SOC150 Finals Winter 2025

Etiology

the cause of something

Survey Design

Questions, order, response choices

Survey Mode

How the survey is delivered to respondents

Self-Reported Data

Valuable yet susceptible to recall errors and social desirability bias

Response Rate

The percentage of people who actually completed the survey out of everyone who was asked to participate.

Cross-Sectional Surveys

surveys that are administered at just one point in time

Longitudinal Surveys

make observations over some extended period

Trend Surveys

how people’s attitudes or behaviors change over time

Panel Surveys

the same people participate in the survey each time it is administered

Cohort Surveys

a researcher identifies some category of people who are of interest and then regularly surveys people who fall into that category.

Face-to-Face Interviews

the interviewer meets the respondent in person

Telephone Surveys

interviewers contact potential respondents over the phone, typically using some sort of directory or a random range of phone numbers as a sampling frame

Fence-Sitters

respondents who choose neutral response options instead of disclosing their real preferences

Floaters

respondents who choose a substantive answer to a question when they don’t understand the question or don’t have any opinion on the matter

Opposition Culture Theory

native-born Black and American Indian students can be mocked for ‘acting white’ if they demonstrate
academic excellence, but that immigrant minority students,
regardless of race would not be socially punished because their identities are perceived to be consistent with pro-school values.

Segmented Assimilation Theory

Immigrant minority students’ experience is stratified by ethnicity and by the contexts of the receiving community. Specifically, the theory argues that Black and Hispanic immigrant students may experience negative
social returns to achievement due to their perceived racial identity

Triangulation

Using one research method to evaluate or extend the findings discovered with another method

Life History

A portion of an in-depth interview focused on formative events in the respondent’s life that may have influenced their orientation toward a particular issue or their experience of a particular phenomenon today

Emergent Phenomena

Newly emerging topics or issues that researchers have not yet studied intensively.

Structured Interviews

Interviews in which the researchers ask the exact same questions in a precise ordering that they planned out ahead of time

Semi-Structured Interviews

Interviews in which researchers have a list of questions prepared in advance, but they may deviate from that list whenever they wish

Unstructured Interviews

Interviews in which no list of questions exists

Interview Guide

A list of topics or questions that the interviewer can refer to during the course of an interview

Probes

Follow-up questions that a researcher asks during an in-depth interview, which may be part of the interview guide or improvised

Supplement Questionaire

A survey form that a researcher asks a respondent to fill out before or after an in-depth interview.

Network-Based Referrals

Recruiting potential interviewees by asking people in a relevant social network to provide referrals (snowball sampling)

Venue-based Recruitment

Recruiting potential interviewees by posting about your study in offline or online spaces.

Rapport

The sense of connection a researcher establishes with a research participant, which may encourage the participant to speak in greater detail about their thoughts, feelings, and experiences or to act more naturally while being observed

Focus Groups

qualitative interviews focused on a particular topic that researchers conduct with multiple respondents at the same time

Moderator

The researcher tasked with managing the conversation in a focus group. (Also called a facilitator.)

Social Comparison Theory

a psychological theory that explains how people compare themselves to others to evaluate their abilities and attitudes

The Stress Process Model

When a disruptive event occurs, individuals often struggle to reestablish homeostasis, and this process can be wearing and taxing on individuals

History Threat

The possibility that an observed change in the dependent variable is caused by extraneous or past events rather than by the experimental treatment

Maturation Threat

The possibility that a change in the dependent variable observed within an experiment could be caused by natural changes in research participants rather than by the experimental treatment

Testing Threat

The possibility that a change in the dependent variable observed within an experiment could be caused by the participants’ pretest responses influencing their post-test responses

Instrumentation Threat

the possibility that the difference between our pretest and post-test scores isn’t due to the experimental stimulus or treatment, but rather to changes in the administered test

Regression to the Mean

Participants who score extremely high or extremely low on the pretest will tend to score closer to the middle (i.e., to the average or mean) on the next test, which may be mistaken for the impact of the treatment.

Treatment diffusion and treatment imitation

when members of a control group learn about the treatment being provided within the study and adapt their behaviors in response to that knowledge

Compensatory rivalry and resentful demoralization

the control group knows what treatment the experimental group is getting and develops a competitive attitude with them

Compensatory Equalization of Treatment

When the control and experimental groups become aware of the conditions that the other group is experiencing, they may yearn to be in the other group

Experimenter Expectancy

Researchers may also bias their study’s results if they expect the experimental and control groups to behave differently and then act in ways that further those expectations or make them known to participants

Testers/Auditors

matched on all characteristics except one—for instance, gender or race—so that the study can see if they are treated differently based on that sole characteristic

Quasi-Experiments

These studies are like true experiments, but they lack random assignment to experimental and control groups. As a result, they are vulnerable to many of the threats to internal validity we talked about—selection bias above all

Natural Experiment

studies in which researchers take advantage of naturally occurring events or policy changes that affect some groups but not others, mimicking the structure of a controlled experiment. Unlike in laboratory experiments, researchers do not manipulate variables themselves—instead, they observe the impact of a "naturally assigned" treatment on an outcome

Audit Study

a type of field experiment used to detect discrimination by comparing how different groups are treated in real-world scenarios while holding all other variables constant. Typically, matched "auditors" (e.g., job applicants, renters) who differ only by one characteristic—such as race, gender, or criminal record—are sent into the same situation to measure differential treatment

Laboratory Experiment

controlled studies conducted in a highly structured setting where researchers manipulate one or more independent variables to observe their effect on a dependent variable

Conjoint Experiment

survey-based techniques that help determine the attributes people value an object or action

Secondary Data Analysis

Analysis of data that has previously been collected by other researchers.

Index of Qualitative Variation

a statistical measure used to assess the diversity or variability in categorical (qualitative) data. It ranges from 0 to 1, where 0 indicates no variation (all cases fall into one category) and 1 indicates maximum variation (cases are evenly distributed across all categories)

Cross-Tabulation Analysis

is a statistical method used to analyze the relationship between two or more categorical variables by examining the frequency distribution of their combinations

Place Alienation

a feeling of estrangement or disconnection from a particular place or environment, often leading to a sense of not belonging or feeling isolated

Chi-Square Test

a statistical test used to analyze categorical data, primarily to determine if there's a relationship between two categorical variables or if observed frequencies differ significantly from expected frequencies

Microcosm

a community, place, or situation regarded as encapsulating in miniature the characteristic qualities or features of something much larger

Ethnography

a qualitative research method that involves immersing oneself in a particular culture or community to understand its social practices, behaviors, and perspectives through observation and interaction

Thick Description

A detailed description of the unfolding of a scene observed first-hand, with particular attention to the subjective and cultural meanings of any behaviors and other aspects of the larger social context

Attribution Theory

Examines how individuals interpret events and how this relates to their thinking and behavior

Ambiguity in Discrimination Perception

How ambiguity in interpreting incidents affects emotional distress and subsequent actions, contributing to the broader discourse on workplace discrimination and individual coping mechanisms

Vignette Experiment

uses short, hypothetical scenarios to elicit respondents' beliefs, attitudes, or intended behaviors by systematically varying characteristics within them

Manipulation Check

a secondary evaluation used to determine if an experimental manipulation (the independent variable) had the intended effect on participants, ensuring the study's validity