Social Research Methods
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Course Introduction
Social Research Methods introduces students to the systematic processes used to investigate social phenomena. The course covers the foundations of qualitative and quantitative research, including design, data collection, sampling techniques, analysis, and interpretation. Students will gain hands-on experience in developing research questions, conducting surveys and interviews, utilizing statistical tools, and addressing ethical considerations. By exploring both traditional and contemporary methodologies, this course equips students with the critical skills necessary to design and execute robust social research projects in academic and professional settings.
Recommended Textbook
Basics of Social Research Fourth Canadian Edition by W. Lawrence Neuman
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1066 Verified Questions
1066 Flashcards
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Page 2
Chapter 1: Doing Social Research
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Sample
Questions
Q1) What is the scientific community and who belongs to it?
Answer: The scientific community is a collection of people who share a system of rules and attitudes that sustain the process of producing scientific knowledge. It is a professional community that includes individuals from both the natural and social sciences.
It includes a range of practitioners,technicians,and researchers.Researchers at universities form the core of the community;however,some researchers work for government or for private industry as well.
Q2) Define the following:survey research
Answer: Quantitative social research in which one systematically asks many people the same questions,then records and analyzes their answers.
Q3) All of the following characterize academic research,EXCEPT which one?
A)The main concern is with the internal logic and rigour of research design.
B)The objective is to contribute to policy and/or program change.
C)Success comes when results appear in a scholarly journal.
D)Research problems and participants are selected with a great deal of freedom.
E)The highest standards of scholarship are sought.
Answer: B
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3
Chapter 2: Theory and Social Research
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Sample Questions
Q1) A theory that seeks to explain how the Newly Industrializing Countries (NICs)of East Asia (e.g.,Hong Kong,Taiwan,South Korea,Singapore)were able to rapidly industrialize and gain a major position in world markets between the 1960s and the 1990s is operating at which level?
A)Micro
B)Meso
C)Macro
D)Mini
E)Maxi
Answer: C
Q2) Professor Candice Candlestick teaches her students that the best sociological research presents objective facts independently of the values of the researcher and is characterized by precise measurement.Which approach does Professor Candlestick subscribe to?
A)Positivism
B)Interpretativism
C)Structural functionalism
D)Verstehenism
E)Objectivism
Answer: A
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Page 4
Chapter 3: Ethics in Social Research
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Sample Questions
Q1) Chad Hunt is a graduate student who studies the ways people use social assistance.Chad grew up hearing news reports and dinner table conversations about how welfare recipients are typically lazy people who abuse the system even though they can and should work.The data Chad collects indicates that the majority of people on social assistance are hard-working persons who have been displaced by economic restructuring.Chad believes his data does not accurately depict the truth of the matter,so he falsifies documents to make it appear as though abuse of social assistance is common.What offence has Chad committed?
A)Research fraud
B)Data reconfiguration
C)Plagiarism
D)Breaking confidentiality
E)Breaking anonymity
Answer: A
Q2) Define the following:confidentiality
Answer: Information is collected with participant names attached,but the researcher holds it in confidence or keeps it secret from the public.
Q3) Define the following:anonymity
Answer: Research participants remain anonymous or nameless.
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Page 5
Chapter 4: Reviewing the Scholarly Literature and Planning a Study
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Sample Questions
Q1) Define the following:readers
Q2) Define the following:citation
Q3) Define the following:popularized social science magazines
Q4) Define the following:state of the field
Q5) How does an annotated bibliography differ from a literature review?
Q6) Which of the following is considered a positive feature of using the internet for social research?
A)The internet does not close.
B)There is high “quality control”of all the information on the internet.
C)It has stability and permanence of sources.
D)All important sources are available on the internet,nothing is missing.
E)The internet allows a researcher to get the one piece of specific information needed and nothing extra.
Q7) Which of the following types of periodicals is designed for teaching purposes?
A)Scholarly journals
B)Readers
C)Dissertations
D)Theses
E)Abstracts
Page 6
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Chapter 5: Designing a Study
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Sample Questions
Q1) How does a qualitative researcher assign significance or a coherent meaning to something?
A)By rearranging,examining,and discussing the numbers by using charts and statistics to explain how patterns in the data relate to the research question
B)By rearranging,examining,and discussing textual or visual data in a way that remains true to the original people and situations that the researcher studied
C)By rearranging,examining,and discussing textual or visual data in a way that conveys an authentic voice
D)B and C
E)A and C
Q2) Which of the following is part of study design by someone using a quantitative research style?
