Deck 4: The Meanings of Methodology

Question 1

Dr. Smith said that social science is not value neutral. This suggests that the aim of a good study is to implement action to affect social change. Dr. Smith uses which approach to social science?

A) positivism
B) critical social science
C) interpretative social science

Answer 1

B

Question 2

According to interpretative social science, human beings are

A) beings with great potential who are trapped by illusion and exploitation.
B) self-interested and rational beings who are largely shaped by outside forces.
C) slaves full of unrealized potential who are waiting for emancipation.
D) meaning-creating beings who attempt to make sense of the world around them.

Answer 2

D

Question 3

Instrumental orientation is defined as

A) how people are controlled by unseen causal laws that operate on them.
B) looking at how ordinary people manage their everyday practical affairs by using commonsense.
C) looking beneath the illusion-filled surface.
D) knowledge that is a tool that can help people control their surroundings or improve the efficiency of things in society today.

Answer 3

D

Question 4

Verstehen

A) positivist
B) interpretative
C) critical

Question 5

According to critical social science perspective CSS), humans are fundamentally

A) beings who create meaning and try to make sense of their world.
B) beings with little free will whose actions are predictable.
C) self-interested and rational beings shaped by outside forces.
D) creative beings with great potential who are trapped by illusion and exploitation.

Question 6

The Redtail school district has inadequate supplies and textbooks for its students. The children of the Bluecrest school district have an excellent school district with all of the resources they need. Despite the obvious inequality between these two school districts, several members of the Redtail PTA argue that Redtail and Bluecrest school districts are treated equally by the state educational board. An educational sociologist from the critical social science approach would say that members of the Readtail PTA suffer from

A) verstehen.
B) false consciousness.
C) intersubjectivity.
D) reification.

Question 7

The postulate of adequacy states

A) knowledge is an instrument that can be used to satisfy human needs and control the social and physical environment.
B) a researcher should present the results of a study to the people who were studied to see whether it "makes sense" to them as a description of their social life.
C) social researchers should study social facts, and social facts can be studied as things.
D) repeating a study over and over and getting the same results is the best way to determine the truthfulness of an explanation.

Question 8

Positivists believe intersubjectivity is very crucial component of scientific research. Intersubjectivity states

A) social reality is a process characterized by constant change and conflict.
B) social scientists should study meaningful social action.
C) the search for scientific knowledge or truths is a never-ending one.
D) reasonable people can agree on what they observe in the empirical world using their senses i.e., touch, sight, and hearing) and this is the basis of facts in science.

Question 9

The interpretative social science approach is described as ideographic in its theory and method. What does this mean?

A) It is the use of abstract ideas, laws, or propositions to deduce logically or infer specific hypotheses that researchers test against the facts of observable empirical reality.
B) It tries to discover a system of causal laws that determines patterns of human behavior.
C) It focuses on descriptions of specific people and events in a particular situation.
D) It attempts to change the social world based on evidence that supports one's ideological perspective.

Question 10

A theory of meaning emphasizes a detailed reading of the "text" to discover embedded meaning. It is used in some social research and is called

A) instrumental orientation.
B) verstehen.
C) hermeneutics.
D) ideographic.

Question 11

Critical researchers put theory into practice and use the results to reformulate theories so that research encourages action in which people learn how to change the world. This idea is called

A) relativism.
B) praxis.
C) reification.
D) hermeneutics.

Question 12

Which approach states that the purpose of research is to study and understand the creation of social meaning?

A) interpretative social science
B) positivism
C) critical social science

Question 13

For the positivist approach to research, a theory looks like

A) a logical system of laws, axioms, and propositions.
B) a descriptive travel book or guidebook to a different society.
C) a critique which claims that people are being mislead.
D) a novel or story of specific people and places.

Question 14

All approaches to social science make general assumptions about "free will" and provide models of human nature. The interpretative view states that:

A) researchers can explain human behavior by systematically documenting the external forces or laws acting on people.
B) people actively create their social realities in an ongoing process.
C) people have partial autonomy and have choices within constraints or structures.
D) "free will" is a fiction. It is little more than a term to describe areas of human behavior for which we have not yet discovered the causal laws.

