SMPA 1050 Final questions and
answers graded A+
3 types of research method models in media - correct answer ✔✔survey, content analysis,
experiments
Internal validity - correct answer ✔✔Is the study conducted properly
External validity - correct answer ✔✔Is the study generalizable, meaning can we extrapolate
from it to the real world population we are interested in making inferences about?
Advantages of surveys - correct answer ✔✔-Generalizable, assuming we have properly sampled
we can make claims about a population.
-Help us understand and describe.
Disadvantages of surveys - correct answer ✔✔-Cannot make strong causal claims. Evidence
about relationships tends to be correlational not about causal relationships.
Issues with survey research - correct answer ✔✔sample vs census, representative? must be a
random sample in order to be able to make a claim about the population, generalizability,
sample size (not the # of people you have in the study but how you draw that sample is what
matters, random sample is what matters
Question wording effects - correct answer ✔✔effects that occur when the wording of survey
questions influences respondents' answers to those questions
question order effects - correct answer ✔✔effects that occur when the order of survey
questions influences respondents' answers to those questions
, Non-attitudes, memory - correct answer ✔✔a lack of opinion on an issue, or an opinion so
weakly held that it does not enter into a person's calculations about voting or taking some other
political action, even though the person may express an opinion to a pollster
Issues with social desirability and survey setting influencing results - correct answer ✔✔Race of
interviewer effects, e.g.
Sides: Bad poll questions - correct answer ✔✔asking people whether something will affect their
vote is basically worthless because people aren't good at reporting reasons for their choices or
whether something will change their mind.
Rakich: how to read polls? - correct answer ✔✔•Check pollster's track record
•Avoid comparisons between pollsters
•Note who's being polled
•Pay attention to the MoE
•Consider the source
•If the poll has an odd result there might be a reason for it
•Don't try to outguess or "unskew" the polls
•Heed averages, not outliers
•In the aggregate, polls are pretty accurate, if imperfect
•Polls are snapshots, not predictions
Codebook - correct answer ✔✔a document that contains explicit directions about how data
from data collection forms are coded in the data file
intercoder reliability - correct answer ✔✔in content analysis, the degree of agreement between
or among independent coders
answers graded A+
3 types of research method models in media - correct answer ✔✔survey, content analysis,
experiments
Internal validity - correct answer ✔✔Is the study conducted properly
External validity - correct answer ✔✔Is the study generalizable, meaning can we extrapolate
from it to the real world population we are interested in making inferences about?
Advantages of surveys - correct answer ✔✔-Generalizable, assuming we have properly sampled
we can make claims about a population.
-Help us understand and describe.
Disadvantages of surveys - correct answer ✔✔-Cannot make strong causal claims. Evidence
about relationships tends to be correlational not about causal relationships.
Issues with survey research - correct answer ✔✔sample vs census, representative? must be a
random sample in order to be able to make a claim about the population, generalizability,
sample size (not the # of people you have in the study but how you draw that sample is what
matters, random sample is what matters
Question wording effects - correct answer ✔✔effects that occur when the wording of survey
questions influences respondents' answers to those questions
question order effects - correct answer ✔✔effects that occur when the order of survey
questions influences respondents' answers to those questions
, Non-attitudes, memory - correct answer ✔✔a lack of opinion on an issue, or an opinion so
weakly held that it does not enter into a person's calculations about voting or taking some other
political action, even though the person may express an opinion to a pollster
Issues with social desirability and survey setting influencing results - correct answer ✔✔Race of
interviewer effects, e.g.
Sides: Bad poll questions - correct answer ✔✔asking people whether something will affect their
vote is basically worthless because people aren't good at reporting reasons for their choices or
whether something will change their mind.
Rakich: how to read polls? - correct answer ✔✔•Check pollster's track record
•Avoid comparisons between pollsters
•Note who's being polled
•Pay attention to the MoE
•Consider the source
•If the poll has an odd result there might be a reason for it
•Don't try to outguess or "unskew" the polls
•Heed averages, not outliers
•In the aggregate, polls are pretty accurate, if imperfect
•Polls are snapshots, not predictions
Codebook - correct answer ✔✔a document that contains explicit directions about how data
from data collection forms are coded in the data file
intercoder reliability - correct answer ✔✔in content analysis, the degree of agreement between
or among independent coders
