Practice Q's for Exam 1 Sociology

Dr Green observes dozens of different street corner groups and finds that more acts of vandalism are committed by same-sex groups. After reflecting on these observation in his data, he speculates that the tendency to commit publicly deviant acts is a product of competition for recognition among peers of equal status. This speculation is an example of _______ reasoning

Inductive Reasoning

Dr grey asks students in her introductory anthropology class to complete questionnaires that she will analyze and use in preparing a journal article for publication. What is the ethical problem with her study?

The study may feel obligated to participate in the study.

In the study of scientific publications, the variable “discipline” is measured by recording the first author’s discipline for each publication. The disciplines recorded are sociology, physics, economics, psychology, and biology. The level of measurement for the “discipline” variable is:

Nomial

Dr. Yellow measured participants' household size by asking participants to report the number of people. who lived with them. Dr Yellow’s household size variable is measured at the _____ level of measurement.

Ratio

Professor Pink measured life satisfaction by asking participants to report their level of agreement to the following statement: “In general, I feel satisfied with my life.” Participants were given these four response options: strongly agree, agree, disagree, strongly disagree. Profess Pink’s life satisfaction variable is measured at the ______ level of measurement.

Ordinal

Professor Green measured participants’ educational attainment by asking participants to report their highest level of education. The response options were:

• no high school degree

• high school degree

• some college or an associates degree

• bachelor’s degree

• professional or graduate degree

Professor Green’s education variable is measured at the _____ level of measurement.

Ordinal

Dr. Brown measured age by asking respondents which of the following categories they belong to: 18 and younger, 19 to 35, 36 to 40, or 41 and older. The variable is measured at the ______ level of measurement.

Ordinal

Dr. Berry concluded that a study he recently read must be a high quality study because the study author works at a prestigious university.  Dr. Berry’s conclusion is inconsistent with which norm of science:

Universalism

- his conclusion depended on personal or social characteristics

In a positive relationship, the dependent variable ________ as the independent variable decreases.

Decreases

Professor Green examines the extent to which items of her fatalism index are correlated with one another.  What is she doing?

- inter-item reliability assessment because it's within the same measure...within the "INDEX"

Dr. Brown tells his research subjects that his experiment is about memory retention when, in fact, it is about racial prejudice.  Afterwards, he reveals the true nature of the experiment.  This post-experimental discussion is an example of _____.

- debriefing.
*POST-EXPERIMENTAL*

At which level of measurement can a researcher add and subtract values?

Interval

Dr. Gray is studying the effects of income on education.  In this study, education is the:

- Dependent variable
results of education DEPENDS on the income

What level of measurement describes the variable: Political orientation (very liberal, somewhat liberal, somewhat conservative, very conservative). _______________

Ordinal

What level of measurement describes the variable: Number of children in a family_____.

Ratio

What level of measurement describes the variable: Region of birth in the U.S. (Northeast, Midwest, South, Southwest, West, Other). _______

Nomial

What level of measurement describes the variable: Primary language (English, Spanish, Other) _____

Nomial

What level of measurement describes the variable: Weekly hours spend cooking (0-5, 6-10, 11 or more) _______

Ordinal

What level of measurement describes the variable: Weekly hours spent cooking _____

Ratio

For each of the following variables, indicate whether the list of categories is exhaustive and mutually exclusive.

a. income: $3,000-7,999; $8,000-11,999; $12,000-14,999; $15,000-24,999; $25,000 and over.

Not exhaustive

For each of the following variables, indicate whether the list of categories is exhaustive and mutually exclusive.

b. employment status: working full-time, working part-time; student; homemaker.

Not exhaustive and mutually exclusive

For each of the following variables, indicate whether the list of categories is exhaustive and mutually exclusive.

c. age: under 18 years; 18-30 years; 30 years and over.

Not mutually exclusive

Dr. Green argues that there are three dimensions to the quality of a relationship (affirmation, interdependence, and intimacy). she designed and index to measure the quality of a relationship but noticed that none of the items in her index measure the intimacy dimension. This means that her measure lacks:

content

Dr. White is conducting a content analysis to examine change over time in the percentage of assertive female characters in a children's books, so he hired two research assistants to count the number of assertive female characters in a sample of children's books. However, he is worried that the instructions he gave to the research assistants about what counts as an assertive female character are unclear and that this may lead them to code the characters in different ways. Dr. White is worried about:

measurement reliability

Dr. beige needs to assess the validity of her newly developed political activism scale, so she administers it along with a measure of community engagement to a sample of respondents. Existing theories suggest that political activism should be positively correlated with community engagement, and in line with those theories, she finds that scores on the two scales are positively correlated. This finding helps her establish the _________ validity of her new scale.

contruct

What two qualities must every variable have?

exhaustive and mutually exclusive