Midterm 1

Question 1

Importance of knowing Research Methods

Answer 1

o Major corporations we research to decide how to launch new products
o Today’s business world
o Personal life
o Knowledgeable consumer
o Make claims
o Support claims w/ evidence
o Validity of claim and evidence= valid warrant

Question 2

What are everyday ways of knowing

Answer 2

• 1) Personal experience:
Experience first hand
• 2) Intuition:
Believing something is true because it “makes sense” (intuition)
• 3) Authority:
believing something because of our truth in the person who said it
• 4) Appeals to tradition, custom, and faith
Appeals to tradition, custom, and faith believing something simply because most people in a society it is true or because it has always been done that way.
• 5) Magic, Suspicion, and mysticism:
to explain an otherwise unexplainable event

Question 3

• Proprietary Research

Answer 3

For a specific audience and not necessarily shared beyond that audience

Question 4

• Scholarly Research

Answer 4

to promote public access to knowledge ex. Researchers published works

Question 5

Characteristics of Research

Answer 5

• 1) Research is based on curiosity
• 2) Research is a systematic process
• 3) Research is potentially replicable
• 4) Research is reflexive and self-critical
• 5) Research is cumulative and self-correcting
• 6) Research is cyclical

Question 6

o Phases

Answer 6

• 1) Phase 1: Conceptualization
Forming an idea that what needs to be studied
• 2) Phase 2: Planning and Research Design
• 3) Phase 3: Methodologists for conducting research
• 4) Phase 4: Analyzing and interpreting data
• 5) Phase 5: Reconceptualization

Question 7

• Reasons for reviewing Previous Research

Answer 7

o Snowball Effect
o Knowing what others have done and found helps to avoid “reinventing the wheel”
o Build on other research

Question 8

• Conceptual and operational definitions

Answer 8

o Conceptual= describes what a concept means by relating it to other abstract concepts
o Operational= describes a concept in terms of its observable and measurable characteristics or behaviors, by specifying how the concept can be observed in actual practice

Question 9

• Measurement Theory

Answer 9

o Is the process of determining the existence, characteristics, size, and/ or quantity or changes of differences in a variable through systematic recording and organization of the researchers observations.

Question 10

• Quantitative vs. Qualitative Measurement

Answer 10

o Quantitative measurement= employ meaningful numerical indicators to ascertain the relative amount of something
o Qualitative measurement= employ symbols to indicate the meanings people have of something

Question 11

• Levels of measurement

Answer 11

o Nominal measurement scale= classify a variable into different categories
o Background variables= aspects of subjects that may influence other variables
o Ordinal measurement scales: Not only classify a variable into nominal categories but also rank order those categories along some dimension.
o Normative scale: a scale that allows ranked ties

Question 12

Factor

Answer 12

independent variable when there are two or more variables

Question 13

Definition of Theory

Answer 13

Interrelated set of assertions, and/or principles about reality, that are empirically testable

Question 14

Functions

Answer 14

o A) Explain
o B) Predict
o C) Control

Question 15

Everyday ways of learning

Answer 15

o	A) Authority
o	B) Personal Experience
o	C) Intuition
o	D) Custom
o	E) Magic and Superstition

Question 16

• Definition of Social Scientific Method

Answer 16

Agreed upon set of rules and steps to systematically examine the world

Question 17

• Characteristics of Social Scientific Method

Answer 17

o	A) Empirical
o	B) Testable
o	C) Falsifiable
o	D) Replicable
o	E) Public
o	F) Self-Correcting
o	G) Measurable
•	Methods: a series of set of rules for observing phenomena
o	H) Objective
o	I) Skeptical
o	J) Heuristic: Enabling a person to learn something for themselves

Question 18

Variables

Answer 18

A definition, anything that could take more that one value

o An independent variable is variable thought to have an effect on something else. “Tipping” or “Appearance” or “lying”

o Dependent: The variable affected thought to be affected by the independent variable.
• “Quality of Customer service” or “teasing” or “Trust”

Question 19

Ordered and Nominal (part 1)

Answer 19

• Order can be rank

• Nominal is types and categories.
o Ex. Sexual preference, hair color, lesbians, gay guys, political affiliations like Republicans, Democrats.
• These are the terms we use to describe the world.
• Interested in frequency

Question 20

Ordered and Nominal (part 2)

Answer 20

• Research questions
o A question asked about the relationship among variables or about the world. For instance, the sample papers can the channel of disclosing sexuality
o Comes in:
• non-directional (Two-tailed)-> Will teasing affect self esteem of recipient?
• directional- (One-tailed)-> Will “negatively” affect the self esteem of recipient?

Question 21

• Hypotheses:

Answer 21

o Non-directional:
Ex. Teasing will affect self esteem of recipient.

o Directional:
Teasing will negatively affect self esteem of recipient.

Question 22

• 1. Social Status will have positive effect on physical attractiveness.

Answer 22

o Hypotheses because it is a statement
o One directional
o Independent- social status is independent because it has an affect on the other variable.

Question 23

• 2. Attractiveness will be related to speaker ratings

Answer 23

o Hypotheses.
o Independent is the attractiveness
o Non-directional because you can argue yes or no

Question 24

3. Will children watching T.V., violence be affected?

Answer 24

o Independent- Children
o Dependent- Violence
o Non-directed because you can argue yes or no

Question 25

Levels of Measurement

Answer 25

• 1. Nominal- interested in category and the frequency of category
• 2. Ordinal- This deals with rank.

• 3. Interval- when you have concepts or adjectives o
o Temperature are interval scales. With temperature there are no absolute zero. With temperature it is equi-distance.

• 4. Ratio scale- same as interval scale but there is an absolute zero.
o Weight is the same thing.
o Amount of talk
o This is like degrees of agreeability, do you strongly disagree, moderately disagree, disagree, neutral, agree, moderately agree, strongly agree

Question 26

• Random Assignment

Answer 26

o Means that each research participant have an equal chance of being assigned to any particular condition of an experiment.

Question 27

• 1) Politeness

Answer 27

We take other people’s feeling into consideration when we interact with them

Question 28

• 2) Effects on Speakers and Speech

Answer 28

o 1. Less straight forward
o 2. Less efficient
o 3. More effort and time

Question 29

• 3) “Feelings”

Answer 29

o A) Positive Face:
Every one of our wants is to have our public self image approved of

B) Negative Face
    	To be free from imposition, territory respected personal prerogatives accepted

    C) Face threatening acts

Question 30

• 4) Common strategies for F.T.A.S.

Answer 30

o A) Do F.T.A. w/o softening the blow of action baldy.
o B) Do face-threatening on record, with Redress for positive face (intent is clear)
o C) Do face-threatening act for negative face (Kiss Ass)
o D) Do the face T.A. off record (hints of sarcasm)
o E) Don’t do the F.T.A.

Question 31

• 5) W= D (S, H) + P (A, S) + R

Answer 31

o	D= Social Difference
o	S= Speaker
o	H= Hearing
o	P= Power
o	A=
o	S= Status
o	R= Degree of riskiness to face

Question 32

• D) Standards for evaluating Theory

Answer 32

o A) Scope: The span of behavior that this theory explains
o B) Testability:
o C) Parsimony (simplicity/ elegance)
o D) Utility

Question 33

E) Heurism

Answer 33

(Deals w/ the degree to which it spawns new ideas and research)