Deck 16: Combining Methods in Social Science Research

Question 1

What are the major advantages and disadvantages common to all quantitative approaches?

Answer 1

● Advantages of quantitative approaches-scientific/positivist: o Objective facts are collected by value-free researchers.o The pursuit of truth is achieved through the testing of causal hypotheses.o Quantitative techniques allow for probability sampling (the issue of representativeness).o Concepts can be measured in quantifiable terms (standardization).o The results can often be replicated because the techniques lend themselves to checks of reliability and validity.
● Disadvantages of quantitative approaches-scientific/positivist: o Topics of social science are not appropriate for purely "scientific" inquiry.o Understanding the social world requires an in-depth understanding of the meaning that individuals attribute to their interactions and their surroundings-something that cannot be achieved by effectively reducing human behaviour to a series of "laws" and properties to be unearthed.

Question 2

What are the major advantages and disadvantages common to all qualitative approaches?

Answer 2

● Advantages of qualitative approaches-interpretive: o Qualitative approaches give a voice to research participants.o Participants are not constrained by categories as they can be in quantitative approaches like surveys.o In-depth understanding is possible with qualitative approaches.
● Disadvantages of qualitative approaches-interpretive: o Validity and reliability is a problem with qualitative approaches.o The researcher must often become immersed in the people and situations that he or she is studying,which leads to problems of subjectivity and bias (it may be difficult for the researcher to take a strictly objective position when he or she is so closely involved with research participants).o Qualitative studies can be very limited in their scope.o Qualitative approaches are generally labour intensive and often quite costly to undertake.

Question 3

Identify two of the four major quantitative approaches treated in your text and discuss their disadvantages.

Answer 3

● Survey research o respondents may understand questions differently o not suitable for some topics (sensitive issues)o can be impersonal o interviewer effect (if in person or on the telephone)o social desirability
● Experimental research o many of the questions social scientists are interested in cannot be tested using experiments o experimental conditions are often rather artificial o sample is often limited to university undergraduates
● Quantitative content analysis o fairly limited range of research questions can be addressed with this technique o latent coding open to interpretation issues o if not clearly linked to theory,can be merely a word count
● Existing statistics/documents and secondary analysis o researcher may use secondary data that is not appropriate for his or her research question o can take considerable time to get acquainted with data o data collected by someone else,so unlikely all the concepts the researcher is interested in will be included,or they may be measured in a less than ideal manner o definitions of concepts (especially in official statistics)may change over time

Question 4

What is one of the major advantages of survey research compared to other quantitative approaches?

A)It is the only technique that allows for causation to be demonstrated.
B)It is possible to cover very large populations in a relatively simple way and in a straightforward manner.
C)It is often inexpensive.
D)It is nonreactive.
E)Data are often free and fairly easy to access.

Question 5

What happens if,while using a mixed methods research design,a researcher obtains conflicting results in the qualitative and quantitative parts of a mixed methods study? What possibilities exist for a researcher if the results appear to be contradictory or do not agree with each other?

Question 6

What is one of the major disadvantages of using existing statistics compared to other quantitative forms of data collection?

A)The sample is often limited to university undergraduates.
B)Interviewer effect can be an issue.
C)A fairly limited range of research questions can be addressed with this technique.
D)It can take the researcher a considerable amount of time to become acquainted with the data.
E)The conditions under which the research and data gathering take place are often artificial.

Question 7

What is one of the major advantages of experimental research compared to other quantitative approaches?

A)It is the only technique that allows for causation to be demonstrated.
B)It is possible to cover very large populations in a relatively simple way and in a straightforward manner.
C)It is often inexpensive.
D)It is nonreactive.
E)Data are often free and fairly easy to access.

Question 8

For which type of quantitative social science research is the "interview(er)effect" most likely to be a problem?

