Question 1

Researchers are often worried that interviewees have not been completely honest or forthcoming, especially when asked about sensitive subjects. How did Arlie Hochschild attempt to deal with this problem?

Accepted Answer

Arlie Hochschild attempted to deal with the problem of dishonesty or lack of forthcoming answers by observing some respondents as they went about their daily routines to see if their actions matched their answers. This helped her to gain a more accurate insight into their lives and behaviors. Option A (trapping respondents in contradictions) and option E (using leading questions) can be seen as unethical and ultimately unproductive. Option B (interviewing spouses separately) could potentially lead to more insight, but may not be feasible in all situations. Option D (confronting respondents) can also be seen as confrontational and may result in defensive responses from the interviewee.

Question 2

When he was writing The Spirit and the Flesh: Sexual Diversity in American Indian Culture, the ethnographer Walter Williams was always very open about his own sexual orientation because he believed that being open with the people he was studying was the only way to establish a trusting and sharing interaction with them. What was Williams concerned with?

Accepted Answer

Williams was concerned with establishing rapport with the people he was studying in order to gain their trust and encourage sharing of information. Being open about his own sexual orientation was a way to show that he was not judging or imposing his views on their culture, but rather interested in learning and understanding it.

Question 3

Which of the following is NOT a disadvantage of using interviews to conduct social research?

Accepted Answer

Allowing interviewees to speak in their own words is actually an advantage of using interviews as it provides rich and diverse data. The other options listed are all potential disadvantages of using interviews for social research.

Question 4

What kind of question usually produces a wide variety of responses by allowing respondents to answer in whatever way seems appropriate to them?

Accepted Answer

An open-ended question allows respondents to answer in their own words and provide a wide variety of responses. Closed-ended questions, on the other hand, offer limited response options such as "yes" or "no" and can restrict the respondent's answer. Double-barreled questions ask two questions in one, making it difficult for the respondent to provide a clear answer to both questions. Leading questions are designed to influence the respondent's answer, and loaded questions contain assumptions or judgments.

Question 5

Some researchers suggest that interviews give "voice" to people who may never have been heard before and offer privileged access to authentic experience, private worlds, and true selves. How do interviews do this?

Accepted Answer

Interviews give voice to people by allowing them to speak in their own words and reveal their internal states, such as thoughts, feelings, and beliefs, which may not be accessible through any other means. This can offer privileged access to authentic experience and private worlds.

Question 6

A professor has been commissioned by a college to do research on its new academic system. The college has moved from a semester system to block scheduling. He asks, "How have teachers and students responded to the new intensive block scheduling system?" This is an example of:

Accepted Answer

This is a double-barreled question because it is asking about both teachers and students' response to the new system, which could lead to confusion about which group the respondent is primarily addressing. It would be more effective to ask separate questions about each group's response.

Question 7

The anthropologist Ruth Behar traveled to San Luis Potosí to learn more about the everyday lives of Mexican women. Instead, she ended up conducting one very long, very intensive interview with a woman named Esperanza and wrote a book based upon more than a year of interview data. Which disadvantage of the interview methodology does this book highlight?

Accepted Answer

The book's focus on one long interview highlights the time consuming nature of face-to-face interviews, which may not be practical for conducting with large numbers of people and therefore may not be representative of the population as a whole.

Question 8

Arlie Hochschild was concerned that her sample of interviewees was too small to guarantee representativeness. How did Hochschild attempt to overcome this problem?

Accepted Answer

Hochschild attempted to overcome the problem of a small sample size by comparing demographic information about her interviewees with information about the target population. This allowed her to assess how well her sample represented the larger population she was interested in studying.

Question 9

Which of the following is an advantage of using interviews as a research method?

Accepted Answer

Interviews allow researchers to directly gather information about attitudes and beliefs that may not be accessible through other research methods, such as surveys or observational studies.

Question 10

Every four years when it's time to elect a new president, we pay much attention to surveys, which we usually call "polls." Even though there are more than three hundred million people in the United States, most political pollsters ask about a thousand people who it is they plan to vote for and use that information to predict how the election will turn out. Who is the sample for a presidential poll?

