How Do We Know What We Know?
Suicide Is a Social Act (Chapter 1) 17
Our Values—and Others’ Values (Chapter 2) 51
Group Conformity (Chapter 3) 86
Do Formal or Informal Procedures Result in Greater Productivity? (Chapter 3) 96
Measuring Attitudes with a Likert Scale (Chapter 4) 117
Finding Hard-to-Get Answers through Sampling (Chapter 4) 120
Balanced Reporting and the Value of Content Analysis (Chapter 4) 125
Maternal “Instinct” (Chapter 5) 143
“Be Like Me/Don’t Be Like Me” (Chapter 5) 151
Gender and the Boy Code (Chapter 5) 162
Abortion and the Crime Rate (Chapter 6) 187
Does the Death Penalty Act as a Deterrent to Crime? (Chapter 6) 199
The General Social Survey (Chapter 7) 216
Mobility Studies (Chapter 7) 228
Changing Racial Attitudes (Chapter 8) 255
Race and Intelligence (Chapter 8) 261
“Biology Is Destiny” (Chapter 9) 285
The Gender of Violence (Chapter 9) 291
How Many Sex Partners Do People Have? (Chapter 10) 331
The “Midlife Crisis” (Chapter 11) 355
Studying Age Cohorts (Chapter 11) 372
The Opt-Out Revolution (Chapter 12) 403
Gender Symmetry in IPV (Chapter 12) 411
The Poor Work Harder than the Rich (Chapter 13) 440
Workplace Discrimination (Chapter 13) 450
Measuring Democracy (Chapter 14) 463
The Case of Polling (Chapter 14) 472
Measuring Religiosity (Chapter 15) 506
The Gay Brain (Chapter 15) 512
Intervention Strategies to Combat Alcohol Abuse on Campus (Chapter 16) 544
Measuring Health Care (Chapter 16) 548
Does Private School Make a Difference? (Chapter 17) 567
The Racial Achievement Gap (Chapter 17) 570
Does Watching Pornography Cause Rape? (Chapter 18) 593
Interfering Variables (Chapter 18) 612
Life Expectancy (Chapter 19) 629
Indexes (Chapter 19) 641Try It
Historical Figures in Sociology Examined (Chapter 1) 23
Thinking about Culture in Everyday Life (Chapter 2) 42
Exploring Master Status (Chapter 3) 79
Investigating Interviews and Surveys (Chapter 4) 116
Self Image and Socialization (Chapter 5) 157
Applying Theories to Deviance in the News (Chapter 6) 175
Living on an Impoverished Salary (Chapter 7) 227
The Media and Racial and Ethnic Relationships (Chapter 8) 269
Gender and Occupational Stratification (Chapter 9) 300
The Pink Triangle Experiment (Chapter 10) 338The Likert scaleis the most
scale in survey research. Developed byRensis Likert (1932), it is a techniquewidely used
that presents a set of statements on aquestionnaire, then asks respondents to
express levels of agreement or disagree-ment with these statements. Theirresponses are given numerical value,
usually along a five-point or a seven-point scale. By tallying these numeric
values, sociologists can gauge people’sattitudes.Likert scales can be used to gauge
many types of attitudes, from agreementor disagreement to relative importance,
likelihood, quality, or frequency. SomeLikert scales provide a middle value thatis neutral or undecided; others use a“forced-choice” scale, with no
neutral value, that requiresrespondents to decide whether theylean more toward agreement or
disagreement.For example, let’s say you are doing a
survey examining employee self-esteem.You want to gauge levels of self-satisfac-tion in the workplace. You might present
people with a series of statements suchas, “I feel good about my work in school
on the job,” and “I can tell my co-work-ers respect me,” among others. Then youwould ask respondents to record the
extent of their agreement or disagree-ment with these statements along a Lik-
ert scale. The scale could look somethinglike this:Measuring Attitudes with a Likert ScaleHowdo we knowwhat we knowon a “forced-choice” scale that looksmore like this:Or, they could record their answersdisagreestrongly^12345 somewhat neutraldisagree somewhatagreestronglyagreedisagreestrongly^1234 somewhatdisagreesomewhatagreestronglyagree
structure into account when analyzingand reporting your results. But in eitherYou would take the different scaling
case, the Likert scale would help you tosee the extent or intensity of atti-tudes—more or less, stronger or weaker,
bigger or smaller—registered by yoursurvey subjects.OBJECTIVE: Investigate how to develop interviewquestions and explore how research connects tosociological content.
STEP 1: PlanIdentify a research question that would require you tointerview college students. There are numerous topics that
would work for this project, but when in doubt be sure tocheck with your instructor about your research question.After you have identified your topic of interest, take a
moment to identify your dependent variable. After you haveidentified your dependent variable, think about how youmight measure it and develop six questions that you would
ask in an interview to address instructor may have an example to help you with thisprocess. Write out your research question, dependentyour research question. Your
variable, and interview questions.STEP 2: Collect Data
The next step is to find a student in your sociology class tointerview. It is best to partner with another student and toshare interviews. As you are interviewing your partner
student, not only pay attention to the responses but alsothink about how well your interview questions allowed youto really explore your research question. Make notes about
what questions were not understood by your intervieweeor what questions did not really result in the information youwere hoping to gain from the student. After completing theinterview, review your questions and revise them. As you are
revising them, explain briefly why you revised each question.STEP 3: Write
After completing this activity, you may be asked to submita short reflection paper including the following items. First,explain the research questions you chose for the project
and discuss the dependent variable you were hoping tomeasure. Second, include your original list of interviewquestions and briefly explain what information you were
hoping to learn in your interview. Third, discuss whathappened in your interview and what you learned from theexperience. Finally, include a list of your revised questions
and provide a detailed explanation of why you revised yourquestions. Your instructor will give you further details onthe length of this paper and may include other topics
in this paper.STEP 4: Discuss
At some point, your instructor may lead the class ina discussion of survey research, and you could be asked toshare your experiences with this project. Please note that
there are numerous variations of this activity, and yourinstructor may have further directions.Investigating Interviews and SurveysAdapted from submission by Meredith Greif,Cleveland State Universityxx FEATURES