A)Variables and hypotheses
B)Grounded theory
C)Use of different orders of interpretation
D)Nonlinear research path
E)Emphasis on cases and contexts
Q3) Define the following:ecological fallacy
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Chapter 6: Qualitative and Quantitative Measurement
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Q1) Which sort of hypothesis are researchers interested in testing at the level of operational definitions?
A)Grounded
B)Variable
C)Conceptual
D)Empirical
E)Abstract
Q2) Define the following:internal validity
Q3) Which type of measurement validity is the easiest to achieve?
A)Concurrent
B)Face
C)Content
D)Criterion
E)Predictive
Q4) Define the following:ordinal-level measurement
Q5) Define the following:nominal-level measurement
Q6) Define the following:predictive validity
Q7) Define the following:discrete variables
Q8) Define the following:standardization
Q9) Define the following:conceptualization Page 8
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Page 9
Chapter 7: Qualitative and Quantitative Sampling
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Sample Questions
Q1) Define the following:target population
Q2) Define the following:random-digit dialing (RDD)
Q3) Which of the following is NOT something a researcher's decision about the best sample size depends on?
A)The degree of variability or diversity in the population
B)The magnitude of the population
C)The number of different variables studied simultaneously in data analysis
D)The degree of accuracy required
E)None of the above
Q4) Which of the following terms best describes people who engage in illegal or concealed activities such that very often a researcher must use purposive sampling in order to find them?
A)Hidden population
B)Target population
C)Moving target
D)Cluster
E)Sociogram
Q5) What is the main difference between simple random sampling and systematic sampling?
Q6) Define the following:census
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Chapter 8: Survey Research
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Q1) When is it most appropriate to use an open-ended question?
A)When the sample contains many floaters
B)When there are only a few simple choices for most of the questions in the survey
C)When doing exploratory research
D)When lots of statistics are required
E)When the sample consists of many people with limited speaking and writing abilities
Q2) When are interview schedules used?
A)During telephone and face-to-face surveys
B)In mail and email surveys
C)When the survey is subject to time constraints
D)When a survey comprises closed-ended questions only
E)When a survey comprises open-ended questions only
Q3) Which of the following helps to reduce respondent fatigue?
A)Closed-ended questions
B)Interview schedule
C)Floaters
D)Emotional language
E)Abbreviations
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11
Chapter 9: Experimental Research
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Q1) Define the following:experimenter expectancy
Q2) Define the following:pre-experimental designs
Q3) In experimental research,what does internal validity refer to? Provide and briefly describe three examples where internal validity is an issue.
Q4) In experimental research,what does external validity refer to? Briefly describe two instances where external validity is a threat to the overall findings and conclusions of an experiment.
Q5) While studying rates of language acquisition for new Canadians from different countries,Curtis Cunning's research assistants informed him that 7 of the 65 subjects had quit and walked out before the study was completed.What type of threat to internal validity does Curtis' experiment have?
A)Selection bias
B)History effect
C)Experimental mortality
D)Maturation
E)Testing effect
Q6) Define the following:history effects
Q7) Define the following:Latin square design
Q8) Define the following:placebo
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Chapter 10: Nonreactive Quantitative Research and Secondary Analysis
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Sample Questions
Q1) Professor Lorna Lovebird codes the number of times the word sex is used in commercials.She is examining
A)lateral structure.
B)ecological content.
C)manifest content.
D)corroboration.
E)latent content.
Q2) During the 1960s,which movement was led by dissatisfied social scientists wanting to measure the quality of social life so such information could influence public policy?
A)General social survey movement
B)Well-being statistics movement
C)Quality of life movement
D)Census movement
E)Social indicators movement
Q3) Define the following:erosion measures
Q4) Define the following:recording sheet
Q5) Explain how constructs are operationalized in quantitative content analysis.Provide an example.
Q6) Define the following:nonreactive
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Chapter 11: Analysis of Quantitative Data
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Q1) Why is knowing the variability or dispersion of a variable as important as knowing its central tendency? How is variation measured?
Q2) Define the following:univariate statistics
Q3) Which of the following statements about the following numbers is true: 2,7,6,9,4,6,2,8?
A)The median is a whole number
B)The distribution is bimodal
C)The mean is higher than half of the numbers in the distribution
D)A and B
E)A and C
Q4) Define the following:level of statistical significance
Q5) Which neighbourhood(s)has the greatest variation in years of education?
