Exam 2: Sociological Research Methods

Sociologist Emile Durkheim concluded that single people had proportionately higher suicide rates than married persons because they had a low degree of social integration;he referred to this as anomic suicide.

______________ are the most widely used research method in the social sciences because they make it possible to study things that are not directly observable (such as people's attitudes and beliefs)and to describe a population too large to observe directly.

Sociologists obtain their knowledge of human behavior through______________,which result(s)in a body of information that helps us move beyond guesswork and common sense in understanding society.

With______________research,interpretative description (words)rather than statistics (numbers)is used to analyze underlying meanings and patterns of social relationships.

In an experiment,the______________contains the subjects who are exposed to an independent variable to study its effect on them.

The sociological perspective incorporates theory and research to arrive at a more accurate understanding of the "hows" and "whys" of human social interaction.

A(n)______________is a data-collection encounter in which an interviewer asks the respondent questions and records the answers.

The unit of analysis is referred to as:

Suppose that your goal is to earn an "A" in this sociology course.Your professor may have created a(n)______________by specifying an "A" as earning a test average of 90 percent or above.

A researcher develops an interest in the motivating factors of job satisfaction among migrant workers.Which of the following steps will be unique to this research design?

Distinguish between common sense and sociological research.

Sociologists using the______________approach to study suicide might start by simultaneously collecting and analyzing data related to suicidal behavior and then generate a theory.

Sociology involves debunking-the unmasking of fallacies (false or mistaken ideas or opinions)in the everyday and official interpretations of society.

Joyce wants to do a study of domestic abuse but lacks the time and money to gather her own data.Consequently,she analyzes data previously gathered by the National Opinion Research Center (NORC)and the Roper Public Opinion Research Center that is related to this topic.In this case,Joyce is conducting:

A researcher would like to compare suicide rates between recent immigrants and more established immigrants using a quantitative research approach.Which research model would be most appropriate?

In the inductive approach,the researcher collects information or data (facts or evidence)and then generates theories form the analysis of that data.

______________ refers to the process of collecting data while being part of the activities of the group that the researcher is studying.

Compare and contrast the difference between the conventional research model and the qualitative research model.

Becky would like to conduct a study to determine how women define spousal abuse and the meanings they attach to incidents of abuse.She will most likely use a______________approach to analyze her results.

Conventional experiments require that subjects be divided into two groups: the control group contains the subjects who are exposed to the independent variable and the experimental group who are not exposed to the independent variable.