Sociology Ch 5 Voc
Terms
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- random sample
- a sample in which everyone in the target population has the same chance of being included in the study
- interview
- direct questioning of respondents
- self-administered questionaire
- questionaires filled out by respondents
- structured interviews
- interviews that use closed-ended questions
- operational definition
- the way in which a variable in a hypothesis is measured
- quantitative research methods
- research in which the emphasis is placed on measurement, the use of statistics, and numbers
- hypothesis
- a statement of the expected relationship between variables according to predictions from a theory
- close-ended questions
- questions that are followed by a list of possible answers to be selected by the respondent
- research method (or research design)
- one of six procedures sociologists use to collect data, including surveys, participant observation, secondary analysis, documents, unobtrusive measures, and experiments
- stratified random sample
- a sample of specific subgroups of the target population in which everyone in each subgroup has an equal chance of being included in the study
- experimental group
- the group of subjects exposed to the independent variable
- questionaires
- a list of questions to be asked
- unstructured interviews
- interviews that use open-ended questions
- reliability
- the extent to which research produces consistent results
- replication
- repeating a study in order to test its findings
- variable
- a factor thought to be significant for human behavior, which varies from one case to another
- generalizability
- the extent to which the findings from one group (or sample) can be generalized or applied to other groups (or populations)
- documents
- in its narrow sense, written sources that provide data; in its extended sense, archival material of any sort, including photographs and movies
- secondary analysis
- the analysis of data already collected by other researchers
- validity
- the extent to which an operation definition measures what it is intended to measure
- sample
- the individuals intended to represent the population to be studied
- unobtrusive measures
- various ways of observing people who do not know they are being studied
- dependent variable
- a factor that is changed by an independent variable
- experiment
- the use of control groups and experimental groups, as well as dependent and independent variables, to test causation
- control group
- the group of subjects not exposed to the independent variable
- interview bias
- effects that interviewers have on respondents that lead to biased answers
- participant observation (fieldwork)
- research in which the researcher participates in the research setting while observing what is happening there
- survey
- the collection of data by having people answer a series of questions
- rapport
- a feeling of trust between researchers and the people they are studying
- open-ended questions
- questions that respondents are able to answer in their own words
- respondents
- people who respond to a survey, either in interviews or by self administered questionaires
- qualitative research methods
- research in which the emphasis is placed on observing, describing, and interpreting people's behavior
- population
- the target group to be studied
- independent variable
- a factor that causes a change in another variable, called the dependent variable