The format of the exam is short essay.

Respond to each question in one or two paragraphs that is, four to eight sentences. Write clear and concise paragraphs that represent an organized answer to the question, rather than an extemporaneous exposition on the topic. Do not compose your answers in the exam submission form! You should write the exam in your word processor and paste it, question by question into the form. This way you are able to spell check and edit your answers for clarity and grammar. You must submit your exam by midnight on Wednesday, December 16. No late submissions are permitted. The exam is worth up to 25 points. Try to answer the questions directly. There are no trick questions on the exam. In many cases, you might answer the question correctly in any number of different ways, as long as the logic that guides your answer reflects an understanding of the topic. Do not copy text directly from the online materials or the textbook. Do not repeat examples covered in class. You will not receive credit for an answer that is lifted from these sources, even if you quote it and offer a citation. The purpose of this examination is assessment of your understanding of research methodology, not your capacity for rote mimicry. It is important that you express these ideas in your own words. Equally importantly, do not copy from other students. If I believe that your answers match another students too closely, I will ask both of you to explain yourselves. If you cannot, you will fail the exam. Avoid this problem, please, by doing your own work. Section 1. These items are worth one point each. 1. Describe and explain the essential characteristics of the experiment. 2. Discuss the internal and external validity of experiments. 3. Discuss an example of a research topic that would be better suited to ethnography than a survey. Explain your choice. 4. Compare and contrast interviewing in field research and survey research. 5. Explain the significance of field notes for qualitative research. 6. Compare and contrast two of the methods of qualitative data analysis.

7. Suppose you wanted to study the vocabulary of employee evaluations in large American corporations. How would you draw a sample? What sources of bias might affect your sample? 8. Differentiate manifest content from latent content and give an example of each. 9. How can computers be used in content coding? 10. What is the "ethnic vernacular" and how might one study it with visual methods? 11. Explain how program evaluation is different from field research. 12. Explain how goals, objectives, and outcomes relate to one another and give an example of each. 13. Describe the possible errors of hypothesis testing. Why is a type I error considered more serious than a type II error? Section 2. These items are worth three points each. 14. Using photographs from the BrooklynSoc archive, select three images, one each to demonstrate the expressive, conative, and phatic signs in the urban vernacular. Describe what it is in the image that represents the particular kind of sign. Indicate the album name and image number for the photographs you use. 15. Describe a hypothetical study that uses questionnaire, interview or observational data. What is the sociological question to be answered in the study? How does the choice of method (questionnaire, interview, observation) relate to the question? What practical constraints, if any, are there to this method? 16. Using data from the NYC or US Census sites, identify three indicators of social class and compare a Brooklyn neighborhood with the borough (Kings County) as a whole. What can you say sociologically about class stratification? 17. Using data from the 1% US PUMS, test a hypothesis about individual income. State the null and research hypotheses. Report which variables you use and the results of your test. What can you say about the sociological significance of your results?