Exam 2: Sociological Research Methods

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.

Why is it important to have "ethics" in sociological research?

Describe the major ethical concerns in sociological research.

Which technique would be used by researchers in studying the treatment of gender in elementary reader books?

Explain how sociological research is grounded in the scientific tradition.

Describe the primary differences between quantitative and qualitative research and give examples of each.

__________ researchers frequently attempt to study the social world from the point of view of the people they are studying.

Which of the following methods would most likely be used to study the attitudes of the American public on gun control legalization?

A(n) __________ is a carefully designed research method in which the researcher studies the impact of certain variables on subjects' attitudes or behavior.

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

Social scientists cite many causes for suicide including rapid social change,economic conditions,hopeless poverty,and lack of religiosity.This is an example of:

Tim would like to compare suicide rates between elite athletes and non-athletes by analyzing suicide notes looking for patterns of feelings of despair or failure.He will most likely use a _________ approach to his study.

The deductive approach proceeds as follows: (1) theories generate hypotheses, (2) hypotheses lead to observations (data gathering), (3) observations lead to the formation of generalizations,and (4) generalizations are used to support the theory,to suggest modifications to it,or to refute it.

The __________ approach uses religion,customs,habits,traditions,and law to answer important questions.It is based on strong beliefs about what is right and wrong and what "ought to be" in society.

The Hawthorne effect refers to changes in the subject's behavior caused by the researcher's presence or by the subject's awareness of being studied.

In Suicide,sociologist Emile Durkheim documented that a high suicide rate was symptomatic of a large-scale social problem.This research was in direct contradiction to the historically held notion that suicide was:

A researcher wishes to compare income,educational level,and race in regard to people's attitudes toward capital punishment.__________ research would probably be the best research method for this researcher.

There were fewer than 3,400 suicides in the United States in 2007.

Survey data may be collected by interviews.One strength of interviews is that people may be influenced by the interviewer's race,age,sex,size,or other attributes in responding to the questions asked.

Discuss the connection between sociology and scientific evidence by comparing the normative approach with the empirical approach.