A)Survey research
B)Nonreactive research
C)Qualitative interviewing
D)Quantitative content analysis
E)Field studies

Question 9

Discuss the kinds of decisions a researcher must make in terms of sequential and concurrent data collection and analysis when designing a mixed methods study.What procedures must be followed?

Question 10

What is one of the major advantages of using focus groups compared to other qualitative forms of data collection?

A)Participants tend to feel empowered.
B)Participants can give accounts in their own words and unexpected responses are encouraged.
C)It's possible to make comparisons across time and space.
D)The researcher is able to gain a deep understanding of a group and its members.
E)Implied meanings in "text" situations can be revealed.

Question 11

What is one of the major disadvantages of using field research compared to other qualitative forms of data collection?

A)The sample is often limited to university undergraduates.
B)Subjects' behaviour may change if they know they are being studied.
C)A fairly limited range of research questions can be addressed with this technique.
D)It can take the researcher a considerable amount of time to become acquainted with the data.
E)The conditions under which the research and data gathering take place are often artificial.

Question 12

Identify two of the four major quantitative approaches treated in your text and discuss their advantages.

Question 13

What is one of the major advantages of field research compared to other qualitative approaches?

A)Participants in the study tend to feel empowered.
B)Participants can give accounts in their own words and unexpected responses are encouraged.
C)It's possible to make comparisons across time and space.
D)The researcher is able to gain a deep understanding of a group and its members.
E)Implied meanings in "text" situations can be revealed.

Question 14

Which of the following statements most closely describes the term triangulation?

A)Using two different theoretical approaches in one research project
B)Displaying the final results of the research in a variety of ways,such as graphs,charts,tables,and diagrams
C)Gathering data primarily through the use of qualitative open-ended interviews but then coding the interviews so they can be used for statistical analysis
D)Using more than one qualitative or quantitative technique
E)Employing at least three different concepts in a single research question

Question 15

Identify two of the five major qualitative approaches treated in your text and discuss their disadvantages.

Question 16

Identify two of the five major qualitative approaches treated in your text and discuss their advantages.

Question 17

What is considered to be a principal advantage of using quantitative methods as an approach to doing social research?

A)It allows for the possibility of investigating how members of the social world understand their social experiences.
B)Concepts can be standardized.
C)It allows the researcher to become immersed in the people and situations he or she is studying.
D)The subjective experiences of the research participants can be studied and analyzed.
E)In quantitative research the deeper meanings that individuals attribute to social life can be revealed.

Question 18

________ approaches assume that facts are objective,that they can be collected by value-free researchers,and that the pursuit of truth can be achieved through the testing of causal hypotheses.

A)Explanatory
B)Positivist
C)Nonreactive
D)Qualitative
E)Survey-based

Question 19

Compare and contrast the development of theory in mixed methods research.What determines how theory is generated in sequential mixed methods studies and in concurrent mixed methods studies?

Question 20

What are the strengths and limitations of mixed methods research incorporating both quantitative and qualitative approaches? Do you think a researcher should strive to use mixed methods research? Why or why not?

Question 21

Which of the following best exemplifies the practice of epistemic prioritization?

A)Krithiga found her qualitative interview data coincided perfectly with her focus group data and so decided to report only on the qualitative interview data to avoid redundancy
B)Percy found his qualitative interview data conflicted with his quantitative content analysis data and so reported on the ways method influences results instead of reporting his findings
C)David found his telephone survey data conflicted with his focus group data and so decided to report only those findings that were based on the telephone survey data
D)Karen found her qualitative interview data shared few themes with her archival data and so reported on the disjunction between historical and contemporary discourses
E)Annette found her structured interview data conflicted with her fieldwork observations and so conducted a second set of structured interviews with a revised list of questions

Question 22

What is one of the major disadvantages of using experimental research compared to other quantitative forms of data collection?

A)It is not suitable for researching sensitive issues.
B)It relies on latent coding which is susceptible to interpretation issues.
C)The moderator may affect experiment outcomes.
D)Many of the questions social scientists are interested in cannot be tested.
E)It is possible to explore "meaning" of events,experiences,etc.,in much detail.

