Empirical Research Methods
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Course Introduction
Empirical Research Methods introduces students to the fundamental principles and practices of conducting research based on observation and experimentation. The course explores the design, implementation, and analysis of quantitative and qualitative studies, emphasizing concepts such as hypothesis formulation, sampling, measurement, data collection, and statistical inference. Students learn to critically evaluate empirical literature, develop their own research proposals, and use appropriate software tools for data analysis, preparing them for advanced research activities across diverse academic disciplines.
Recommended Textbook
An Invitation to Social Research How Its Done 5th Edition by Emily Stier Adler
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Page 2
Chapter 1: The Uses of Social Research
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Sample Questions
Q1) When we rely on physicians,clergy members,and elected officials for information,we are putting our faith in
A) their knowledge in those positions of authority.
B) their individual knowledge.
C) their knowledge of scientific methods.
D) our ability to compare our own inquiry and experiences with theirs.
E) their access to superior knowledge.
Answer: A
Q2) Which of the following is an authority,or socially defined source of knowledge?
A) parents
B) media
C) religious leaders
D) professors
E) all of these
Answer: E
Q3) Qualitative research is based on the statistical summary of data.
A)True
B)False
Answer: False
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Page 3
Chapter 2: Theory and Research
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Q1) If in our research,we have observed that 10 individuals with characteristic X seem to be more committed to ideas about social equality than other individuals without that characteristic,we are making
A) unfounded assumptions.
B) theories.
C) empirical generalizations.
D) deductive conclusions.
E) hypotheses.
Answer: C
Q2) The steps involved in inductive reasoning involve
A) making observations, generalizing, theorizing.
B) theorizing, generalizing, and testing with observations.
C) making observations, theorizing, and testing these.
D) making observations, measuring, and theorizing.
E) generalizing and theorizing.
Answer: A
Q3) Independent variables influence dependent variables.
A)True
B)False
Answer: True
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Chapter 3: Ethics and Social Research
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Q1) The American Sociological Association adopted its first set of ethical codes before Milgram and Humphries completed their research.
A)True
B)False
Answer: False
Q2) According to federal policy on the ethical treatment of research subjects,ethical research rests on three main principles.Which of the following is not one of these principles?
A) Respect
B) Dignity
C) Beneficence
D) Justice
Answer: B
Q3) The American Sociological Association's Code of Ethics applies only to research conducted for professional purposes.
A)True
B)False
Answer: False
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Chapter 4: Planning a Research Project
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Sample Questions
Q1) In searching for literature that is relevant to your topic,it is useful to A) use keywords.
B) rely on academic indexes.
C) confine your interest to a well-researched topic as early as possible in the study design.
D) use keywords and rely on academic indexes.
E) all of these.
Q2) Researchers
A) always complete the literature review before collecting data.
B) examine existing literature to develop their own research questions and hypotheses.
C) write their literature reviews after they collect data.
D) find that a review of literature is essential at some point in the research process. E) none of these.
Q3) Exploratory research typically starts with research questions; explanatory research typically starts with hypotheses.
A)True
B)False
Q4) What conditions determine whether a study is feasible?
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Chapter 5: Sampling
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Q1) A biased sample means
A) it is a prejudiced sample.
B) it is a sample that is not representative of the population from which it is drawn.
C) that there is limited generalizability of results.
D) that it is both a prejudiced sample and there is limited generalizability of results.
E) none of these
Q2) If we make accommodations to oversample certain members of a sample,we are taking a cluster sample.
A)True
B)False
Q3) The main reason that samples fail to accurately represent the population of interest is because
A) the population is not homogeneous.
B) there is sampling error.
C) the wrong sampling technique was used.
D) the sampling frame was too large.
E) the sample was biased.
Q4) Identify and describe the sources of errors associated with sampling.
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Chapter 6: Measurement
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Q1) What is the process called when a researcher takes an abstract idea and develops a clear,conceptual definition for it?
A) creating indicators
B) conceptualization
C) replication
D) composite measure
E) measurement
Q2) Which of the following is not a measure that we can use to evaluate reliability?
A) test-retest
B) internal consistency method
C) interrater method
D) comparing means of samples
E) nominal
Q3) If we use Catholic,Protestant,and Jewish to describe religious preference,we have developed exhaustive and mutually exclusive categories.
A)True
B)False
Q4) What is the difference between reliability and validity?
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Page 8
Chapter 7: Cross-Sectional, Longitudinal, and Case Study Designs
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Q1) If we were interested in how individuals' attitudes about smoking marijuana change from adolescence to adulthood, Marriage and parenthood,the most appropriate study design would be A) longitudinal. B) case study.
C) cross-sectional. D) surveys.
E) questionnaires.
Q2) When a case is selected because of its uniqueness for a study,Robert Stake calls this an intrinsic case study.
A)True
B)False
Q3) If a respondent dies between two data collections,she has contributed to panel fatigue.
A)True
B)False
Q4) Case studies do not suffer from issues of causation.
A)True
B)False
Q5) Explain the difference between a panel study and a cohort study.
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Chapter 8: Experimental Research
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Q1) An experimental design is appropriate if it is________to do so.
A) practical and ethical
B) ethical and inexpensive
C) inexpensive and timely
D) timely and practical
E) none of these
Q2) In experimental designs,we need to be careful that the stimulus is administered to one group but not another.
