Sociology Assignment Chapter 2 PDF

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Homework assignment for chapter 2...

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Activity 1: Choose one of these spurious correlations and explain what variable (or variables) is not being measured to create this relationship. The chosen spurious correlation is the one involving the sales of Japan made vehicles, and the number of deaths caused by the purposeful crashing of cars. A possible variable that is not being measured would be the stock market crash in the mid 2000’s. I believe that could be an unmeasured variable, because the two variables in the chart declined around the years of 2008 and 2009. The suicides could have gone down in 2009 as the stock market started to make an attempt to recover, and the sales of Japan made vehicles may have declined due to the sharp decrease in American buying power.

Activity 2: What is the difference between quantitative and qualitative research? Quantitative research focuses on variables that can be measured numerically, while qualitative research depends on variables that can be determined by a certain attribute. Quantitative research could measure the GPA for a range of high school students, while qualitative research may measure the hair color of the students. Certain examples from the chapter include the unemployment rate as a quantitative variable, and school of choice as a qualitative variable. When would you choose one or another research method to effectively address an issue of interest? If I wanted to address an issue of interest that pertains to numbers, I would choose to conduct my research with quantitative variables. If I wanted to address an issue that pertains to a certain physical attribute, I would conduct my research with qualitative variables. Sociologists often use interviews and surveys as methods for collecting data. The potential problems with these methods include how the person being interviewed could lie and steer the results of the research. If a survey is given over the phone, the person on the other end could possibly hang up or also lie. If a survey is given through email, the recipient may either delete it or just not click on it. Researchers need to be aware of possible instances of lying, and the chance of just no response. Surveys and interviews should be given in person. Researchers can take steps such as avoiding asking yes/no questions, and asking the same question(s) to a group of randomly selected people. What factors might affect the honesty of people’s responses to survey or interview questions? The factors that may influence the honesty of people’s responses include the person and/or business who is asking the question, or how the survey/interview may not allow for the interviewee to be anonymous.

Consider what you learned in this chapter about survey research and design a project to assess the problem. A plausible project design would include a random sample of people (chosen randomly) that is at least one tenth of the population that it should represent. The group of people would be asked a series of yes/no questions, and their answers would be kept anonymous. Each one of the interviewees would be encouraged to tell the truth. The answers to the survey/interview may need to be put next to past data, to see if the data is true or if it has changed. In this chapter, you learned about the issue of ethics in research and read about the Zimbardo prison experiment. A sociological research project may be seen as ethical if none of the humans involved are hurt, abused, or killed. The Stanford Prison experiment most likely would not be able to be conducted exactly the same way it was years ago because the abuse of non-prisoners would not be tolerated. People can not be treated like prisoners, if they are not actually real prisoners. A sociological project may be seen as unethical if at least one test subject has died, or is close to dying. I do not think it would be ethical for a perfectly healthy person to be given a drug for cancer in a clinical research study. The person may become seriously ill, and/or the drug may have helped a cancer patient live. Animal abuse may deem a project unethical, too. I believe that knowledge collected under unethical conditions should still be collected, as it is necessary to the experiment. The knowledge should only be kept if the experiment was legal. The data collected under unethical conditions should be used in the same way as data from ethical conditions, as long as the experiment was legal. Choose a social problem of interest to you. The social problem would be high rates of abortion in/near minority neighborhoods and college campuses. Quantitative methods could be used to measure the number of abortions done in/near minority neighborhoods and college campuses, and then ones done in/near non-minority neighborhoods. The numbers could then be compared. These same methods could be used to find the amount of Planned Parenthood facilities in minority and non-minority neighborhoods, then compare. Also the amount of facilities near college campuses. Qualitative methods could be used to find out the race that seems to be the majority in certain neighborhoods included in the study. Neighborhoods around Planned Parenthoods could be studied in order to discover which race is the most dominant. The ethical issues I would need to consider include making sure the whole study is legal, and all of the information conducted is legal for me to have. If there is a problem, with someone walking door to door to gather information, data could possibly be gathered from the latest census, or the courthouse.

Research Questions: ● ● ●

Where are the Planned Parenthood locations for this randomly selected state? Are there any neighborhoods or college campuses around the Planned Parenthood locations? Is the neighborhood a minority neighborhood?

Activity 3: Drinking one whole serving of alcohol, one after the next, possibly up until the point of passing out. The responses of my peers are very similar to the one of my own. My peers are basing their responses off of movies and television shows, while I am basing my definition on my knowledge of each word (“binge” and “drinking”) and combining them. I am not old enough to drink yet, and do not have the ability to base this off any experience. Other bases that I could form my operational definitions on could include someone’s experience with binge drinking, but I do not know anyone who actually binge drinks.

Activity 4: If I wanted to take a random sample of 200 people in my city, the population of my study would have to be at least 2,000 people, because a random sample always has to be at least 1/10th of the population. If I were to gather 200 randomly selected people, I would do so by obtaining a list of all the residents in my city from the courthouse, the census, etc; I would ensure the list is in alphabetical order, and assign each person to a number 0001 to 2000 (the first name would be given the number 0001, etc;) Then, I would use the random number generator on my calculator and select 200 random numbers from 0001 to 2000. I would find which names are assigned to those numbers, and choose those people for this study.

Sources Used: Chambliss, William J., and Daina S. Eglitis. Discover Sociology. 4th ed., SAGE, 2020....