Exam 2: Studying Social Life: Sociology Research Methods

Arlie Hochschild was concerned that her sample of interviewees was too small to guarantee representativeness. How did Hochschild attempt to overcome this problem?

Why are social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter so exciting to sociologists who study social networks?

A professor has been commissioned by a college to do research on its new academic system. The college has moved from a semester system to block scheduling. One of the questions asked is, "How have teachers and students responded to the new intensive block scheduling system?" This is an example of

An ideal whereby researchers identify facts without allowing their own personal beliefs or biases to interfere is known as

If a sample of sociological research is representative, then

What is an advantage of replicability in experiments?

Explain how a change in one variable might not be caused by a change in another variable even if the variables are correlated.

Which scholar's research sparked debate about both ethical and legal violations?

What research method is a sociologist using if they watch a lot of television and count the number of times women play roles with lower status than those played by men?

Research that focuses on one's own thoughts, feelings, and experiences is known as

The scientific method involves

Respondents are often more comfortable addressing sensitive subjects on surveys than in other research contexts because

Every four years, when it is time to elect a new president, we pay much attention to surveys, which we usually call "polls." Political pollsters typically ask approximately one thousand people, of the 300 million people in the United States, who they plan to vote for. They use that information to predict how the election will turn out. Who is the sample for a presidential poll?

You will still have to sacrifice some types of information in order to acquire others even if you pick your research method carefully.

Julie Bettie's ethnography Women without Class: Girls, Race, and Identity examined the role of race and class in the lives of girls in California's Central Valley. She did most of her work at a high school, hanging out with students and writing down her observations. What do ethnographers call her written observations?

What research method is an individual using if they look through a community's trash and litter?

What is an advantage of using interviews as a research method?

When conducting experiments, how is the experimental group different from the control group?

What are the advantages and disadvantages of asking open-ended and closed-ended questions?

What is a closed-ended question?