Sociology Quiz Ch 2

Imagine a survey that asks 1,000 married and divorced respondents whether they ever cheated on their spouse, and 950 people respond. One major problem with such a survey could be its: A. response rate. B. validity. C. replicability. D. use of a double-barreled question.

In a study of whether watching violent TV shows makes children engage in violent behavior, the operational definition of violent behavior could be: A. the researcher's expectation that children will become more violent after watching violent TV shows. B. use of physical force against other children. C. a method used by the experimenter to test his or her hypothesis. D. an example of researchers confusing correlation with causation.

The greatest weakness of experiments in sociological research is that: A. they are usually not replicable. B. they may oversimplify the social world. C. they usually do not yield quantitative data. D. they generate descriptions but do not produce theoretical advances.

The U.S. Census would be considered an example of: A. qualitative research. B. inclusional research. C. quantitative research. D. nonuseful research.

Quantitative research is: A. useful only to sociologists because they are the only ones who would understand the results. B. seen only in sociology because other sciences tend to do research based on the scientific method. C. research that translates the social world into numbers and often tries to find cause and effect relationships. D. research that works with nonnumerical data and often tries to understand how people make sense of their social world.

What are the variables in the following statement, \"Studying affects one's grades?\" A. The student and her grades B. The student and her study time C. Study time and grades D. There are no variables in that statement.

If a survey question offers a range of choices going from \"strongly agree\" to \"strongly disagree,\" the question is probably using a: A. Likert scale B. Durkheim scale C. Maslow scale D. Milgram scale

Which of the following is the best example of a researcher displaying reflexivity? A. An interviewer who makes sure that his interview subjects have given informed consent B. An ethnographer who tells her research subjects that she is studying them, rather than engaging in covert research C. An African American interviewer studying racial attitudes who thinks about how her race affects the responses that white interview subjects give her D. A quantitative survey researcher who makes sure to gather a large sample for his survey

In their study of teenage mothers, Kathryn Edin and Maria Kefalas found that: A. women had children without being married because they thought that having children would help them find marriage partners. B. teenage mothers frequently viewed children as a source of stability in their lives. C. teenage mothers were harmed greatly by raising children without being married. D. the children of teenage mothers fared better in life than expected.

Which of the following cases illustrates a researcher NOT being objective in the conduct of their research, and thereby undermining the research process? A. A researcher with a strong opinion on abortion doing interviews with people about their views on abortion B. A researcher committed to a particular theory altering the reporting of her results to make them conform to her theory C. A researcher who consistently votes Republican analyzing survey data on why some people consistently vote Republican D. A researcher who tricks research subjects into believing they are giving electric shocks to another person when in reality no shocks are being given

Another term for the outcome being studied in an experiment is the: A. independent variable B. intervening variable C. dependent variable D. experimental variable

What is homophily? A. The tendency of people to date people who come from very different backgrounds B. The tendency of young people to be much more accepting of same-sex romantic relationships than older people C. The tendency of people to form social networks and friendships with people who resemble them D. The tendency of people in heterosexual relationships to have more same-sex than opposite-sex friends

Participant observation is an example of: A. qualitative research. B. inclusional research. C. quantitative research. D. nonuseful research.

The following statement, \"Studying affects one's grades,\" would be an example of a: A. scientific method. B. hypothesis. C. participant observation. D. paradigm shift.

Which of the following is most clearly a spurious relationship, rather than a causal relationship? A. The correlation between the number of storks in an area and the number of babies born to people in that area B. The correlation between people's level of education and their income C. The correlation between a person's prior arrest record and their treatment in sentencing hearings D. The correlation between one's perceived physical attractiveness and the number of messages they receive on a dating site

Which of the following is true about survey research? A. Survey research is difficult to replicate. B. Survey research involves taking fieldnotes. C. Survey research usually includes qualitative data that allows the researcher to better capture social reality. D. Survey research is one of the best methods for gathering a vast amount of original data on a large population.

The specific approval rating of the U.S. president would be an example of: A. qualitative data. B. metaphysical data. C. quantitative data. D. theoretical data.

The goal of ethnographic research is to: A. describe everything that the researchers observe, without making any inferences or interpretations. B. describe the activities researchers observe and understand the meaning of those activities to participants. C. show that processes observed in a particular group also occur in a larger, more generalizable population. D. use existing records to better understand events from hundreds of years ago.

The name for a type of research that counts how many times specific variables appear in a text, image, or media message, is: A. contextual analysis. B. comparative research. C. textual research. D. content analysis.

What is a paradigm shift? A. When researchers move from collecting data to analyzing it B. When scholars make a major break with prior assumptions and introduce a new way of looking at things C. When sociologists conduct literature reviews that draw on the work of other social scientists rather than just sociologists D. When scholars begin a study using one research method but switch to another research method to finish their study

Which of the following is true about ethnography? A. One critique of ethnographies is that they may lack representativeness. B. Ethnographies make it difficult to study groups that are often overlooked by other methods. C. Ethnographies are easily replicated. D. Ethnographies involve ample quantitative data.

The name for the records that participant-observers keep of their experiences is: A. journals. B. time logs. C. fieldnotes. D. head notes.

Which of the following is an example of research that uses comparative and historical methods? A. A study of why revolts in China and Russia in the early twentieth century blossomed into full-scale revolutions, while revolts in other countries did not, using historical records B. A study that compares men and women's reasons for getting divorced in the modern United States, using interviews C. A study that looks at how gender roles were portrayed in magazines 100 years ago, using content analysis D. A study that interviews all past executives of a company to determine the reasons for trends in its performance over its entire history

Qualitative research is: A. useful only to sociologists because they are the only ones who would understand the results. B. seen only in sociology because other sciences tend to do research based on the scientific method. C. research that translates the social world into numbers and often tries to find cause and effect relationships. D. research that works with nonnumerical data and often tries to understand how people make sense of their social world.

Which of the following statements is true concerning the use of existing sources as a research method? A. Sociologists must be living in the time period under study to use existing sources. B. One disadvantage is that gathering the data is much more costly and involved than other research methods. C. Researchers always work with information that they have obtained themselves. D. Researchers can use the same data source to replicate projects that have been conducted before.

The name for the records that participant-observers keep of their experiences is: A. journals. B. time logs. C. fieldnotes. D. head notes.