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SMPA 1050 Final Questions and Correct
Answers
What are the 3 major research design approaches? Ans: Survey,
Content analysis, experiments
Independent variables Ans: The things that influence, effect, cause
other things
Dependent variables Ans: The things that are influenced, effected,
moved
Population Ans: The universe of things you're interested in
understanding
Examples of population Ans: Americans, voters, mainstream
media, broadcast news
Sample Ans: Smaller portion of population that is analyzed bc
population is too big
Examples of samples Ans: 1200 Americans, 500 stories from
newspapers
Internal validity Ans: Is the study conducted properly
External validity Ans: Is the study generalizable - can we
extrapolate from it to the real world population we want to make
inferences about
When do we use survey research Ans: Used when we're interested
in learning about public opinion, attitudes, behavior
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Advantages of survey research Ans: generalizable, helps us
understand and describe
Disadvantages of survey research Ans: Cannot make strong causal
claims since evidence about relationships tends to be correlational
not causal
Issues in survey research Ans: Sampling (is it representative?)
Question wording effects
Question order effects
Non-attitudes (people in survey give answer even if they don't
actually have opinion)
Issues with social desirability/survey setting influencing responses
What does Sides say is an effect of bad poll questions Ans: -
People just rationalize their answer based on prior attitudes
- People don't really offer true introspective response
- people give non attitude reasons
- nature of question leads to possible false attitudes
What is on Rakich's checklist for reading polls Ans: - Check
pollster track record
- Avoid comparisons between pollsters
- Note who's being polled
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- Pay attention to margin of error
- Consider the source
- If the poll has an off result there might be a reason for it
- Don't try to outguess or "unskew" the polls
- Head averages of polls, not outliers
- In the aggregate, polls are pretty accurate, if imperfect
- Polls are snapshots, not predictions
What is good about content analyses Ans: They are extremely
descriptive
Codebook Ans: Describes what you're looking for by giving
definition of variables, operationalization of variable
Intercoder reliability Ans: Give codebook to multiple people and
see if they will code the same content in the same way
What are experiments used for? Ans: Used to establish causality,
because you can control everything except for the independent
variable so you can show that any change is due to your
manipulation
Advantages of experiments Ans: - Causal inference because of
random assignment and control over administration of
independent variable
- internal validity
© 2025 All rights reserved
SMPA 1050 Final Questions and Correct
Answers
What are the 3 major research design approaches? Ans: Survey,
Content analysis, experiments
Independent variables Ans: The things that influence, effect, cause
other things
Dependent variables Ans: The things that are influenced, effected,
moved
Population Ans: The universe of things you're interested in
understanding
Examples of population Ans: Americans, voters, mainstream
media, broadcast news
Sample Ans: Smaller portion of population that is analyzed bc
population is too big
Examples of samples Ans: 1200 Americans, 500 stories from
newspapers
Internal validity Ans: Is the study conducted properly
External validity Ans: Is the study generalizable - can we
extrapolate from it to the real world population we want to make
inferences about
When do we use survey research Ans: Used when we're interested
in learning about public opinion, attitudes, behavior
© 2025 All rights reserved
, 2 | Page
Advantages of survey research Ans: generalizable, helps us
understand and describe
Disadvantages of survey research Ans: Cannot make strong causal
claims since evidence about relationships tends to be correlational
not causal
Issues in survey research Ans: Sampling (is it representative?)
Question wording effects
Question order effects
Non-attitudes (people in survey give answer even if they don't
actually have opinion)
Issues with social desirability/survey setting influencing responses
What does Sides say is an effect of bad poll questions Ans: -
People just rationalize their answer based on prior attitudes
- People don't really offer true introspective response
- people give non attitude reasons
- nature of question leads to possible false attitudes
What is on Rakich's checklist for reading polls Ans: - Check
pollster track record
- Avoid comparisons between pollsters
- Note who's being polled
© 2025 All rights reserved
, 3 | Page
- Pay attention to margin of error
- Consider the source
- If the poll has an off result there might be a reason for it
- Don't try to outguess or "unskew" the polls
- Head averages of polls, not outliers
- In the aggregate, polls are pretty accurate, if imperfect
- Polls are snapshots, not predictions
What is good about content analyses Ans: They are extremely
descriptive
Codebook Ans: Describes what you're looking for by giving
definition of variables, operationalization of variable
Intercoder reliability Ans: Give codebook to multiple people and
see if they will code the same content in the same way
What are experiments used for? Ans: Used to establish causality,
because you can control everything except for the independent
variable so you can show that any change is due to your
manipulation
Advantages of experiments Ans: - Causal inference because of
random assignment and control over administration of
independent variable
- internal validity
© 2025 All rights reserved
