Research Methods and Data Literacy

Question 1

What is a method?

Answer 1

A study design (has rules and procedures to systematically study the social world)

Question 2

What is confirmation bias?

Answer 2

Tendency to look for and accept information that reinforces our current beliefs

Question 3

What is the Nuremberg Code (1948)?

Answer 3

1) People must voluntarily consent to taking part in research
2) Researchers should avoid unnecessary physical/mental suffering and injury
3) Degree of risk to subjects must be justified by likely benefit to humanity at results of research
4) Subjects must be free to stop participating at any time
5) If researchers discover their project puts subjects in serious risk, they must end it immediately

Question 4

What is the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment? (hint: example of ignoring nuremberg code guidelines)

Answer 4

Conducted in Alabama (1932-1972) and looked at how syphilis developed over time if left untreated, and hundreds of black men were the subjects and never told their true diagnosis (told they had ‘bad blood’)

Question 5

What are four regulations by the Institutional Review Board?

Answer 5

Informed consent
Confidentiality
Voluntarily participation
Do no harm

Question 6

What are the two types of research methods?

Answer 6

Quantitative data (‘what’): in form of numbers, reflects quantities/amounts/statistics
Qualitative data (how/why): reflects general themes/processes/meanings

Question 7

6 common sociological methods?

Answer 7

Experiments, surveys, participant observation, qualitative interviews, historical and content analysis, other existing data

Question 8

What are two pros and two cons of experiments?

Answer 8

Experiments Pros:
-allow us to carefully study impact of one thing at a time
-can establish cause and effect
Experiment Cons:
-results may be unrealistic compared to everyday life where we aren’t affected by one factor at a time
-important to pay attention to ethical issues

Question 9

A) What is an audit study?
B) What is a natural experiment?

Answer 9

A) Type of experiment where one characteristic/behaviour is carefully isolate
B) Researcher does not control environment and it is naturally occurring control/exposure group. Not ‘true experiment’

Question 10

What is a survey?

Answer 10

Set of pre-determined, close-ended questions, quantitative

Question 11

A) Pros of survey?
B) Cons of survey?

Answer 11

A) Relatively cheap, quick way to get information from large groups of people, can analyze patterns/differences between groups
B) Low response rates, slight differences in wording can affect responses

Question 12

Define participant observation.

Answer 12

Researcher spends time among group, observing and participating in that social world. Results are called ethnography.
Example: researcher talks to unhoused people

Question 13

A) Pros of participant observation?
B) Cons of participant observation?

Answer 13

A) Can collect detailed information about specific social scenes/interactions, can observe how people behave in different settings
B) Can be time-consuming and expensive, hard to earn trust of group or understand social scene, small group of subjects, results may not be replicable

Question 14

Define qualitative interviews.

Answer 14

Researcher asks open-ended questions to analyze complex themes that cannot be quantified (can be used with participant observation)

Question 15

A) Pros of qualitative interviews.
B) Cons of qualitative interviews.

Answer 15

A) Can investigate themes hard to document with other methods, can ask follow-up questions, uses words of people themselves to understand a topic
B) Usually not empirically generalizable, may be difficult to replicate, question wording and trust with research can affect responses, smaller sample sizes

Question 16

Define historical and content analysis.

Answer 16

Analyzing existing sources to find key themes (newspapers, tv, etc.)

Question 17

Pro and con of historical and content analysis

Answer 17

Pro: identifies recurring themes/patterns, can study issues from history
Con: stuck with data that exists

Question 18

What is other existing data?

Answer 18

Researchers can analyze any data that exists

Question 19

Define co-variation

Answer 19

Relationship between variables

Question 20

Define independent variable and dependent variable

Answer 20

Independent Variable (X): affects the variable you are trying to explain
Dependent Variable (Y): the variable you are trying to explain

Question 21

What is form of hypothesis?

Answer 21

For Population (P), Independent Variable (X) is related to Dependent Variable (Y)

Question 22

Define operationalization

Answer 22

How you will measure your variables.

Question 23

What is random and non-random samples?

Answer 23

Random samples: each member of population must be known and have some chance of being selected, allows you to generalize
Non-random samples: some members don’t have chance of being selected, harder to generalize (e.g. drug addicts)

Question 24

Define target population, sampling frame, selected sample, and actual sample.

Answer 24

Target population: who researchers want to study Sampling frame: who they can potentially study
Selected sample: who they try to get
Actual sample: who they get

Question 25

Name one potential problem with samples.

Answer 25

Nonresponse bias: do the people who choose not to respond have different qualities then those who did

Question 26

Define correlation and causation.

Answer 26

Correlation: two or more variables are related, not necessarily cause-effect
Causation: one variable affects another variable, (causal relationship is one where causation exists)

Question 27

How can a researcher establish causation?

Answer 27

Establish correlation, determine timing of effects, rule out alternative explanations/spurious relationships

Question 28

Define spurious relationships

Answer 28

Appears to be cause-effect but outside variable is the cause

Question 29

What is reliability and validity?

Answer 29

Reliability: measure is consistent
Validity: measure is accurate and measures what research intends for it to measure

Question 30

What are three main systematic biases?

Answer 30

Nonresponse bias: systematic patterns in who does/doesn’t respond causing sample to be unrepresentative
Social desirability bias: tendency for subjects to give answers they think are socially acceptable, providing invalid measure of opinions
Coverage bias/sample frame error: differences between sampling frame and actual population, and/or researcher does not know who is in their population

Question 31

Four types of selective/inaccurate observation?

Answer 31

Confirmation bias: the tendency to gather/interpret information in a way that supports pre-existing beliefs, can affect how people interpret events
Resistance to change: many are resistant to changing pre-existing beliefs even when faced with contradicting evidence
Illogical reasoning: must not prematurely jump to conclusions without sufficient evidence and considering alternative possibilities
Misrepresentation: labels, numbers, scales, and context can misrepresent data in graphs

Question 32

What is mis- and disinformation?

Answer 32

Misinformation: the act of sharing information without realizing it’s wrong
Disinformation: the deliberate creating and/or sharing of false information in order to mislead

Question 33

6 types of mis/disinformation?

Answer 33

Fabricated content: completely false
Manipulate content: distortion of true information
Imposter content: impersonation of genuine sources
Misleading content: presented in misleading way
False context of connection: accurate content shared with false context
Deepfake: altered media