This study guide is a guide, not a contract.  All the material in the text, workbook, and lectures is fair game, regardless of whether it is explicitly mentioned here.  But this guide does honestly tell you what I consider most important.

The exam will be closed-book. It will consist entirely of definitions and essay questions. You will have a good deal of choice in the questions, although choice will be inversely proportional to the importance of the topic.

If you have the time, it is often useful to include information surrounding the core answer. Please note, however, that this does not mean a "data dump". Irrelevant information simply tells me that you've memorized lots of stuff, not that you understand the subject of the question.

To study efficiently:

• Check the syllabus (the current syllabus) to see what we've covered.  (Hint:  Chapters 10, 11, 12, 14, 16)!)
• Look at the W&B workbook and see whether you can answer all the questions on the material we've covered.  Imagine that the test consisted of questions like those:  could you pass it?  If you can, then rest assured that you can also pass any similar test I might throw at you.
• Review my online discussions of P-R-E measures.
• You are responsible for all assigned readings, regardless of whether they are covered in class. But (a) the readings / topics covered in class are the ones I consider the most important and thus most suitable for testing, and (b) you cannot be expected to have the same depth of understanding of those readings / topics we don't cover in class.
• Since the test will be cumulative to some extent, you should refresh your memory of the previous chapters.  I will not ask such itsy-bitsy questions as, say, "List the 13 problems of internal validity", but I would expect you to be able to know what some of the common ones are and, more generally, to know about experiments.  That's about the level at which I will pitch any questions from previous parts of the course.

Here are some good questions to study on the material since the previous exam.

• Definitions:  [Note that it will not be sufficient for you simply to have memorized Babbie's definition. You must understand how the concept is used and applied.]
  Chapter 10
  • case studies
  • focus group
  • informants
  • participant observation
  • participatory action research
  • qualitative field research
  • qualitative interview
  • reflexivity vs. scientific objectivity
  • the distinction between field research and journalism
  • Chapter 11
    • coding [see also Ch. 14]
  • content analysis
  • ecological fallacy
  • latent content
  • manifest content
  • unobtrusive measures;  unobtrusive research
  • Chapter 12
  • evaluation research;  program evaluation
  • multiple time series designs
  • nonequivalent control group;  nonequivalent control group design
  • outcome/response variable
  • quasi-experiments
  • social indicators
  • time-series designs
• Chapter 14
  • association
  • average
  • base
  • bivariate analysis
  • central tendency;  measures of central tendency
  • coding [see also Ch. 11];  codebook
  • contingency table;  crosstabulation
  • continuous vs. discrete variable variable
  • dependent variable
  "discreet" vs. "discrete"
  • dispersion;  measures of dispersion
  • frequency distribution
  • independent variable
  • interquartile range
  • marginals
  • mean
  • median
  • mode
  • percentages
  • quantitative analysis
  • range
  • standard deviation
  • subgroup comparisons
  • univariate analysis
• Chapter 16
  • association;  correlation;  correlation matrix;  measure of association
  • data reduction
  • descriptive statistics vs. inferential statistics
  • explained variation
  • gamma
  • independence
  • joint distribution
  • lambda
  • linear regression
  • P-R-E (proportional reduction of error) measure, plus its associated concepts of "prediction method", "error of prediction", "error before", and "error after"
  • Pearson's r;  Pearson's r-squared
  • regression;  linear regression;  regression analysis;  regression line;  slope
  • total variation
• Questions:

• [See the second entry under "To study efficiently", above.]
• Use some hypothetical data to practice your skills in computing lambda, gamma, and Pearson's r-squared.
• Review (and/or answer) the following questions from the Babbie text:  questions 10-3, 11-1, 14-1, 14-3, 14-4 (a & b), 16-1, and 16-2.  [In 11-1, think of using party platforms.]