Research Final Review

1. ResearchFinal Review

2. Research Jeopardy Survey Says? Dr. Frankenstein Content analyze this! QQ’s Theory and Stuff Who is this guy ? Grab Bag Last minute ?s 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 200 200 200 200 200 200 200 200 300 300 300 300 300 300 300 300 400 400 400 400 400 400 400 400 500 500 500 500 500 500 500 500

3. Research Jeopardy • The class is divided into two groups. • Answer questions in turn for points. • You must work downward. A 100-point question must be answered before a 200-point. • Answer the question alone for full points; with your group for half.

4. Surveys $100 What do we call the process of selecting a group of research subjects from the population? (For example, the process of selecting articles for a content analysis.) Sampling. What is it called if I select everything in the group?

5. Surveys $200 I select a group of subjects for a survey, make a list of their names, then choose every 14th name on the list. What kind of sampling is this? Systematic sampling. • What is one problem unusual to systematic sampling? • Is this random or nonrandom? • What do we call the list of names?

6. Surveys $300 What is longitudinal research? The collection of data at different points in time. Panel and rolling cross-sectional surveys are two examples. (Know the difference, and the benefits of each.) Generally, longitudinal research is better at seeing change and determining cause (particularly panel surveys and experiments). Study questions

7. Surveys $400 The A.C. Nielsen Company collects viewing data in households using people meters. What kind of a survey is this? (Do you want a hint?) Hint: Is it a cross-sectional, rolling cross-sectional, cohort or panel survey? Or something else? A panel survey. This is a survey of the same sample at repeated points in time.

8. Surveys $500 What is a forced-choice or closed ended question, and what is a problem with it? (Hint available.) Hint: It is kind of the opposite of an open-ended question. A question that requires a subject to choose between two or more specified responses. It forces people into a category when their actual opinion may be more complex. The opposing approach is open-ended questions (pros and cons of those?).

9. Experiments $100 Which group, the control or the treatment group, receives the experimental stimulus? The treatment group. (Is the stimulus the independent or the dependent variable?)

10. Experiments $200 What does it mean if an experiment is double-blind? Neither the subjects nor the experimenter knows who is in the experimental and control group. When is this necessary? Know what it means if experiments are blind. Why are they blind?

11. Experiments $300 When we conduct experiments, we give up external validity for internal validity. What does it mean to give up external validity? What does it mean to gain internal validity. External validity refers to how well the results of a study can be generalized across populations, settings and time. Internal validity refers to how well the study investigates the proposed research questions.

12. Experiments $400 Here is an experimental design (pretest/posttest). Group A gets the stimulus. Alter (or add to) the design to compensate for the effect of testing (when the pretest affects the posttest results). (Hint available. ) A O1 X O2 B O1 O2 Group A (treatment group) Pretest Posttest The subscripts indicate the time, time 1 or time 2. This is just a convention. Stimulus Group B (control group)

13. Experiments $400 Here is an experimental design (pretest/posttest). Group A gets the stimulus. Alter (or add to) the design to compensate for the effect of testing (when the pretest affects the posttest results). Introduce a treatment group with no pretest. A O1 X O2 B O1 O2 CXO2

14. Experiments $500 Researchers want to know whether people find jokes funnier when somebody of their own sex tells the jokes. They recorded a female joke teller telling a joke, followed by a male telling a joke. Subjects listened to the jokes and rated them on their funniness. What is the dependent variable? What is the independent variable? (This is a tricky question.) DV: Funniness. IV: Whether or not the joke teller and the subject are the same sex or different. Study questions

15. Content analysis? $100 Does content analysis use obtrusive or unobtrusive measures? Unobtrusive. Define unobtrusive and obtrusive measures. What are the benefits of unobtrusive measures?

16. Content analysis? $200 What is it called when you attempt to see whether two coders are coding things in the same way? Intercoder reliability. How would you figure this out? Sometimes coders are used in other studies (such as participant observation) or in analyzing open-ended questions.

17. Content analysis? $300 Public relations is increasingly using environmental monitoring. This is a two-part question: What is environmental monitoring? What research method is usually used? Environmental monitoring is developing and maintaining early warning systems to enable organizations to deal with emerging problems rather than reacting to them after they arise. When trends are identified early, the range of responses is greater and the organization is proactive, rather than reactive. The method usually used is content analysis.

