Social Research Methods MCQs

Whether or not there is really a causal relationship between two variables

Whether or not the findings are relevant to the participants’ everyday lives

The degree to which the researcher feels that this was a worthwhile project

How accurately the measurements represent underlying concepts

“Validity” has a special meaning in research, usually indicating the truth of something, its authenticity. Many of our research activities can be seen as valid steps towards producing a dissertation, for example, but our conclusions will not be worthwhile unless our research was valid. If a measure proves unreliable (see question 2), it lacks “measurement validity” but “internal validity” is lost when the “internal” relationship between variables is lost, or ambiguous, or confused. Typically, we argue that “a” causes “b”, but if “b” can actually influence the value of “a”, then the causal relationship suggested doesn’t really exist.
Reference: Bryman: Social Research Methods: 5th Edition Page(s) 41,42

Author: rikazzz Comment

The nature of quantitative research

Quantitative social researchers rarely claim to have established causality because:

They are more concerned with publishing the results of their reliability tests

They do not believe that this is an appropriate goal to be striving for

They keep forgetting which of the variables they have manipulated

They tend to use cross-sectional designs, which produce only correlations

An experimental design allows us to test for causal connections between variables, because one of the variables (the ‘independent’ variable) is manipulated to track changes in the other (the ‘dependent’ variable). However, most social survey research uses cross-sectional designs, where such manipulation is not possible. Consequently, degrees of correlation between variables can be determined but causality remains inferential. If you gave answer (b), you should recognize that very few researchers are interested in mere descriptions of things. They usually want to find out why things are the way they are so that they can be remedied or replicated. Causality is an appropriate goal, simply difficult to achieve.
Reference: Bryman: Social Research Methods: 5th Edition Page(s) 163,164

Author: rikazzz Comment

Writing up social research

The introductory section of a research report should aim to:

Identify the specific focus of the study

Provide a rationale for the dissertation, or article

Grab the reader’s attention

All of the above

Reports of both quantitative and qualitative research usually contain an introductory section that sets out the main arguments of the paper. This section also helps to attract the reader’s attention by providing a clear focus for the research and identifying some of the key debates in which it can be contextualized. Simply saying you wrote about something because you were interested in it is not enough. You must locate your interest within a body of theory, or at least an area of general concern. This is also the place to show your research questions.
Reference: Bryman: Social Research Methods: 5th Edition Page(s) 664, 669-670, 673, 678

Author: rikazzz Comment

Social research strategies: quantitative research and qualitative research

The interpretivist view of the social sciences is that:

Their subject matter is fundamentally different to that of the natural sciences

We should aim to achieve the interpretive understanding of social action

It is important to study the way people make sense of their everyday worlds

All of the above

All of these answers reveal something about the interpretivist view of the social sciences. The approach is based on a reaction to positivism, insisting that people are not objects that can be studied by means of natural science’s methodologies. Most social phenomena are produced through human interaction and their meanings are formed through human discourse. Consequently, what things mean to human actors is an essential part of social research. Some research philosophers hold that this is the only proper object of social research; the study of what things mean to people and how people feel and react to that interpretation.
Reference: Bryman: Social Research Methods: 5th Edition Page(s) 26-28

Author: rikazzz Comment

Sampling in qualitative research

Probability sampling is rarely used in qualitative research because:

Qualitative researchers are not trained in statistics

It is very old-fashioned

It is often not feasible

Research questions are more important than sampling

Quantitative research is concerned with quantities and frequencies of occurrence in the general population, so the study sample must be representative. In qualitative research it can often “be impossible to map the population from which a random sample might be taken” (p416), making probability sampling infeasible. Qualitative researchers may well be familiar with statistical techniques but that is hardly the point. It is true that certain types of qualitative research emphasize the importance of developing research questions during research, adding to the sample from time to time. Sampling remains important for all types of research, however.
Reference: Bryman: Social Research Methods: 5th Edition Page(s) 408

Author: rikazzz Comment

Quantitative data analysis

What is an outlier?