Question 23

What is one of the major advantages of using qualitative interviews compared to other qualitative forms of data collection?

A)They make studying hidden or deviant groups possible.
B)They are inexpensive.
C)They are nonreactive.
D)Participants tend to feel empowered.
E)They allow for unexpected answers.

Question 24

What is considered to be the principal advantage of using qualitative methods as an approach to doing social research?

A)Qualitative methods give "voice" to research participants.
B)Qualitative methods are relatively inexpensive.
C)Qualitative methods allow for causality to be established.
D)Qualitative methods involve the collection of data from large samples.
E)Qualitative methods require the researcher to spend a lot of time getting to know the research participants in a study.

Question 25

Which of the following is not one of the weaknesses of mixed methods research?

A)It is very labour intensive.
B)It can be very expensive.
C)Conflicting results can be difficult to resolve.
D)Generalizability of findings decreases.
E)Some "purists" argue mixing methods violates the philosophical underpinnings of these approaches.

Question 26

Despite a general agreement among social scientists that mixed methods research is an ideal way to approach research questions,very few researchers engage in this type of research.Why is this the case?

A)It is very time consuming and labour intensive.
B)It is often the case that social scientists consider themselves predominantly "quantitative" or "qualitative" and that to undertake mixed methods requires them to step outside of their comfort zones and,perhaps,master a new technique.
C)The results of the research are often difficult to publish due to the increased likelihood of obtaining contradictory findings.
D)A and B
E)A and C

Question 27

Which of the following is considered a strength of mixed methods research?

A)Generalizability of findings may increase.
B)Conflicting results from quantitative and qualitative components can easily be resolved by resorting to epistemic prioritization.
C)It often takes less time to do mixed methods research than other kinds of social research.
D)It allows for very narrow research questions to be answered.
E)From a philosophical perspective,both qualitative and quantitative approaches are easily combined.

Question 28

What is one of the major disadvantages of using quantitative content analysis over other quantitative forms of data collection?

A)They make studying hidden or deviant groups possible.
B)The range of research questions that can be addressed is fairly limited.
C)It is nonreactive.
D)Coding techniques are subject to interpretation.
E)It is unlikely that all the concepts the researcher is interested in will be included in the data.

Question 29

In social scientific research,__________ design is the opposite of mixed methods design.

A)priority
B)concurrent
C)sequential
D)univariate
E)monostrand

Question 30

What is one of the major disadvantages of using focus groups compared to other qualitative forms of data collection?

A)There is always the problem of the "interviewer effect."
B)There is always the problem of the "polarization effect."
C)Accessing some individuals or groups may prove to very difficult.
D)The sources may be biased.
E)A fairly limited range of research questions can be addressed with this technique.

Question 31

Professor Bertha Bettina conducted a research project exploring adolescent girl peer group pressure.She used closed-ended questionnaires and focus groups.Of the 221 girls that fit the criteria for inclusion,90 girls agreed to complete the self-administered questionnaire; of those,50 girls agreed to participate in focus groups.During analysis,descriptive statistics about behaviours reported by the girls were joined with major themes that came out of the focus group interviews. Which one of the following types of sampling designs did Professor Bettina use?

A)Simple random sampling
B)Nonprobability purposive sampling
C)Cluster sampling
D)Simple random sampling and cluster sampling
E)Multi-method sampling

Question 32

What are the two main properties of a mixed methods research (quantitative and qualitative)?

A)Determining the research question and the priority of approaches
B)Determining the priority and sequencing of approaches
C)Determining the research question and the sampling techniques
D)Determining the sampling techniques and the sequencing of approaches
E)Determining the sequencing of approaches and the data collection

Question 33

Professors Bertha Bettina conducted a research project exploring adolescent girl peer group pressure.She used closed-ended questionnaires and focus groups.Of the 221 girls that fit the criteria for inclusion,90 girls agreed to complete the self-administered questionnaire; of those,50 girls agreed to participate in focus groups.During analysis,descriptive statistics about behaviours reported by the girls were joined with major themes that came out of the focus group interviews. Which one of the following types of data analysis did Bettina use?