Accepted Answer

The sample for a presidential poll refers to the specific group of individuals who are actually surveyed or asked about their voting intentions, which in this context is described as the one thousand people who are asked whom they will vote for.

Question 11

If a researcher has obtained informed consent from all his participants, it means that:

Accepted Answer

Informed consent means that the participants understand the nature of the study, what will be asked of them, and have agreed to participate voluntarily. Monetary compensation, belonging to a target population, confidentiality, and reading prior literature are all important aspects of ethical research, but they do not directly relate to obtaining informed consent.

Question 12

In her research for The Second Shift, Arlie Hochschild interviewed married couples to find out how they dealt with changing family roles as more women entered the workforce. What advantages came from her decision to use interviews as a research method?

Accepted Answer

Using interviews allowed Hochschild to gather direct quotations and construct an intimate portrait of married couples. This method also allowed for a deeper exploration of the couples' experiences and perspectives on changing family roles.

Question 13

After researchers conduct a series of interviews, they usually transcribe the responses. The transcription process is fairly time consuming, but it is valuable in part because it allows researchers to:

Accepted Answer

Transcribing responses allows researchers to analyze and identify patterns in their data, which can then inform their research findings and conclusions.

Answer: B
 By transcribing interviews, researchers can check for any biases that they may have brought to the interview process, such as leading questions or assumptions that may have influenced the responses of their interviewees.

Answer: C
 Transcribing interviews can also help researchers come up with new questions that they may not have considered during the initial interview stage, based on the responses of their participants.

Answer: D
 Transcribing interviews does not provide information on the average age of interviewees; this would need to be collected separately.

Answer: E
 While transcribing interviews can provide valuable insights into the data collected, it does not by itself allow researchers to determine whether their sample was representative of the larger population. This would require additional research methods, such as survey sampling or statistical analysis.

Question 14

A research team is curious about the relationship between diet and exercise habits and academic performance among American college students. In order to get their data, the researchers randomly select seventeen colleges by pulling names out of a hat and travel to campuses, where they stand in prominent public places and ask for volunteers until they have ten people from each campus willing to be interviewed. What is the researchers' target population?

Accepted Answer

The target population is American college students as this is the group being studied. The fact that the researchers randomly selected seventeen colleges and only interviewed ten people from each campus does not change the target population.

Question 15

A closed-ended question is one that:

Accepted Answer

A closed-ended question only allows for a limited set of responses, typically with predetermined answer choices or a "yes" or "no" option. It is designed to provide specific and standardized answers for easier analysis and comparison.

Question 16

Researchers should try to avoid double-barreled questions, or questions that:

Accepted Answer

Double-barreled questions can confuse respondents because they are asking about multiple issues at once. It is best to break them down into separate questions to avoid confusion and get accurate data.

Question 17

Why do social scientists who use interviews rarely speak with large numbers of people for a project?

Accepted Answer

Face-to-face interviews are a time-consuming process, and therefore it is not practical to speak with large numbers of people for a project. It can take several hours to conduct a single interview, and transcribing and analyzing the data can be very time-consuming as well. Therefore, social scientists often conduct a smaller number of interviews but focus on getting in-depth and high-quality data.

Question 18

Survey research tends to produce quantitative data. One key advantage of this kind of data is that:

Accepted Answer

Quantitative data is easily quantifiable, measurable, and statistically analyzed, which makes it easier to transmit to the public in a clear and understandable format. This data can be presented in graphs, charts, tables or other formats that can be easily interpreted by almost anyone.

Question 19

Sociologists who conduct interviews can only gather data from a limited number of people because:

Accepted Answer

Interviews are time-consuming because they involve detailed, often in-depth conversations with participants. This limits the number of people from whom data can be gathered within a reasonable timeframe.

Question 20

Imagine that you're trying to rewrite a survey. You find a multiple-choice question that asks, "What is your favorite recreational activity?" and gives three response options: watching television, shopping, or sports. You add a fourth response option, "other," and invite respondents to write an activity of their choice. What kind of question have you just made?

Accepted Answer

By adding an "other" option with a space for respondents to write their own answer, the question becomes open-ended, allowing for a variety of responses beyond the predefined options.

Quiz 2: Studying Social Life: Sociological Research Methods