Question 15

Interpretive social science argues that there are no absolute standards, values, or truths to judge human actions. This perspective takes an) perspective towards values.

A) practical
B) inductive
C) voluntary
D) relativist

Question 16

Reification

A) positivist
B) interpretative
C) critical

Question 17

The positivist social scientist says that researchers should study

A) dialectics of society.
B) causal laws of human nature.
C) how to create social change.
D) meaningful social action.

Question 18

According to the critical social science perspective, humans often have unrealized potential. Often this occurs when people treat human creations as if they were something separate and alien that have a force independent of the people who created them. This is called

A) ideal type.
B) idiographic
C) relativism.
D) reification.

Question 19

Positivism seeks universal laws, and positivist researchers attempt to create law-like generalizations to explain events in the social world. This focus on laws in explanation is called

A) nomothetic.
B) verstehen.
C) determinism.
D) ideographic.

Question 20

What does "theory" look like for interpretative social science?

A) a criticism of social conditions that claims that people are being mislead
B) a rigorous, logical system of laws, axioms, and propositions
C) a program of political action and social change
D) the everyday common sense thoughts of ordinary people

Question 21

Ideographic

A) positivist
B) interpretative
C) critical

Question 22

Facts are viewed differently between the three main approaches to the social sciences. How do each of the three approaches understand social facts? How is each approach different? Does one approach bridge the differences between the other two? How?

Question 23

Can science be "value free"? How does each approach to the social sciences address the issue of being "value free"? Explain.

Question 24

Dr. Tea Greenburg wrote an article titled, "Freedom in a Cage: The Exploitation of Untenured Academics and Their Struggles with Academic Freedom." Which approach to social science is Dr. Greenburg most likely advocating?

A) critical social science
B) interpretive social science
C) feminist social science
D) positivist social science

Question 25

What is the purpose of social research according to the positivist approach? How does this compare to a postmodern approach? How does this relate to how each approach defines social reality?

Question 26

Each of the three main approaches to social science has strengths and weaknesses. Many of the weakness of positivism are subsequently addressed by interpretive and critical approaches, and vice versa. How have the perspectives of feminist and postmodern research address further weakness of each of the three main approaches?

Question 27

Praxis

A) positivist
B) interpretative
C) critical

Question 28

Applied and basic research were discussed in chapter 2. Which approach to social science is most likely to address each audience? Explain.

Question 29

Nomothetic

A) positivist
B) interpretative
C) critical

Question 30

Often social scientists are confronted by the ideologies of commonsense. How does each of the main approaches to the social sciences address commonsense?

Question 31

What are some of the criticisms of positivism? How do the imperative and critical approaches address these criticisms?

Question 32

Each of the three main approaches to social science makes assumptions about "nature of human beings." Compare and contrast the positivist, imperative, and critical approaches take on the "nature of human beings."

Question 33

In the social sciences, an attempt is made to discover "the truth" about a social phenomenon. Which perspective attempts to find scientific truth by maintaining logical consistency, supported by observed facts, making sure that one's findings can be replicated by others?

A) interpretive social science
B) feminist social science
C) critical social science
D) positivist social science

Question 34

Social scientists use their knowledge in many different ways. How does each of the three main approaches to social science utilize the knowledge they learn? Utilize the instrumental, practical, and the reflexive-dialectic orientations to guide your answer.

Question 35

Explain the concept of verstehen and the way verstehen is used in interpretive social science.

Question 36

Having been exposed to the three main approaches to social science, briefly outline how each perspective would propose research on the social issues surrounding the use of the death penalty in the United States.

Question 37

Covering law model

A) positivist
B) interpretative
C) critical

Question 38

False consciousness

A) positivist
B) interpretative
C) critical

Question 39

While positivists attempt to define laws of social interaction, postmodern researchers advocate which of the following?

A) argue that the social sciences have historically been a male gendered science
B) aim to utilize social research to expose how power influences social interaction and serve as a catalyst for social change
C) are most concerned with the meaning of social interaction
D) aim to reject social laws and attempt to deconstruct the observable world to reveal the hidden structure