A)Sequential data analysis
B)Monostrand data analysis
C)Multi-method data analysis
D)Triangulation
E)Concurrent data analysis

Question 34

Professor Klaus von Stoppen obtained conflicting results in the qualitative and quantitative parts of his mixed methods study on illicit drug use among high school students in Saskatoon.What approach should he take to resolve this contradiction?

A)He should get another researcher to re-do the study.
B)He should re-do the study.
C)He does not need to resolve the contradiction.
D)He should make the decision to prioritize one approach over the other.
E)He should reanalyze the data to examine the reasons behind the contradictions.

Question 35

What is one of the major disadvantages of using qualitative interviews compared to other qualitative forms of data collection?

A)There is always the problem of the "interviewer effect."
B)There is always the problem of the "polarization effect."
C)Accessing some individuals or groups may prove to very difficult.
D)The sources may be biased.
E)A fairly limited range of research questions can be addressed with this technique.

Question 36

A central concern of ________ is the question of how texts function in particular institutional settings to produce ruling relations that shape the experiences of individuals.

A)multi-method research
B)mixed methods research
C)institutional ethnography research
D)qualitative content analysis
E)quantitative content analysis

Question 37

Professor Xavier Zaniff wants to conduct research on the experiences of newly arriving immigrants in Toronto,Montreal,and Vancouver from 2012-2017.His research design includes two data collection techniques: focus groups and in-depth interviews.Which research design is he using?

A)Monostrand design
B)Quantitative research design
C)Historical research
D)Multi-method research
E)Mixed methods

Question 38

In mixed methods research,__________ data collection refers to when data for different parts of a mixed methods project are collected in stages,while __________ data collection refers to when qualitative and quantitative data are collected at the same time.

A)concurrent; sequential
B)sequential; concurrent
C)monostrand; multi-method
D)multi-method; monostrand
E)systematic; simple

Question 39

What is one of the major advantages of using qualitative historical research methods compared to other qualitative forms of data collection?

A)It is nonreactive.
B)Data collection allows the researcher to formulate a deep understanding of a group and its members.
C)It is limited by the availability and quality of documents and data.
D)Using existing sources frees up the immense amount of time that the data collection procedure can take.
E)It does not involve a sampling phase.

Question 40

What two methodological approaches were used in Kidd's (2004,2006)sequential study of suicide among street youth in Canada?

A)Qualitative interviews and survey research
B)Focus groups and survey research
C)Content analysis and field research
D)Discourse analysis and survey research
E)Survey research and field research

Question 41

Define the following:
mixed methods

Question 42

Define the following:
multi-method research

Question 43

Define the following:
concurrent data analysis

Question 44

Define the following:
epistemic prioritization

Question 45

Define the following:
monostrand design

Question 46

Define the following:
priority

Question 47

Define the following:
interviewer effect

Question 48

Define the following:
triangulation

Question 49

Define the following:
sequence

Question 50

What distinguishes multi-method research from mixed-methods research?

A)Multi-method research combines methods sequentially,while mixed-methods research combines methods concurrently
B)Multi-method research combines methods concurrently,while mixed-methods research combines methods sequentially
C)Multi-method research combines methods from the same paradigm,while mixed-methods research combine methods from different paradigms
D)Multi-method research involves triangulation,while mixed-methods research does not
E)Mixed-method research involves triangulation,while multi-method research does not

Question 51

Define the following:
mixed methods sampling

Question 52

Define the following:
sequential data collection

Question 53

Define the following:
concurrent data collection

Question 54

Define the following:
sequential data analysis

Question 55

Define the following:
institutional ethnography (IE)