Review for Final Exam

1. What is Science; what are the procedures, motivations and resources for doing research?

a. Know the definition of operational definitions and replication

b. Be able to distinguish between personal, intellectual and institutional motivations

c. Be able to identify: Suncat, Jstor, Lexus-Nexus, Google, ICPSR, etc.

2. How do we design research: including measurement; sampling and eperimental design?

a. Know the various levels of measurement and assessing their reliability/validity.

b. Be able to dintinguish the vocabulary and types of samples and their use.

c. Define an experiment and distinguish simple, complex and quasi-designs.

3. Where do we get data: what are surveys, observations, simulations and exisitng information?

a. Know the definition of a survey, its types, writing question and they formats.

b. Give types of observations and contrast complete observer vs. participant.

c. Identify the three types of simulations and be able to give an example of each.

d. Understand the difference between secondary and content analysis.

4. When do we have cause; what is the definition, how do we control for third/multiple variables.

a. Know the four criteria for cause and be able to give examples of each.

b. Understand statistical elaboration and results of holding a third variable constant.

b. Know path analysis as it relate to cause (i.e. what are direct vs. indirect effects).

5. Know techniques for reading/writing research articles: the market, the content and formats.

a. Be able to articulate the three tiers of publishing in sociology and give examples.

b. Know components of an article and to identify its content (esp. the 4-sections).

c. Be able to illustrate the difference between MLA, APA and ASA references.