1 Sociology 357 Methods of Sociological Inquiry STUDY GUIDE FOR FINAL Date: 12/20/06 Time: 12:25~13:40 Room: Soc Sci 5231 The format of the final exam will be the same as the previous exams. The exam is cumulative. All lectures, textbook, and readings will be covered by default. Format Multiple choice and true-false questions: 15*1 point each Short answer questions: 5*2 points each Total = 25 points, 25% of grades Topics since the last exam (Topics on study guides 1 and 2 are not listed below but will also be included in the final.) Field Research • Methods of data collection (observation, interview, focus group) • Role of researcher (as participant vs. observer) • Strengths and weaknesses of field research • Differences between quantitative and qualitative research methods Evaluation Research • Black-box approach vs. theory-driven approach • Naïve estimator (simple comparisons of outcomes) • Causal effect as a counterfactual question • Selectivity bias. observed selectivity and unobserved selectivity • Evaluation research design: experiments and quasi-experiments • Non-equivalent control groups Unobtrusive Research • Types of obtrusive and unobtrusive research • Content analysis • Research design of “the 15th Book of OZ” (technical part about Principle Component Analysis not required) • Method of agreement & method of disagreement in macro-causal analysis • Identify potential causes using these methods • Problems with macro-causal analysis2 The Elaboration Model • Interpretation of interaction effects • Be able to interpret results of three-way cross-tabulations and relate to causal diagrams • Use of control as subgroup analysis in three-variable analysis Introduction to Regression • Dependent and independent variables in regression equations • Interpretation of regression coefficients: slope and intercept • Three uses of regression analysis (descriptive, explanatory, predictive) • Scatterplot, linear and non-linear relationships • Simple and multiple regressions • "Controlling" for confounding factors via multiple regression • Statistical significance vs. substantial significance • Problem of linear extrapolation (reading: “Gender Differences in Sports”) Age-Period-Cohort Effects • Definition of cohort • The relationships of the three. Linear dependency. • Identify an effect as an age, period, or cohort effect • Easterlin hypothesis • Interpret results of an age-period-cohort analysis. Discuss age effects and cohort effects based on a table of mean comparisons. Ecological Fallacy • Ecological fallacy as an aggregation bias. Ecological correlation and individual correlation are different because ecological correlation depends on marginal frequencies, while individual correlation depends on internal frequencies. Use 2-way tables to explain how ecological fallacy arises. • Relationship between ecological fallacy and omitted variable bias • Ecological effect is a not equivalent to aggregation of individual effects (i.e., the issue of construct validity in ecological fallacy). • Multilevel models: know the difference between between-school effects and within-school
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