18. Content analysis? $400 What does it mean when we say that content categories must be mutually exclusive and exhaustive? Units to be content analyzed must fit into only one content category (mutually exclusive) and there must be a category for every unit (exhaustive). This is also true for response categories in surveys.

19. Content analysis? $500 Name a unit of analysis that could be used in a content analysis of violent content in a daily newspaper, and describe a sample selection procedure appropriate for the study. The story, the page, the paragraph. Often in content analysis the unit of analysis can vary. The sampling procedure must take into account the systematic nature of news.

20. Who is this guy? $100 What state am I from? Wisconsin

21. Who is this guy? $200 Within one donut either way, what is my personal record for eating Krispy Kreme donuts in one sitting (set in August 2004)? Note: These were warm, glazed donuts with coffee. I was NOT attempting a record at the time. Five donuts

22. Who is this guy? $300 I conduct lots of surveys. I usually use a procedure when someone answers the phone. I ask to speak to the adult in the household who had the most recent birthday. Why do I do that? In order to compensate for the fact that certain types of people always answer the phone. I am trying to randomize within each household who will take the survey.

23. Who is this guy? $400 I am generally interested in theoretical research. What is one difference between theoretical and administrative research? Theoretical research works towards the construction of theory. Administrative research may only answer a question. Other differences include formal/informal; public/proprietary; emphasis on hypotheses.

24. Who is this guy? $500 Let’s say that when you increase the sample size of your survey from 500 to 1,500 subjects, the margin of error decreases by exactly one point. What do you expect will occur when you increase the sample size from 1,500 to 2,500 respondents? Be specific! The margin of error will decrease by less than one point.

25. Theory and stuff? $100 What is a concept? A term that expresses an abstract idea formed by a generalization. An abstract class of phenomena. What is conceptualization? What is operationalization?

26. Theory and stuff? $200 What do we call it when a question simply appears to be measuring what it is supposed to measure? (Hint available.) Hint: What kind of validity? Face validity. What is content validity?

27. Theory and stuff? $300 What term describes the use of multiple research techniques in order to investigate a question or to repeatedly gather data to test a hypothesis? Triangulation. This can also mean the use of both quantitative and qualitative techniques to approach a question.

28. Theory and stuff? $400 What are demand characteristics? One example was the Hawthorne Effect, which took place in an experiment at Western Electric in the 1960s. (Hint available.) Hint: Demand characteristics are similar to reactivity in participant observation research or social desirability in surveys. Answer: A subject’s reaction, in any way, to experimental conditions.

29. Theory and stuff? $500 Statement: “After men watch a soccer game on TV they will score higher on the violence post-test and will show more violent reactions under observation than those who did not.” What are the independent and dependent variables? What is the unit of analysis? IV: Whether the man watched the game or not. DV: Observed violent reactions. Unit of analysis: Men. What is a potential problem in this field experiment?

30. Grab bag $100 What is external validity? This refers to how well the results of a study can be generalized across populations, settings and time. How would we establish external validity with a focus group, participant observation, or another qualitative method?

31. Grab bag $200 What research method is best suited to determine causation? Experiments. They help reach the three requirements of causation: • Time order • A is associated with a change in B • All other potential causes eliminated.

32. Grab bag $300 Give two tips about how to conduct a focus group, taken from class discussion and from your reading. Conduct them in series; use 8-12 participants; generally homogenous group; use a trained moderator.

33. Grab bag $400 You are conducting three surveys on a limited budget. The first survey will estimate national support for the presidential candidates. The second survey will examine the relationship between knowledge and reading the newspaper. The third survey will study the feasibility of a variety of new survey questions. You only have enough money to pay for one representative sample. The other two surveys must use convenience samples. As a good social science researcher, which study will you select to have the representative sample and why? The first survey estimating national support.

34. Grab bag $500 What is the difference between a rating and a share? Name one organization that determines TV or radio rating and share data? A rating is the percentage of people or households in a population with a TV or radio tuned to a specific channel. A share is the percentage of homes using a TV or radio tuned to that channel. Arbitron and Nielsen calculate ratings.

35. Qualitative research $100 What is one disadvantage of the focus group research method? People influence one another, are hard to control, or are reluctant to talk. The data are difficult to analyze. The results can be hard to generalize (external validity). (Know the tenets of conducting a focus group.) Study questions

36. Qualitative research $200 Name two methods used in qualitative research and give one advantage of each. Participant observation, focus groups, intensive interviewing, case studies.

