Comprehensive Exam – Research Methods – Fall 2005

Be sure to answer all of the questions (A-D) and label your answers with the appropriate question letter. Use concrete examples and be specific in your answers. Avoid vagueness and explain your answers fully.

Section I. General, Overall Methodological Considerations

A. Different methods have different strengths, weaknesses, and appropriate uses. Pick 3 methods from the bulleted list below and answer all 4 questions for each of the 3 methods you selected.

1. Briefly describe this method.

2. What are the strengths of this method? (Be sure your answer includes a discussion of relevant reliability and validity issues).

3. What are the weaknesses of this method? (Be sure your answer includes a discussion of relevant reliability and validity issues).

4. Describe a situation in which this method would provide the best approach to collecting data, and explain why.

5. As examples, briefly describe one published piece of research for each the 3 methods you selected. Be sure you identify the study well enough for it to be verified (authors and or source/name of the study).

· Face-to-face, one-on-one interviews with open-ended questions

· Case Studies

· Mailed questionnaires with closed ended questions

· Experimental Method

· Content Analysis

· Participant Observation (PO) WITH the researcher identified

· Ethnography with the researcher NOT identified

B. Pick one of the bulleted passages below and write an appropriate formal hypothesis that includes a predictive and testable relationship between two variables. For the hypothesis you write, indicate the independent variable by labeling it (I). Indicate the dependent variable by labeling it (D). Explain how your hypothesis is both predictive and testable.

· You suspect there might be a relationship between divorce and poverty.

• The back-to-marriage movement makes the argument that greater legislative difficulty in obtaining divorce will decrease poverty and violent crime.

Section II. Methodological Design Issues

C. Choose ONE of the bulleted statements below. Imagine a realistic research project that could investigate whether data support or challenge the statement you chose. Answer all four of the questions about the research project you imagined.

· It has been suggested that the relatively lower salaries women are paid in the workplace are the result of choices that these women have made.

· It has been suggested that the relatively lower salaries women are paid in the workplace are the result of institutionalized sexism.

1. What will be your primary method for collecting data? Why?

2. What validity issues will you need to address if you use this as your primary method?

3. What reliability issues will you need to address if you use this as your primary method?

4. What type of sample would you construct? Why?

Section III. Measurement Issues in Methodology

D. Tanya contended that, as a person ages, they become less satisfied with the tattoos that they have. She used the data in Table 1 to support his contention. Juan disagreed and argued that the age difference in this data is spurious and that the age of initial receipt of a tattoo is the real factor. He reanalyzed Tanya’s data (Table 2). (1) Based on the tables, who is correct? (2) Explain and justify your answer both statistically and in your own words.

Table 1 Years of Age

Under 30 30 and Over

Satisfaction Levels

Highly satisfied 32% 15%

Moderately satisfied 23% 20%

Low level of satisfaction 45% 65%

Total (n): 815 937

Chi-square: p=.001

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Table 2

Years of Age

Under 30 30 and Over

Satisfaction Levels

Age at

1^st tattoo Highly satisfied 15% 13%

under 25 Moderately Satisfied 22% 21%

Low level of satisfaction 63% 66%

Total (n): 346 556

Chi-square: p=.25

Years of Age

Under 30 30 and Over

Satisfaction Levels

Age at

1^st tattoo Highly satisfied 44% 20%

over 25 Moderately Satisfied 27% 26%

Low level of satisfaction 29% 54%

Total (n): 355 180

Chi-square: p=.0001