A)True
B)False
Q3) Experimental study designs are best suited forresearch.
A) exploratory
B) descriptive
C) controlled
D) community
E) explanatory
Q4) A Solomon four-group design is useful for addressing issues of internal validity.
A)True
B)False
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Chapter 9: Questionnaires and Structured Interviews
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Q1) Questionnaires and structured interviews are the most common method utilized for collecting data in the social sciences.
A)True
B)False
Q2) Which type of survey tends to have the highest response rate?
A) mailed questionnaire
B) phone interview
C) in-person interview
D) All of these tend to yield high response rates.
E) None of these tend to yield high response rates.
Q3) A pilot test is useful to pretest a questionnaire.
A)True
B)False
Q4) Question wording is important to the success of a questionnaire.
A)True
B)False
Q5) The anonymity of respondents of mailed questionnaires cannot be guaranteed.
A)True
B)False
Q6) What is the interviewer effect? How can this be minimized or managed?
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Chapter 10: Qualitative Interviewing
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Q1) Qualitative interviews are very appropriate when the purpose of the research is
A) investigatory.
B) explanatory.
C) critique.
D) exploratory.
E) causal.
Q2) In standard interviews,the researcher has the flexibility to alter questions as needed.
A)True
B)False
Q3) In Enos's research on Managing Motherhood in Prison,a semi-structured interview was appropriate because
A) there was limited research in this area.
B) this sort of interview works well with groups with which the interviewer may be unfamiliar.
C) this sort of interview can be completed in less than 90 minutes.
D) this sort of interview provides flexibility yet organizes paths of investigation for the researcher to pursue.
E) this was an exploratory research project.
Q4) Compare and contrast any two types of qualitative interviews.
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Chapter 11: Observational Techniques
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Sample Questions
Q1) The bias caused by the observed changing as a result of being observed is called
A) demand characteristics.
B) observational bias.
C) grounded bias.
D) informant bias.
E) ethnography.
Q2) Mueller,Dirks,and Picca felt it necessary that students be trained in how to write in journals in order to collect data regarding costuming.
A)True
B)False
Q3) When new interviewees or settings look very similar to interviewees or settings observed previously,this is referred to as
A) grounded theory
B) theory simulation
C) repeated situation
D) theoretical saturation
E) none of the above
Q4) Give two advantages and two disadvantages of using observational methods.
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Chapter 12: Using Available Data
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Q1) In some cases,people misleadingly make inferences about certain types of individuals from information about groups that might not be exclusively composed of those individuals.What is this called?
A) rapport
B) non-correlation
C) ecological fallacy
D) vraisemblance
E) measurement error
Q2) In the focal research,Martinez and Lee avoided the ecological fallacy by A) using the FBI's Uniform Crime Reports.
B) interviewing immigrants that live in Miami.
C) interviewing the police departments to learn about their experiences with crime among immigrants.
D) using the "homicide logs" of the Miami police department.
E) collecting primary data.
Q3) Describe the ecological fallacy and how you might avoid it.
Q4) What are the key differences between primary and secondary data? When using secondary data,what are the main issues researchers need to be aware of?
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Chapter 13: Content Analysis
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Q1) Name five different materials that can be used for content analysis and a situation in which they might be used for research.
Q2) One advantage of content analysis is that
A) it is clearly superior to other methods of research for testing hypotheses about various forms of communication.
B) it requires little knowledge of the social sciences and is therefore easy to conduct.
C) it can be conducted with a relatively small expenditure of time, money, and person power.
D) the researcher can make few mistakes in the coding of data without affecting the research findings.
E) it has little advantage over other methods.
Q3) There are times when the unit of analysis and the unit of observation can be the same thing.
A)True
B)False
Q4) What is the difference between units of analysis and units of observation? Under what situation would the units of analysis and units of observation be the same?
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15
Chapter 14: Applied Social Research
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Q1) In the focal research by Harrison and Norton-Hawk,what kind of evaluation research was completed?
A) process evaluation
B) applied
C) needs assessment
D) cost effectiveness
E) participatory action research
Q2) Stakeholders are individuals or groups who participate in or have an interest in a program or a policy.Stakeholders can include program staff,funders,program participants,legislators,community groups,parents,and others.In the hypothetical case of a one-year intensive special reading program that is designed to increase the reading skills of third grade students at the Grant Urban Elementary School,discuss how and why these various stakeholders might react to an evaluation study that found that the program was not producing any significant improvement in students' reading skills.Be sure to consider the point of view of as many stakeholders as possible (e.g.,teachers,parents,school board officials,students,business community members,etc.)What might different stakeholders say about the evaluation study itself?
Q3) What are the basic differences between basic and applied research? What is the purpose of basic and applied research?
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Page 16
Chapter 15: Quantitative and Qualitative Data Analysis
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Q1) A memo can be used to help the researcher think about what needs to be examined or pursued during the next opportunity for data collection.
A)True
B)False
Q2) A researcher computes a statistic with a probability of p>.05.This means that
A) it is likely there is a strong relationship between the variables.
B) the relationship is likely not strong enough to suggest that it exists in the population.
C) the researcher should calculate another statistic.
D) the researcher is guilty of Type II error.
E) the variable is reliable.
Q3) Measures of dispersion indicate how varied the population is with respect to certain values.
A)True B)False
Q4) A data display should only be used to highlight the essential points of the final report.
A)True
B)False
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