Qualitative Research Methods
Test Preparation
Course Introduction
Qualitative Research Methods introduces students to the principles and practices of qualitative inquiry in the social sciences and humanities. The course examines key methodologies such as ethnography, interviews, focus groups, participant observation, and content analysis, emphasizing the collection, interpretation, and analysis of non-numerical data. Students will explore the theoretical underpinnings of qualitative research, ethical considerations, and strategies for developing research questions, coding data, and drawing insights from complex phenomena. Through hands-on exercises and critical readings, learners gain practical experience designing and conducting qualitative studies, preparing them to apply these methods in academic and professional settings.
Recommended Textbook
The Art and Science of Social Research 1st Edition by Deborah Carr
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Chapter 1: The Art and Science of Social Research: An Introduction
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Q1) Jeremiah plans a study that asks,"Why are young people postponing marriage?" He applies the sociological imagination to this question by focusing on
A)the life histories of one older couple and one younger couple.
B)a national sample of thousands of young adults.
C)the influence of housing costs and diminishing stigma against premarital sex.
D)individual morals and values.
Answer: C
Q2) Twila designs a sociology research study about gender-based violence.After she proposes the study,she decides that she really wants it to be applied research.Accordingly,she refines the study to
A)make a contribution to theories of human violence.
B)be grounded in a mixed-method approach to data collection.
C)evaluate a local nonprofit organization devoted to reducing domestic violence.
D)be grounded in political science instead of sociology,so it can have a policy outcome.
Answer: C
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Chapter 2: Research Foundations: Linking Sociological
Theory to Research
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Q1) Miko tests status characteristics theory by documenting how dentists distribute resources and credentials through educational and professional associations.This study reveals new insights that influence the development of this theory.Which part of this scholarly process represents an inductive approach to science?
A)suspecting that status characteristics theory could be improved
B)testing theory with an empirical study
C)conducting a literature review before collecting data
D)applying research findings to the refinement of theory
Answer: D
Q2) Megan develops a sociological study that describes how caregivers give meaning to their experiences with vulnerable loved ones.Megan includes reflection on her own life experiences,because she believes her own experiences shape how she collects and interprets data.Megan's approach fits with which paradigm?
A)empiricism
B)positivism
C)conflict
D)postmodernism
Answer: D
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Chapter 3: Ethical Issues in Social Science Research
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Q1) The American Anthropological Association denounced the Human Terrain System because
A)this project gave information to the U.S.military that could be used to harm people.
B)this project equipped researchers with military technology that they were not properly trained to use.
C)researchers were not well equipped with knowledge of local cultures and languages.
D)the U.S.military promoted a policy of "no informed consent" for this project.
Answer: A
Q2) Dr.Omani is planning a sociological study of environmental habits among homeowners.His university's IRB requires him to submit a ________,which includes research questions and methods,descriptions of the subjects,and steps he will take to minimize risk.
A)consent form
B)IRB application
C)research protocol
D)human subjects research form
Answer: C
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Chapter 4: From Concepts to Models: Hypotheses, Operationalization,
and Measurement
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Q1) Although the problem of losing respondents over time can be a problem with longitudinal studies,they are often preferable to cross-sectional designs because they can help researchers detect causal effects.The reason longitudinal studies are better able to detect causal effects is that they can
A)document within-person changes.
B)document across-person changes.
C)give respondents a chance to correct earlier responses.
D)give the researcher a good way to test measurement reliability.
Q2) Affonso plans to study the effect of degree type on the income of college graduates.He chooses to represent degree type with college major and to represent income with individual annual income (in dollars).In this study,college major is a(n)________ variable and individual annual income is a(n)________ variable.
A)ordinal;nominal
B)nominal;ratio
C)interval;ordinal
D)ordinal;interval
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Chapter 5: Evaluating Research: Reliability and Validity
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Q1) A team of researchers is using surveys to study college students' feelings about the dining hall on campus.In order to ensure reliability,the researchers employ a test-retest method.One potential problem with a test-retest might be that
A)students might decide not to participate in the survey,which would result in the surveys that were collected being considered invalid.
B)students might not understand the test-retest method and therefore the researchers could not complete the surveys.
C)it is very difficult to successfully employ a test-retest method on a college campus.
D)the dining hall could have changed its food in between the two survey points and therefore students' attitudes about the dining hall may have changed.
Q2) Which of the following is true of error in social science research?
A)Most social science research involves no error.
B)All social science research involves some level of error.
C)All social science research involves a significant amount of error,but researchers are willing to overlook it.
