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SO202 MOCK EXAM

Types of Research
1. MTV hires you to study how young people responded to their
"Rock the Vote campaign. What type of research are you
conducting
a. Descriptive
b. Exploratory
c. Evaluative
d. Explanatory
2. Rank (1989) has reports that the birth rate of women who are
on welfare is similar among women who are not on welfare.
What type of research is this?
a. Descriptive
b. Exploratory
c. Evaluative
d. Explanatory
3. Most social science research reports that growth in the
opportunity to earn decent wages has led to the increase of in
employment of married American women. What type of
research is this?
a. Descriptive
b. Exploratory
c. Evaluative
d. Explanatory
4. To begin his research on homelessness, a research starts
spending evenings talking with homeless individuals and
asking them about their lives. He is interested in answering the
question what are the issues that concern homeless people?
What type of research is this?
a. Descriptive
b. Exploratory
c. Evaluative
d. Explanatory

Levels of Measurement: Nominal, Ordinal, Interval, Ratio, Dichotomous


Race (Latino, Asian, Caucasian etc.) - Nominal
Poverty Status (Either above or below the poverty line) Dichotomous
Educational Level (Primary school, secondary school, BA) Ordinal
Education Level (Measured in Years) - Ratio
Annual Earnings (in Euro) - Ratio
Satisfaction with Government (Very, somewhat, not at all) Ordinal
Percentage of Female Politicians. - Ratio
Political Parties (Labour, Fine Gael, Greens etc.) - Nominal
Types of Sampling of SO202 Class
I put everyones name into a hat, and pick out the sample
participants at random? Simple Random (Prob)
I ask the first 10 people who enter the room? Availability
(Non-Prob)
I divide the class into two categories; male and female, and
randomly select the participants? Stratified (Prob)
I divide the class into two categories; male and female, and
select the first ten participants that I come across. Quota
(Non-Prob)
I select a tutor, then a tutorial group, and then randomly select
students within that group. Cluster (Prob)
I select students based on their grades. Purposive (Non-Prob)
I ask participants to ask their friends to take part. Snowball
(Non-Prob)
I organise the names alphabetically and picked every 10th name
of the list. Systematic (Prob)

Short Answer Questions


1. Discuss the difference between conceptualisation and
operationalization. Give and example.
Conceptualisation is the process of describing, or defining what we
mean by a topic e.g. What is poverty? What do we mean by elderly?
In deductive research (theory testing), conceptualisation helps us
translate theory into a testable hypothesis. In inductive research,
conceptualisation helps us to make sense of related observations.
Operationalisation is the process of specifying, or deciding how we can
measure the variable, or the concept we are interested in e.g. We might
measure income when discussing poverty, we might consider everyone
over 75 to be elderly etc.
Other examples include: strength, intelligence, masculinity/femininity,
health etc.
2. How should a qualitative researcher select key informants for
intensive interviews? What ethical considerations need to be
taken into account?
Qualitative researchers often use a process of non-probability sampling
(availability, purposive, quota, snowball) to select their participants. As
qualitative researchers are usually concerned with finding out indepth, experiential knowledge, they are not concerned with
generalizability, they are more interested in contextual knowledge.
Using non-probability sampling allows qualitative researchers to select
participants who will provide rich information, and to include those
who have a particular interest, or knowledge of the topic.
The ethical considerations that would need to be taken in to
consideration are (you should be able to expand on these):
Obtaining informed consent
Ensuring no harm comes to your participants
Disclosure
Ensuring confidentiality
Benefits need to outweight the risks
Be conscious of power imbalances between yourself and the
participants

3. Discuss three strengths and weaknesses of quantitative versus


qualitative research.
Again you should be able to expand on these these lists arent
exhaustive:
Qualitative Research - Strengths:
In-depth information
Contextual understanding
Feelings and experiences can be explored
Information can be expanded upon and clarified
You can understand the social reality of your participants
Participants have more power to determine what they deem
important
Validity
Qualitative Research Weaknesses
Time Consuming
Difficult to identify patterns and correlations
Asking a lot from participants (their time)
Very subjective researcher interprets the data
Small scale
Not generalizable
Quantitative Research Strengths
Cheap
Can identify patterns and correlations
Macro-scale
Can be generalizable if probability sampling is used
Data can be expressed numerically
Quantitative Research Weaknesses
Surface-level data
Cant capture feelings or experiential information effectively
Information cant be clarified
Easy to lie on a survey
Researcher is responsible for determining what is important
they set the questions

It is a histogram
The mean is 2.3 (Closest is 2)
What is the median?
3
What is the mode?
3

If you have 30 staff and you want to select 10 of them for a simple
random sample, the probability of selection is?
a. .05
b. .13
c. .33
d. .67
e. 1.33
Deductive theory begins with which elements?
a. Social Theory
b. Hypothesis Testing
c. Descriptive Research
d. Empirical Generalizations
Which of the following is an example of a negative association
between variables?
a. The more study you do, the higher your grades.
b. The more money you spend, the more clothes you have.
c. As the quality of sex education increases, the amount of
unwanted pregnancies decreases.
d. As years of education increase, standards of living improve.
The belief that reality is made up of multiple layers, and is socially
constructed, is known as:
a. Positivism
b. Feminism
c. Interpretivism
d. Postpositivism
The EU SILC is administered to a sample of European residents, but it
hopes to identify the features of the European population as a whole.
The EU SILC hopes for:
a. Validity
b. Generalizability
c. Reflexivity
d. Reliability

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