Quiz #1 6540

Instructions:  

1. Go to the collaborative study notes page.
2. Contribute to the shared notes:  choose a question and find resources in the book or online that will help you and others answer the following questions.  
3. Paste the helpful info into the study guide.
4. Feel free to discuss questions and other issues in the document, via comments or in a google hangout
5. After you feel you have a good understanding of the issues related to ALL OF the questions, write up your own answers on a word document or a google doc. 
6. NOTE:    Quiz #2 is defined as the last 4 questions they are mult-part, and require extra thought (they should take a couple of paragraphs to fully address).  These should likely be your longest answers.  The earlier questions can be answered in between a few sentences and a decent sized paragraph.  
7. When you are done, open this link and post your answers to crowd grader.
8.  See due date and details on crowdgrader description

Quiz #1

1.  How are the steps of quantitative research process similar to those of the qualitative research process?

2.  Where do the approaches differ?  Explain why those differences exist.  

3.  What are the main differences between basic and applied research?

4.   What are the major types of data collection techniques?

5.  Time point of data collection is a dimension on which research studies vary. Briefly describe the three main types of longitudinal research.

6.  Explain what a cohort is and give an example of your own (not from class or the book).

7.  Why does social research need theory?

8.  Go to page 74 and read the section on causal explanation through the first full paragraph of page 78.  Using concepts introduced in that section and elsewhere in the book, explain why the politicians plan in example 3.3 (3.5 in sixth edition) is faulty.

9.  Describe the defining aspects of positivist, interpretive and critical approaches to social science.   (chapter 4)

10.  What is the most important reason to perform a literature review?

11.  Neuman discusses the advantages and disadvantages of using the internet for social research (p. 140).   Here is a description of google scholar-- including some criticisms. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_scholar  What do you think are the most important advantages and disadvantages of using google scholar to find research?

12.  Use Google scholar to find a research paper for each of three faculty members from our department.  Use google scholar to then find 1 article that cited each of those articles.

13.   What are the most important ethical considerations for social science researchers?

Quiz #2

1.  Thinking about why and how you sample
Suppose that you want to do a survey.  Your target population is currently enrolled US college students, and you plan on performing a standard regression analysis to test your hypotheses.  What is the number of complete cases that you anticipate needing to allow you to perform your analyses?  Why this number?  How many potential respondents should you solicit to achieve sufficient N?  What factors diminish the usable sample between location and completion of the entire instrument?   What can you do to mitigate the challenges?   Suppose that you decide to use OU students enrolled in Intro classes this spring.  What are some possible problems with using them to represent US college students?   Suggest a better sampling strategy and sampling frame that would be feasible and realistic for an MA student to complete.

2.  Conceptualization and measurement
Suppose that you are an administrator at a public university.  Your Job is to identify senior students who will make promising sociological researchers.  What are the key conceptual dimensions that make someone a promising researcher?  How would you propose to measure those concepts?  What are some difficulties in this task?

3.  Operationalizing deliberation
Based on Black et al 2011, describe how to operationalize deliberation.  In your description define, and apply to this research the following terms:  content analysis, coding scheme, exploratory research, small groups, descriptive statistics, and network visualization.   What are the most important findings?  What sort of research should be done to extend, refine or improve upon the current study?

4.  Interpreting quantitative results:
Based on Yuan et al 2009, what can we learn about diffusion from studying interactions in online community?    Provide a detailed explanation of how each important concept was operationalized and measured.  Make sure you pay special attention to the attributes and measurement of key independent variables, and the dependent variable.  Then, using the results reported in tables 1,2, and 3 explain what the results are, how they should be interpreted, and what they mean.

That is it!