D)Most social science research has systematic error built into it.
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Chapter 6: Sampling Strategies
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Q1) If you want to ________,a nonrepresentative sample would be better than a representative one.
A)describe the population
B)estimate national attitudes
C)initially test a hypothesis
D)report national trends
Q2) Dr.Stephens has interviewed Betty five times over the course of his fieldwork studying heroin users in Appalachia.Betty has had strong insights that have helped him further develop his project.What role has Betty served for Dr.Stephens?
A)deviant case
B)key informant
C)random informant
D)typical case
Q3) How do researchers know if a project has reached saturation?
A)New materials reinforce what the researcher already knows.
B)New materials yield new insights.
C)Key informants identify new informants to interview.
D)Their intuition suggests interesting insight can be gained.
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Chapter 8: Experimental Research
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Q1) Measures collected by observing the overt and observable actions of participants are known as ________ measures.
A)behavioral
B)attitudinal
C)physiological
D)longitudinal
Q2) A study design in which participants are randomly assigned to different levels of the independent variable,such as viewing résumés for a male or a female job applicant,is known as a ________ design.
A)between-subject
B)within-subject
C)factorial
D)split-ballot
Q3) When participants notice the experimental manipulation,such as noticing that a job applicant is female (or male),this is known as
A)internal validity.
B)external validity.
C)reliability.
D)salience.
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Chapter 9: Evaluation Research
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Q1) In 1-3 sentences,propose an intervention aimed at alleviating a major social problem where you live.Then,list at least one ethical,one logistical,and one political concern researchers may encounter in carrying out the study.
Q2) In pre-post design,researchers measure the outcome of interest once before the intervention,introduce the intervention,and then measure the outcome again.Why is this considered the simplest method of reflexive control?
A)Measurements rarely vary across pre-post design.
B)Participants serve as their own controls.
C)They effectively measure outcomes in long-term evaluation studies.
D)Few variables are likely to change on their own regardless of intervention.
Q3) What is the term for when treatment and control groups are formed by a procedure other than randomization?
A)external validity
B)randomized field experiment
C)selection bias
D)nonequivalent comparison design
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Chapter 10: Ethnography
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Q1) Devon is a graduate student beginning an ethnography of a preschool soccer team.He seeks site entry by contacting the gatekeeper(s):
A)the parents,because the children are under age 18 and cannot give informed consent.
B)the coach,because she has the authority to allow an outsider into the team.
C)his academic adviser,because he determines whether the study can proceed.
D)the children themselves,because establishing rapport with subjects is essential.
Q2) Do you think ethnography is more of a science,more of an art,or both art and science? Explain your answer.
Q3) Aaron wants to develop an ethnographic study that continues the work of W.E.B.DuBois,Herbert Gans,and William Whyte.Accordingly,Aaron studies
A)the subculture of the federal intelligence community.
B)global economic and financial elites.
C)religious cults that force people to separate from their families.
D)a newly developing Minneapolis neighborhood of Liberian immigrants.
Q4) Design an approach for taking field notes that includes the four major elements of field notes.Your approach should also include time (when to record notes)and materials.
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Chapter 11: In-Depth Interviewing
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Q1) When the interviewee goes off on a tangent,the interviewer must find a polite and effective way to ________ the interview.
A)redirect
B)probe
C)focus
D)redesign
Q2) How are focus groups typically conducted?
A)A quantitative researcher gathers survey data from groups of people.
B)One or two research participants are trained to facilitate the group,while the researchers observe from a neutral setting apart from the group.
C)The researcher serves as moderator,guiding the group members as they discuss the topic.
D)The researcher observes a group that is doing a highly focused activity,such as an engineering task.
Q3) Describe two significant threats to the validity of in-depth interviewing and how they can be reduced.
Q4) You are planning a study about homeowners' use of pesticides on lawns.Explain why,and how,you would begin your study with cognitive interviews.
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Chapter 12: Materials-Based Methods
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Q1) What three criteria do historical-comparative sociologists use to determine whether they have gathered sufficient material?
Q2) David conducts a historical-comparative study of the terrorist attacks on September 11,2001.When he considers counterfactuals,he
A)lays out conflicting accounts of the events of the day.
B)describes all the false facts,both intentional and unintentional,that developed after the event.
C)thinks about what would have happened in society if the terrorist attacks had not occurred.
D)asks another sociologist to review his study,looking for bias and errors of fact.
