The test questions will come directly from this study guide. The exam will include:
15 multiple choice (3 points each), 5 fill-in-the blank (3 points each), 10 matching (2 points each), 1 essay (20 points)
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Ethics: |
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Anonymity |
Confidentiality |
Human
Subjects Review/IRB |
Informed
Consent |
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Code
of Ethics |
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Experiments: |
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Random
Assignment |
Quasi-Experiment |
Matching |
Treatment |
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Experimental
Group |
Control
Group |
Placebo |
Double-blind |
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Post-test |
Pre-test |
Internal
Validity |
External
Validity |
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Hawthorne
Effect |
Debrief |
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Surveys: |
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Mail
Survey |
Telephone
Survey |
Face-to-Face
Survey |
Response
Rate |
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Mutually
Exclusive |
Response
Set/Categories |
Skip
or Contingency Question |
Open-ended
Question |
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Close-ended
Question |
Response
Effects |
Total
Design Method (TDM) |
Item
Non-Response |
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Survey
Pre-testing |
Pilot
Study |
CATI |
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· What is informed
consent? Why is it important? What process do researchers generally follow
to obtain informed consent?
· What is human subjects
review or IRB approval? Why is it
important? What is the process that
researcher’s generally follow to receive human subjects or IRB approval?
· What are five components
(there are many) of most social science Codes of Ethics?
· What research question are
you interested in studying? How might
you study it with an experiment or with a survey? What ethical issues are involved with studying your research question,
either with an experiment or with a survey?
Whose lives might be influenced by your research? How so?
· What types of research
questions are appropriate for experiments?
· What are the steps in
conducting an experiment?
· Why is random assignment in
experiments important?
· What are some threats to
internal and external validity in an experiment?
·
Identify
the dependent variable, independent variable, pre-test, and the post-test in
the study description below. Is there
an experimental and control group? If
yes, what are they? If not, (1) how
could you change the design to include both groups and (2) what is the main
problem associated with not having both groups?
We want to study prejudice against
African-Americans and ways to reduce it.
We hypothesize that acquiring an understanding of the contributions of
African-Americans to American history will reduce prejudice. We gather a group of study participants and
measure their level of prejudice against African-Americans (via five
questions). Then we show them a
documentary film on the important contributions of African Americans to
American science, literature, politics and social development. We then again
measure the level of prejudice against African-Americans among the study
participants. We look to see if their
prejudice has reduced as a result of watching the film.
· What types of research
questions are appropriate for surveys?
· What types of information
can be asked with a survey question?
· What are the steps in
conducting a survey?
· Why is a high response rate
in a survey critical? What techniques to
social scientists use to increase response rates?
· Under what conditions would
you prefer to use each of the three types of surveys? What are the strengths
and weaknesses of each type of survey design?
· What are the most important
features of a “good” question and response set that you should consider when
writing survey questions?
· When designing a survey, in
what order should the following types of questions appear on the survey: demographic questions, difficult/sensitive
to answer substantive questions, interesting but easy to answer substantive
questions? Why?
· How do questionnaire layout,
format and length influence response rates?
What are some important features of questionnaire layout, format and
length?
· Describe ways you could
pre-test a set of survey questions. Why is pre-testing important?
· What is item non-response in
a survey? Why is it problematic? What causes it?
· What are some threats to
internal and external validity with a survey?