Practice questions that were approved of thinking in the right direction for the exam.

Chapter 3
Can you explain the snowball effect in a literature review?

Can you explain the difference between primary sources and secondary sources?

Question where you must determine whether the source is primary or secondary.

Chapter 4
Did not write down.

Chapter 5
What is a cross sectional study and longitudinal study? (Would be an ‘A’ question)

A cross sectional study is a time dimension of research design in which data is collected from one
point of time. A longitudinal study collects data over an extended period of time (can be repeated).

What is the main advantage of a longitudinal study over a cross sectional study? (Would be a ‘B’
question)

A longitudinal study can track changes over time. It is more powerful to test for causality.

Example: if a researcher wishes to find out whether participants are motivated, he may give an
incentive. When using cross sectional study e.g., a snapshot after the incentive is given, it may not be
clear if there is a causal relationship between the incentive and motivation (an external factor may
have influenced the motivation). With longitudinal the researcher may track the change over time,
meaning that they can repeat the study, e.g. they measure motivation before and after giving the
incentive. It will provide clearer causal relationship of the cause and effect results.

More cause and effect, handier to test causal effects.

What is the purpose of exploratory studies? And the difference between this type of study and
formal studies?

Chapter 6
What is the difference between probability and non-probability?

When would you use the snowball sampling?

When you don’t have a sampling frame

Chapter 7
Did not write down.

Chapter 8
Difference between follow up questions and probing questions?
Probing is asking a question specifically. Follow up questions is a question in more a general direction

What does the risk of an untrained researcher impose when he/she is conducting a unstructured
interview? (Why should unstructured be performed by a trained researcher?)

Untrained interviewers can lead the conversation into a certain irrelevant topic. Or dwell on the topic

What are the big risk: advantages, examples, specific risk of Participant observation.

Chapter 9
How can a researcher use secondary data efficiently? TOO BROAD (another book can state
completely different methods of efficient secondary data use.)

 Merging of multiple secondary data sources

 Adjusting the research problem to the available data
 Investigating which research problems can be investigated with the available data

Explain a concern of the use of big data.

NOT APPROVED

CHAPTER 10 and 11 DID NOT WRITE DOWN

Chapter 12
Difference between true experiment and quasi experiment.

When is it necessary to conduct a pre-test in an experiment?

Randomization takes care of it, pre-test is sometimes not necessary. Enough experiments, field
experiments no full control.

Chapter 13
Classification questions page 353, target too broad.

Purpose of classification

Context.

Chapter 14
What is more important reliability or validity?

Validity is more important.

Question to explain 1 validity explained.

Case: which one would you use