Anthony Giddens • Sociology 6th edition

Student Resources

Chapter 2 — Asking and Answering Sociological Questions

1. Laud Humphreys’s study, Tearoom Trade (1970) is an example of:
   a) historical research
   b) survey research
   c) participant observation
   d) experimental design
2. Which of these is not an ethical issue for researchers?
   a) assessing the potential risks for research subjects
   b) selecting a relevant theoretical perspective
   c) protecting the anonymity of participants
   d) safe storage of the raw data collected in the process
3. What is the initial element of sociological research?
   a) review the evidence
   b) define the research problem
   c) create a research design
   d) carry out a research design
4. Which of these statements is correct?
   a) causes and correlations are essentially the same
   b) correlations always lead to causal explanations
   c) causation cannot be inferred directly from correlation
   d) correlations are one-way causal relationships
5. Which of these is not an example of a qualitative research method?
   a) survey research
   b) ethnography
   c) focus groups
   d) biographical research
6. Theda Skocpol’s, States and Social Revolutions (1979) is an example of what?
   a) oral history
   b) ethnomethodological research
   c) biographical research
   d) comparative-historical research
7. What is applied social research?
   a) research that tries to contribute to the development of theory
   b) research that is always multidisciplinary
   c) research that aims to intervene in and improve social life
   d) research based on government priorities
8. What is meant by reflexivity in sociological research?
   a) research findings feed back into society and as a result may change it
   b) research findings empower the general public making them more confident
   c) research funders have control over research findings and who has access
   d) sociologists learn more about the society they live in
9. Which one of the following statements is true?
   a) sociologists use both quantitative and qualitative methods
   b) sociologists no longer use quantitative methods
   c) sociologists always prefer to use qualitative methods
   d) sociologists cannot use a mixed methods approach
10. Science aims to be both:
    a) philosophical and progressive
    b) complex and against commonsense
    c) experimental and statistical
    d) valid and reliable
11. Tearoom Trade is typical of the questions asked by sociologists because:
    a) it takes place outside the university campus
    b) it makes use of covert research methods
    c) it investigates workings of society that are different from official accounts
    d) the investigator is sympathetic to the activities that he is investigating
12. Bias in research practice refers to:
    a) the investigator being committed to a particular ideology
    b) the research team prejudging the meaning of the data
    c) the data being unbalanced by the design or execution of the research
    d) incorrect interpretations being applied to the results
13. When in sociology we speak of researchers 'using controls', we mean:
    a) being as precise as possible in defining an initial hypothesis
    b) holding some variables constant to look at the effects of others
    c) supervising the data collection process as closely as possible
    d) seeking to manipulate the outcomes of a research process
14. An association between two variables which is in fact caused by other factor(s) is called a:
    a) multiple regression
    b) causal mechanism
    c) spurious correlation
    d) multinomial distribution
15. Which of these terms is the odd one out?
    a) causation
    b) correlation
    c) association
    d) connection
16. One strength of ethnography is that:
    a) the influence of specific variables can be controlled by the investigator
    b) it usually generates richer and more in-depth information than other methods
    c) it is essential when a study is primarily historical or has a historical dimension
    d) it can only be used to study relatively small groups or communities
17. In survey research the group of respondents targeted for the questionnaire is called:
    a) sample
    b) respondents
    c) focus group
    d) population
18. Which of these is NOT viewed as a strength of surveys?
    a) they are often undertaken by specialist agencies
    b) they offer an appearance of precision
    c) the data is easy to quantify and analyse
    d) large numbers of people can be studied
19. An experiment can be defined as:
    a) an attempt to test a hypothesis under controlled conditions
    b) a piece of research conducted in a laboratory
    c) a piece of research trying out new methods
    d) an attempt to deceive participants about the research's true purpose
20. Which one of these is a measure of dispersion?
    a) parameter
    b) range
    c) median
    d) mean

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