Q3) When a researcher systematically reviews materials that have been converted into a quantitative data set,seeking to test a hypothesis,this approach is called A)materials-based research.
B)critical content analysis.
C)quantitative content analysis.
D)saturated coding.
Q4) What are three main reasons that researchers use materials-based methods?
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Chapter 13: Social Network Analysis
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Q1) When a sociologist studies a network from the perspective of individual actors within the network,the sociologist has adopted a(n)________ network approach.
A)sociocentric
B)egocentric
C)centrality
D)sociological
Q2) A single composite measure that reflects generic information about a number of dimensions of one's social network,such as "connectedness" or "well-being," is called a A)position generator.
B)two-mode network.
C)bridge.
D)social network index.
Q3) List and describe two significant drawbacks of collecting social network data via electronic networks.
Q4) List one position generator.List one resource generator.What is the difference between them?
Q5) What is one measure of the level of cohesion in a social network? Define and explain the measure.
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Chapter 14: Univariate and Bivariate Analysis of Quantitative Data
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Q1) Martin is creating a cross-tabulation of categorical variables,and he wants to compare groups to one another.He would like your advice on whether he should compare frequencies or percentages.You suggest that he compare
A)frequencies because it allows for clearer comparison of groups of each size. B)frequencies because it allows for clear understanding of the size of each group.
C)percentages because it allows for clearer comparison of groups of each size. D)percentages because it allows for clear understanding of the size of each group.
Q2) Population trends are bivariate patterns in which one of the variables is A)gender. B)race.
C)social class. D)time.
Q3) You are interested in studying gender role attitudes over time in the United States.Would you conduct repeated cross-sectional surveys or panel surveys? Choose one,and justify it as the superior approach for this topic.
Q4) Explain why it is important for sociologists to have a healthy skepticism about the statistics we encounter daily.
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Chapter 15: Multivariate and Advanced Quantitative Methods
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Q1) A research team is testing whether mothers' mental health is predicted by their own ratings of their parenting quality,and finds that mothers who have a more positive perception of their parenting report fewer depressive symptoms.However,they also find that employed mothers have lower parenting ratings and lower reported depressive symptoms.In this example,mothers' employment is a possible ________ variable.
A)suppressor
B)confounding
C)mediating
D)control
Q2) If a researcher hypothesizes that employment causes people to live longer,he or she may interpret an observed association between employment and number of years lived as evidence that supports his or her hypothesis.However,if adding healthiness to the model eliminates all of the original association between employment and number of years lived,this suggests that healthiness might predict both employment and longer life.This demonstrates that
A)reciprocal causality must always be considered for original hypotheses.
B)dependent variables must often be lagged for proper interpretation.
C)confounding factors present alternative explanations to original hypotheses.
D)adding new variables can change the results regarding the null hypothesis.
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Chapter 16: Analysis of Qualitative Data
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Q1) A researcher would reduce his or her data to
A)make the data fit within his or her time and financial constraints.
B)de-identify data in order to preserve anonymity.
C)eliminate data that will not be useful to the analysis.
D)make it fit within a computerized analysis program.
Q2) You are designing a qualitative comparative analysis that compares corporations employing numerous female leaders with corporations employing no female leaders.How would you use a truth table to support your analysis?
Q3) Dr.Katapar studies the relationship between exercise and happiness.He poses a null hypothesis,"Exercise does not influence happiness." He hopes to A)prove the hypothesis.
B)explore the hypothesis as a thought experiment.
C)reject the hypothesis.
D)use this unlikely hypothesis to generate ideas for additional studies.
Q4) As a general rule,a truth table sorts cases by A)emic or etic data.
B)qualitative or quantitative data.
C)the presence or absence of particular variables.
D)positive and negative cases.
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Chapter 17: Communicating Social Science Research
Findings
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Q1) The trend in social scientists' opinion of blogs is that blogs
A)are too informal to adequately convey useful information,devaluing scholarly work.
B)allow too many uninformed people to share their views,and thus promote misinformation.
C)are a fresh space for sharing ideas away from the stifling format of conventional academic platforms.
D)may be used for policy recommendations or applications,but not for sharing the results of data analysis.
Q2) A bibliography may also be called a(n)
A)literature review.
B)works cited.
C)abstract.
D)list of reading material.
Q3) What is the difference between a policy brief and an amicus brief?
Q4) Both structured abstracts and unstructured abstracts
A)are used with qualitative research,not quantitative.
B)are used with quantitative research,not qualitative.
C)explain the hypothesis in simple terms.
D)summarize the entire research report.
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