A type of variable that cannot be quantified

A score that is left out of the analysis because of missing data

An extreme value at either end of a distribution

None of these

When we calculate a simple average, the ‘arithmetic mean’, we have to remember that a wide range of values can give the same average as a narrow range and that extreme values could make a simple average fairly meaningless. These values are called ‘outliers’, extremely high or low values in a distribution that threaten to bias the results. The ‘median’ is useful, in this regard, because it simply identifies the mid-point in a whole array of values, giving us a measure of the significance of the arithmetic mean.
Reference: Bryman: Social Research Methods: 5th Edition Page(s) 338

Author: rikazzz Comment

Computer-assisted qualitative data analysis: using NVivo

You code your data in NVivo by:

Applying nodes to segments of text

Using a pre-set coding frame

Entering the data case by case as “variables”

Changing the spelling of certain words to disguise their real meaning

With your document open, you code your data by high-lighting a section of text and copying it to a node. There are many ways of highlighting text, like changing the font, or by using colour, which might be useful to you. NVivo simply accepts as nodes what you place there. Similarly, there are a variety of ways in which text selections can be inserted, including “dragging and “dropping” or by using the tool bar’s “copy and paste” tools. Again, it doesn’t matter to NVivo. It should follow from this that coding is absolutely your decision and any subsequent problems are more likely to stem from this fact, rather than from some defect in the programme. Since there are few practical restrictions on how much data can be coded, it is probably a good idea to code to a number of nodes at once. Later, redundant nodes can be deleted (or changed) and text can be “unselected”, if that seems more desirable.
Reference: Bryman: Social Research Methods: 5th Edition Page(s) 606-6111

Author: rikazzz Comment

Ethics and politics in social research

Why is it argued that ethical transgression is pervasive in social research?

Because most researchers do not bother to follow a professional code of ethics

Because researchers rarely provide their participants with all the information they might want to know about a project

Because it helps us to justify the more extreme forms of unethical conduct that we prefer to pursue

Because sociologists want to present themselves as inconsiderate and careless

Another of the ethical stances that Bryman identifies is the claim that ethical transgression is pervasive and therefore inevitable in social research. This is based on the acknowledgement that researchers have to deceive or withhold information from their participants to some extent. It would be impractical to tell everyone every detail. For example, about the research design. A further instance of this is if the researcher explained the hypotheses being tested, or that most people of a particular socio-economic background hold a particular point of view; whilst this ismore “honest”, it would also bias the response.
Reference: Bryman: Social Research Methods: 5th Edition Page(s) 124

Author: rikazzz Comment

Mixed methods research: combining quantitative and qualitative research

What is triangulation?

Using three quantitative or three qualitative methods in a project

Cross-checking the results found by different research strategies

Allowing theoretical concepts to emerge from the data

Drawing a triangular diagram to represent the relations between three concepts

Triangulation is one of many approaches to multi-strategy research, and it involves cross-checking the results of an investigation that used a method associated with one research strategy (e.g. a quantitative method) against the results from using a method associated with the other research strategy (e.g. a qualitative method).
Reference: Bryman: Social Research Methods: 5th Edition Page(s) 638

Author: rikazzz Comment

The nature and process of social research

A deductive theory is one that:

Allows theory to emerge out of the data

Involves testing an explicitly defined hypothesis

An emergency source of finance

Uses qualitative methods whenever possible

A deduction is a conclusion drawn logically from an argument or a discussion of things previously established or known. Deductions can be expressed as hypotheses which can then be tested, so answer (b) must be correct. However, when we have gathered and analysed the research data, the research findings can be fed back into our existing knowledge, which is a form of induction, meaning answer (c) cannot be correct. The usual application of inductive theory, however, is to allow theory to emerge from our findings, so answer (a) cannot be correct, either. Finally, although it is more likely for deductive theory to use quantitative methods and for inductive approaches to use qualitative methods, we will see later in the book that the methods can be mixed to good effect.
Reference: Bryman: Social Research Methods: 5th Edition Page(s) 6

Author: rikazzz Comment