SOCY 300 Exam 2 (Past Quizzes)

A sociologist wants to study the political attitudes of a large, nationwide population. Why might they choose survey research over in-depth qualitative interviews?

Surveys provide a representative picture by comparing standardized responses of many individuals.

What primary characteristic of quantitative surveys makes them highly reliable?

They consist of standardized questions phrased exactly the same way for each respondent.

After emailing a survey to 1,000 students, a researcher realizes a key question is confusing. Why is this a major methodological problem?

Surveys are inflexible and changing wording mid-study prevents comparison.

A survey asks whether respondents support a complex immigration policy with only Yes/No options. What is the main drawback?

Simplification weakens validity when opinions are nuanced

A survey about economic anxiety is fielded one day before a stock market crash. What limitation is illustrated?

Cross‑sectional surveys capture only a snapshot in time

Why are panel surveys useful for causal analysis?

They track the same individuals over time

A city uses an online survey to determine community priorities. Why interpret results cautiously?

Digital divide may exclude some populations

Researchers divide respondents into groups that receive different supplementary questions to shorten the survey. What is this called?

Split‑ballot design

Why is 'How satisfied are you with affordability and quality of campus dining?' flawed?

Double‑barreled question

Age categories 18‑25, 25‑35, 35‑50 violate which rule?

Mutually exclusive

A researcher wishes to understand the structural characteristics of college fraternities, collecting data from national fraternity chapter presidents. In this study, what is the unit of analysis?

The college fraternities as organizations.

What logical error occurs when a researcher commits an ecological fallacy?

Drawing conclusions about individuals based on aggregated data collected at a higher group level.

Which term refers to the actual list of every member of a population from which a researcher will draw their sample?

Sampling frame.

In quantitative research using probability sampling, what is the primary benefit of increasing the sample size?

It reduces the sampling error, providing a more precise estimate of population parameters.

A political pollster wants to quickly gather opinions on a local policy. They know the town is 60% working-class and 40% middle-class. The pollster instructs their team to intercept people at various shopping centers until they have surveyed exactly 60 working-class individuals and 40 middle-class individuals. What type of sampling is this?

Quota sampling.

Unlike quantitative surveys, qualitative interview studies do not always determine the exact sample size in advance. How do qualitative researchers typically decide when they have collected enough data?

They stop when they achieve saturation, meaning new interviews no longer yield surprising or new insights.

A local news website hosts an online poll asking, "Should the city council ban short-term rentals?" The results show 85% of respondents favor the ban. Why should a sociologist be deeply skeptical of generalizing this result to the city's overall population?

The poll likely suffers from self-selection bias, as individuals with strong opinions are more likely to participate.

In a mail-based survey, why is a low response rate considered a worrisome signal to researchers?

It increases the likelihood of nonresponse bias, suggesting that nonrespondents may differ systematically from respondents.

A researcher administers a survey asking a mother detailed questions about the household's income, the children's educational attainment, and overall family well-being. Although the mother is the single person answering the questionnaire, the researcher's goal is to make claims about the family unit as a whole. In this scenario, what is the family?

The unit of analysis.

In evaluating the generalizability of behavioral science research, what does the acronym "WEIRD" refer to when describing the heavily studied U.S. undergraduate populations?

Western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic.

Before conducting a quantitative analysis, a researcher creates a document that describes the structure of the dataset and outlines how verbal survey responses were translated into numerical values. What is this document called?

A codebook

Which visual chart does not show gaps between bars and is most appropriate for visualizing the shape of the distribution of a scale-level variable, such as age?

Histogram

A dataset includes a scale-level variable capturing exact annual income in dollars. To simplify the analysis, the researcher collapses this continuous variable into three ordinal categories: "Low," "Middle," and "High." What is the primary methodological trade-off of this recoding process?

The researcher gains simplicity but sacrifices the precise detail contained in the original scale-level data.

When reviewing a frequency table generated for a survey question, a researcher notices that the "Percent" column shows 10.7% for a specific response, while the "Valid Percent" column shows 12.5%. What accounts for this numerical difference?

The valid percent excludes missing values from its calculation base, whereas the regular percent includes missing values.

Which measure of central tendency identifies the specific value that comes closest to splitting a frequency distribution into two equal halves (the 50th percentile)?

Median

A sociologist wants to study the psychological decision-making process of individuals choosing to commit a crime. Instead of fielding a new survey, the researcher attempts to use an existing government dataset containing aggregated city crime rates. What is the most significant theoretical limitation of this secondary data analysis?

The dataset provides data at the wrong unit of analysis and cannot validly measure the individual-level psychological concepts the researcher wishes to study.

A country possesses a highly unequal income distribution: the vast majority of citizens earn very low wages, while a tiny fraction of billionaires earn vast fortunes. If a sociologist charts this income distribution, what statistical relationship will they most likely observe?

The mean income will be pulled higher than the median income.

Which analytical procedure creates a table showing how the categories of an independent categorical variable intersect with the categories of a dependent categorical variable?

Crosstabulation analysis (shows how categories of one variable line up with categories of another)

In null hypothesis testing, what is the correct interpretation if a statistical test yields a p-value of .02?

If the null hypothesis were true, a sample result this extreme would occur only 2 percent of the time.

A study investigates the relationship between gender and the frequency of attending music concerts. A chi-square test on the data yields a p-value of .25. Using the conventional alpha threshold of .05, what conclusion should the researcher draw from this test?

The researcher must fail to reject the null hypothesis, meaning there is insufficient evidence to confidently say a relationship exists in the population.