a particular person.
D)we have agreements about the meanings associated with particular signs.
E)meanings have an absolute, objective meaning.
Q3) The concept is the organizing principle for qualitative coding.
A)True
B)False
Q4) Qualitative data processing is both a science and an art.
A)True
B)False
Page 15
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Chapter 14: Quantitative Data Analysis
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Sample Questions
Q1) If you do ALL your own coding then you do not need to verify your reliability as a coder.
A)True
B)False
Q2) Bivariate and multivariate analyses are aimed primarily at explanation.
A)True
B)False
Q3) Duke wanted to determine the spread between the highest and lowest scores on an exam for a class he was teaching.He should use
A)frequency distribution.
B)range.
C)mean.
D)standard deviation.
E)interquartile range
Q4) Which of the following statistics can be calculated on continuous data?
A)mean
B)median
C)standard deviation
D)the mean, the median, and the standard deviation
E)the mean and the standard deviation
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Chapter 15: The Logic of Multivariate Analysis
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Sample Questions
Q1) Which elaboration paradigm is used to describe a spurious relationship? Give an example,and interpret the results.
Q2) Suppose we observed that the more firefighters there were at a fire site,the greater the amount of fire damage.Suppose we also observed that the size of the fire was related to both the amount of damage and the number of firefighters present.The relationship between numbers of firefighters and the amount of fire damage illustrates that:
A)the relationship between the two variables is causal.
B)the number of firefighters causes the damage.
C)the relationship between firefighters and the amount of damage is spurious.
D)the number of firefighters at a fire may cause the amount of damage.
E)the amount of damage at a fire causes firefighters to appear at the fire.
Q3) What is meant by ex post facto hypothesizing? Why does it sometimes mislead inexperienced researchers?
Q4) Which one of the following statements is the most accurate?
A)we can prove things scientifically if we try hard enough
B)we can prove things scientifically if we measure things well enough
C)we can prove things scientifically if we try often enough
D)we cannot prove things scientifically
E)we can prove things scientifically if we use enough different variables
Page 17
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Chapter 16: Statistical Analyses
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Sample Questions
Q1) Which of the following is an INAPPROPRIATE unit of analysis in Geographic Information Systems?
A)countries
B)states
C)fire departments
D)census tracts
E)cities
Q2) Which of the following is NOT an assumption underlying regression analysis?
A)simple random sampling
B)discrete variables
C)at least interval data
D)absence of nonsampling error
E)continuous variables.
Q3) Inferential statistics are used primarily for describing samples.
A)True
B)False
Q4) If given r you can always compute r squared; however,if given r squared you cannot always compute r.
A)True
B)False
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Chapter 17: Reading and Writing Social Research
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Sample Questions
Q1) The peer review process is performed in order to ensure that research published will be the most sound and of the highest scientific quality.
A)True
B)False
Q2) Oral presentations at scholarly meetings are typically
A)5-10 minutes long.
B)10-15 minutes long.
C)15-20 minutes long.
D)30 minutes long.
E)45 minutes long.
Q3) The research report that is probably the most popular is A)article.
B)research monograph.
C)research notes.
D)working paper.
E)professional paper.
Q4) As a rough guide,25 typed pages is good length for a journal article.
A)True
B)False
Q5) Why and how do researchers take their audience into account in writing a report?
Page 19
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