37. Qualitative research $300 What is the problem of reactivity? (Hint: I called it The Real World phenomenon, and it applies in participant observation research.) This is when the presence of the researcher has an impact on the subjects. They react to the fact that they are being observed, as participants in The Real World did. Can participant observation be replicated?

38. Qualitative research $400 How does the role of the researcher vary between qualitative and quantitative research? In quantitative research, the researcher is invisible. (Know what this means. How does this affect how the project is written?) In qualitative research, the researcher takes an active role, and is an inherent part of the research. It is hard to separate the researcher from the research in qualitative research.

39. Qualitative research $500 In the reading by Goldman about focus groups, he argued that “social structure” was critical to conducting focus groups. What did he mean by this? The value of a focus group is derived from the temporary social structure that arises and evolves over the couple hours of the focus group. We want to see how that social structure influences the flow of information and influence, which is a group process. This reading is important.

40. Last minute ?s $100 Define a random sample. This is a sample where each element has an equal chance of being chosen. (More specifically, each element has a known chance of being chosen.)

41. Last minute ?s $200 What is the difference between confidentiality and anonymity? Anonymity is when we cannot identify each subject. Confidentiality is when we maintain the secrecy of the names of subjects. Why are they important? What is an IRB?

42. Last minute ?s $300 What does it mean when we say social science is public? Why is that important? It means social scientists are public about their methods. The importance of this is replication and peer review. Other scientists reviewing the work can find errors. This is one large difference between social science conducted in the university and private sectors.

43. Last minute ?s $400 When we say that focus groups should be homogeneous, what do we mean? That the members of the focus group are similar in some respect – they are all drinkers, teenagers, or non-voters, for example. We are studying a particular population, and the group is a sample of that population.

44. Last minute ?s $500 Review this poll report: “The latest Southwest Political Poll is based on telephone interviews conducted Monday with 1,281 adults throughout Arizona. The sample of telephone exchanges called was randomly selected by a computer from a list of more than 20,000 active residential exchanges across the state. “In theory, in 19 cases out of 20 the results based on such samples will differ by no more than three percentage points in either direction from what would have been obtained by seeking out all American adults.” What is the margin of error? What is the confidence level? The margin of error (confidence interval) is +/- 3% and the confidence level is 19 in 20, or .05, or 5%.

45. Extra questions Suppose that you want to study whether states that have the death penalty have more violence in their prisons than states that do not. What is the independent variable? What is the dependent variable? What is the unit of analysis? IV: Whether states have death penalty or not. DV: Violence in prisons Unit: The state

46. Extra questions Study: Honey can Soothe Throats and Calm Coughs A study published Monday in the Archives of Adolescent Medicine found that children who received a small dose of buckwheat honey before bedtime slept better and coughed less than those who received an over-the-counter cough suppressant or nothing at all. What is the independent variable? What is the dependent variable? IV: Buckwheat honey/cough suppressant/nothing DV: How well they slept/how often coughed

47. Extra questions What is an online focus group? What is one disadvantage of an online focus group? A focus group usually done using online text, but could be conducted using online video. The group dynamic is impaired and people could leave or not pay attention.

48. Extra questions What is one way you could encourage less nonresponse to sensitive questions? Hint? What could you do to make it more likely that respondents would respond to questions of a personal or potentially embarrassing nature, instead of skipping the questions or leaving the survey?

49. Qualitative research $500 I used four terms to assess qualitative research: (1) Naturalistic observation, (2) Contextualization, (3) Maximized comparisons and (4) Sensitized concepts. Describe one. (1) This is not just accurate observation, but becoming familiar with the inside meaning of things. This means becoming able to see things that are invisible on the surface. The underlying meaning of the symbols and artifacts of our lives. (2) Context determines meaning. To study something means to submerge yourself into the context, and only interpret events in their relationship to everything else. (3) This refers to the judicious choosing of comparison groups in order to improve the explanatory power of interpretations. So, a participant observer in the Chicago ghetto compares the ghetto to one in Europe in order to point to the traits of ghettoes that are universal. (4) These are ideas that describe what is going on but also are generalizable to the outside world. They explain large domains of social experience. The concept must offer a meaningful portrait.