Fall, 2002 (Roos, Soc. 501)
Study Guide: Exam (November 7th)
NOTE: Please bring a calculator.
The exam will be open book and open notes. This necessarily implies that I will not ask you to just repeat back to me what's in the books or notes but rather I will focus on applications of concepts. For example, I could provide you with some raw data and ask you to percentage and interpret a table, or ask you to weigh the pros and cons of survey research (or field research) for a particular substantive topic.
I will assume you understand ALL the lecture material, so review all the available slides. In addition, the test may include concepts from Babbie and Alford that we may not have talked about in class. You do NOT need to know SAS, nor any other required or recommended readings, although you may of course use those readings in answer to questions (e.g., while I won't ask you specifics about the history of human subjects research, you should understand what IRB's do and how they protect human subjects). To help focus your Babbie and Alford readings, I attach a list of concepts.
I would be happy to schedule a review session on early Wednesday afternoon, if there is interest. Let me know.
Babbie, The Practice of Social Research:
Chapter 1: replication; selective observation; social regularity; theory; variables; attributes; relationship; association; causation; independent and dependent variables; idiographic and nomothetic explanations.
Chapter 2: paradigm; traditional model of science; theory; operationalization; hypothesis; hypothesis testing; deduction; induction.
Chapter 3: cause; effect; causation; determinism; idiographic vs. nomothetic explanations; probabilistic causation; spurious relationship; criteria for causality; necessary vs. sufficient causes.
Chapter 4: three purposes of research; units of analysis: individuals, social groups, organizations, social artifacts; ecological fallacy; reductionism; cross-sectional vs. longitudinal studies (trend, cohort, panel studies).
Chapter 5: concept; conceptualization; indicator; range of variation; reification; real, nominal, and operational definitions; operationalization; levels of measurement (nominal, ordinal, interval, ratio); accuracy; reliability; bias; validity.
Chapter 7: probability vs. nonprobability sampling; representativeness; bias; element, population, study population, sampling unit, sampling frame, observation unit, variable, parameter vs. statistic, sampling error, confidence levels and intervals; binomial variable; random selection; sampling distribution; probability sampling: simple random sampling, systematic sampling, stratified sampling; multistage cluster sampling; nonprobability sampling: purposive sampling, quota sampling, snowball sampling; selecting informants.
Chapter 8: classic experimental design; independent vs. dependent variables; stimulus; pretesting vs. posttesting; experimental vs. control group; Hawthorne effect; double-blind experiment; generalizability; randomization vs. matching; pre-experimental designs; sources of internal invalidity; external invalidity; Solomon four-group design.
Chapter 9: respondents; exhaustive vs. mutually exclusive; open-ended vs. closed-ended question; questionnaire construction guidelines; social desirability; contingency questions; matrix questions; follow-up mailing; monitoring returns; response rate; computer interviewing (CATI); strength and weaknesses of survey research; secondary analysis.
Chapter 10: field roles: complete participant vs. complete observer (benefits and disadvantages); ethical issues; ethnography; case studies; process of field research; field journal; strengths vs. weaknesses of field research; validity, reliability, generalizability in the context of field research.
Chapter 11: unobtrusive research; content analysis; manifest vs. latent content; historical/comparative research
Chapter 12: evaluation research; quasi-experimental designs (see lecture notes for different names).
Chapter 13: qualitative analysis; variable-oriented analysis; grounded theory method; semiotics; conversation analysis
Chapter 16: elaboration paradigm; test variable; partials; zero-order relationship; antecedent vs. intervening variable; replication; explanation; interpretation; specification; suppressor vs. distorter variables vs. spurious noncorrelation (see lecture notes).
Chapter 18: ethics: voluntary participation, no harm to participants; informed consent; anonymity vs. confidentiality; IRB's; codes of ethics
Alford, The Craft of Inquiry:
Think about the following question in preparation for the test:
Alford describes the "craft of inquiry" as the link between theory, method, and evidence. Illustrate his basic argument--with his concepts--by reviewing any existing sociological study (one not in his book), OR designing such a study. Make sure your review includes an explanation for why the author chose multivariate, interpretive, historical, or multiple methods (or if you chose to design a study, why would you choose the method you do)?