A)Glenbrook
B)Meadowbrook
C)Elmbrook
D)Glenbrook and Elmbrook
E)Meadowbrook and Elmbrook
Q6) Define the following:bar chart
Q7) Define the following:Type I error
Q8) Define the following:descriptive statistics
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Chapter 12: Qualitative Interviewing
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Sample Questions
Q1) Groupthink refers to
A)a person whose role is to argue against a dominant idea.
B)a person’s natural desire to avoid conflict and lean toward group consensus,even when the group’s opinion does not reflect his/her own opinion.
C)the tendency for interviewees to think alike.
D)the use of a moderator to get focus group participants to respond similarly on questions.
E)respondents who share similar socio-economic attributes.
Q2) Define the following:specifying questions
Q3) According to Kvale's typology,__________ questions are used to solicit additional descriptions of topics just discussed by the interviewee,while __________ questions are used to prompt interviewees to expand on incomplete points.
A)follow-up;probe
B)probe;follow-up
C)probe;specifying
D)follow-up;specifying
E)specifying;interpreting
Q4) Define the following:probing questions
Q5) Define the following:qualitative interview
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Chapter 13: Field Research
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Sample
Questions
Q1) In conducting the field research components of her ethnographic study of a small religious group,Bethany Bennett sat in when members assembled for weekly meetings at elders homes,but did not engage in nightly prayer sessions.Which of the following best describes Bethany?
A)Complete observer
B)Complete participant
C)Semi-observer
D)Semi-participant
E)Semi-immersed
Q2) Define the following:audit trail
Q3) Define the following:direct observation notes
Q4) Define the following:complete participant
Q5) Define the following:reflexivity
Q6) Define the following:normalize social research
Q7) Define the following:external audit:
Q8) Define the following:semi-participant
Q9) Define the following:exchange relationships
16
Q10) Describe the various types of field notes that researchers take.What function does each type serve?
Q11) Define the following:naturalism
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Page 17
Chapter 14: Nonreactive Qualitative Research
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Q1) In relation to primary sources,what two criteria does a historical researcher use in order to evaluate documents and other sources? Briefly describe this evaluation process and the kinds of issues that each mode of evaluation is concerned with.
Q2) Historical research helps a researcher identify aspects of social life that are
A)specific to a particular point in time.
B)general across time or units.
C)hidden within a particular context.
D)narrowly defined within a particular historical context.
E)empirically specific to one unit of analysis.
Q3) Why is equivalence of crucial importance in historical research? Which feature of quantitative research does the problem of equivalence most closely resemble? What specific types of equivalence should be of utmost concern to the historical researcher? How are potential problems with equivalence dealt with?
Q4) Describe the main feature that quantitative content analysis and qualitative content analysis have in common with each other.What are the key differences between quantitative content analysis and qualitative analysis?
Q5) Define the following:oral history
Q6) Define the following:conceptual equivalence
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Chapter 15: Analysis of Qualitative Data
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Sample Questions
Q1) ________ refers to a process whereby researchers systematically gather or record data and make it accessible to others.
A)Inferential research
B)Combined methods
C)The comparative method
D)Empirical research
E)A public method
Q2) Define the following:concept map
Q3) Describe the features of the analytical memo.In what ways is it related to the coding process during the analysis of qualitative data?
Q4) Define the following:concept map
Q5) What kinds of explanations are relevant to qualitative research? What form do they take?
Q6) Define the following:selective coding
Q7) Compare the key differences that set qualitative data analysis apart from quantitative data analysis.What four features differentiate these two approaches? Identify and briefly describe each one.
Q8) Define the following:quantitative coding
Q9) Define the following:axial coding
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Chapter 16: Combining Methods in Social Science Research
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Sample Questions
Q1) For which type of quantitative social science research is the "interview(er)effect" most likely to be a problem?
A)Survey research
B)Nonreactive research
C)Qualitative interviewing
D)Quantitative content analysis
E)Field studies
Q2) Identify two of the four major quantitative approaches treated in your text and discuss their advantages.
Q3) Define the following:monostrand design
Q4) Which of the following statements most closely describes the term triangulation?
A)Using two different theoretical approaches in one research project
B)Displaying the final results of the research in a variety of ways,such as graphs,charts,tables,and diagrams
C)Gathering data primarily through the use of qualitative open-ended interviews but then coding the interviews so they can be used for statistical analysis
D)Using more than one qualitative or quantitative technique
E)Employing at least three different concepts in a single research question
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