Term
| What are some important things to keep in mind when writing survey questions? |
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Definition
• Choose appropriate question forms
• Make items clear
• Avoid double barreled questions
• Respondents must be competent to answer
• Respondents must be willing to answer
• Questions should be relevant
• Short items are best
• Avoid biased items and terms
o Social desirability |
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Term
| What are steps for developing a good survey? |
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Definition
• Appropriate topics
o Survey research is used for descriptive, explanatory, and exploratory purposes
o Individual people are the unit of analysis
• Choose appropriate question forms
• Question construction |
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Term
| What is the difference between open-ended v. closed-ended questions? |
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Definition
• Open-ended questions: questions in which the respondent is asked to provide his or her own answers
o Must be coded for analysis
o Gives way for bias and misunderstanding on the part of the researcher
• Closed-ended questions: survey questions in which the respondent is asked to select an answer from among a list provided by the researcher. Provides greater uniformity of responses and more easily processed than open-ended |
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Term
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Definition
| • Pre-testing: testing the questionnaire out before you administer it to the subjects, allows for the reduction of possible error. |
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Term
| What are some ways to reduce non-response bias? |
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Definition
• Response rate: the percentage of people who respond to the survey
• Non-response bias: issue that researchers testing for the possibility that the respondents look essentially like a random sample of the initial sample and thus a somewhat smaller random sample of the total population.
o To fix?
Increase incentives to participate
Make the survey format easier to understand |
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Term
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Definition
| an in depth examination of a single instance of some social phenomenon such as a village, large family, or juvenile gang (this method generalizes) |
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Term
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Definition
| a technique developed in which the case study observations are used to discover flaws in and to improve existing social theories (the remedy) |
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Term
| to choose a qualitative versus a quantitative approach (10) |
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Definition
•Practices: various kinds of behavior such as talking or reading a book
•Episodes: a variety of events such as divorce, crime, and illness
•Encounters: two or more people meeting and interacting
•Roles and social types: the analysis of the positions people occupy and the behavior associated with those positions: occupations, family roles, ethnic groups
•Social and personal relationships: behavior appropriate to pairs or sets of roles: mother-son relationships, friendships
•Groups and cliques: small groups, such and friendship cliques, athletic teams, and work groups
•Organizations: formal organizations, such as hospitals or schools
•Settlements and habitats: small-scale “societies” such as villages, ghettos, and neighborhoods as opposed to large societies such as nations which are difficult to study
•Social worlds: ambiguous social entities with vague boundaries and populations, such as “the sports world” and “Wall Street”
•Subcultures and lifestyles: How large numbers for people adjust to life in groups such as “ruling class” or an “urban underclass” |
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Term
| Various roles of the observer |
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Definition
• Complete Participant: “going native”
• Mixed Researcher: study directly at the scene of the action, might participate might not
• Complete observer: no interaction with the group, just observing. Making presence known as a researcher
o Reactivity: the problem that subjects may react to the fact that they are being studied. Might expel researcher, modify their speck, social process itself might radically change |
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Term
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Definition
| Someone who is well versed in the social phenomenon that you wish to study and who is willing to tell you what he or she knows about it. (be weary of) |
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Term
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Definition
| observations that are recorded in the field |
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