Exercise 3 (At-Home): Fieldwork TaskAims: Take fieldnotes
Draw conclusions based on these fieldnotes
Overview: Fieldwork is a sociologist’s mode of data collection. The core principles of fieldwork
are important to better understand the meaning and significance of a sociologist’s conclusions.
Communicating the work done in the field is important. This is done through the practice of
taking fieldnotes. It is crucial to practice this skill so that your fieldnotes are clear and concise,
but representative of your fieldwork. This means finding the perfect balance between too little
writing, and not enough description, and too much writing with too many unnecessary details
that you surely will not use in your evaluation of the fieldsite. However, sociologists typically err
on the side of caution, noting anything that could possibly be used to draw conclusions later on
in their work. Fieldnotes can be personalized but often are used to directly communicate the
message and significance of the observations made by the sociologist to the audience.
Instructions: Watch the first episode of the TV series House M.D. While watching, take
fieldnotes, noting any important observations, sociological concepts or connections to
personal/real life experience. Make sure to include any questions you may have as you watch.
Upload a document (.docx or .pdf) with your response to the instructions above.
Exercise 1 (At-Home): Categorizing MCAT Data
Aims: Categorize sample MCAT questions based on question style
Develop potential learning outcomes from these categories
Overview: An important part of thinking like a sociologist is analyzing data through a research
method called content analysis. This involves recognizing patterns and disparities in large
samples of data. Sociologists manage their extensive and detailed data by categorizing. This
allows them to better understand themes that very naturally occur in their dataset, which will
ultimately assist them in drawing broader conclusions.
Instructions: Review sample MCAT passages and their associated questions. Become familiar
with the questions and the answer options after reading through the passages (although at this
stage, answering the questions is not part of the assignment, without the proper skills to do
this). Categorize the questions. This can be based on similar language, answer set-up, what the
MCAT writers are asking the test taker to do, or any related pattern. Write a learning outcome
for each category that would guide a test taker as they study for the MCAT. The learning
outcome should act as the heading/title of the category. Write a few sentences describing what
the test writers may achieve by asking the type of question in this category. Assign each
question to a category, and write a brief (1-2 sentence) description of why each question fits into
this category. Upload a document (.docx or .pdf) with your response to the instructions
above.
Example:
Does the gender pay gap depicted in Figure 1 illustrate intersectionality?
A.No; race and class are not represented in Figure 1.
B.No; males are also negatively affected by the gender pay gap when they approach retirement
age.
C.Yes; the gender pay gap reflects income inequalities as a result of multiple social identities.
D.Yes; the gender pay gap is negatively correlated with age.
Results from a survey of believers indicated a positive correlation between the incorporation of
religion into an individual’s life and participation in FBLDs. This illustrates what type of study,
and what concept was being assessed?
A.Observational, religious affiliation
B.Experimental, religious affiliation
C.Observational, religiosity
D.Experimental, religiosity
If these two questions were presented (from separate passages), a category could be created
that groups together the questions asking the test-taker to read and contextualize methodology
and data.
This category would draw upon the use of research set-up and data presented in both
questions, even though they are associated with different passages. However, both of these
questions also require the test taker to apply what is presented in the research to a relevant
sociological concept, matching two aspects of the passage together correctly.
This category might be named Data Interpretation with an attached learning goal like Students
should be able to read, understand and draw conclusions about research data presented in
passages, and contextualize this data to sociological concepts.
Questions to Categorize:
1. The Stroop Color-Word Test in Study 1 primarily tests:
A. Divided attention
B. Signal detection
C. Selective attention
D. Difference threshold
2. A parent attempts to motivate a child to eat her vegetables by stressing how good it will feel
for her to know that she will grow up to be strong and healthy. Which theory of motivation is
consistent with the parent’s strategy?
A. Drive reduction theory
B. Incentive theory
C. A cognitive theory
D. A need-based theory
3. Vygotsky’s theory of development is best described as a theory of how children:
A. Learn to follow social norms in accordance with their in-groups.
B. Achieve each potential developmental level of identity formation.
C. Master stages of social learning sequentially.
D. Learn new abilities and social roles with the guidance of others.
4. Which conclusion is NOT supported by Figure 1?
A. Changes in neuronal activation from chronic stress can lead to impaired performance of
cognitive tasks.
B. Decreased activity of the HPA axis can disrupt attention in such a way that the
performance on cognitive tasks is affected.
C. Increased ANS reactivity is the source of impaired performance on the cognitive task.
D. The physiologic changes experienced in chronic stress have effects on cognition.
5. A camper recognizes that she is in the path of a deadly snake, realizes that there is no
possibility of getting to the hospital in time if she is bitten, and begins to panic. This scenario
best describes:
A.
B.
C.
D.
Cognitive appraisal
Fight-or-flight response
A cataclysmic event
Elaboration likelihood model
6. The field of attribution theory focuses on the study of:
A. How people subconsciously develop beliefs about the factors that motivate actions by
others.
B. How each individual develops unique identity attributes.
C. How people consciously and unconsciously form ideas about the causal factors behind
the behaviors of others.
D. How people reason about the causal factors behind their own behaviors.
7. Based on the results in Table 1, students may be avoiding
A. The sick role
B. Medicalization
C. Health inequity
D. The illness experience
8. Which of the following descriptions best aligns with the Cannon-Bard theory of emotion?
A. Someone with a fear of spiders sees a spider, feels her heart racing, then recognizes
that she is feeling fearful.
B. A viewer of a horror film simultaneously experiences a pounding heartbeat and a feeling
of fear.
C. A pedestrian walking home at night notices that she has a rapid heart rate. She
interprets this emotional response as excitement if she is looking forward to returning
home, or as fear if she is being followed home by an unknown person.
D. A student with a fear of public speaking thinks about a public speaking event, becomes
anxious, and then experiences physical discomfort.
9. Which conclusion is NOT consistent with the results of the study X?
A. Genetics and psychological processes have largely separate effects on the development
of mental disorders
B. Social status has a significant influence on mental health
C. Psychological factors influence the relationship between genetics and mental health
D. Psychological, biological, and environmental factors interact to influence the
development of mental disorders
Exercise 2 (At-Home): Information Literacy
Aims: Become familiar and comfortable with research results in the form of visuals
Draw conclusions from tables, figures, diagrams and other visually represented data
Overview: Sociologists often represent their findings visually. This enhances communication of
their project and its conclusions to the audience. Being able to read these visuals is an
important skill, not only for understanding data, but drawing conclusions and making
connections based on this data.
Instructions: First complete Becker’s The Wittgenstein Trick: Review different sample visuals
and respond to the questions that follow. Draw conclusions/make predictions about what could
be concluded based on the figure when appropriate (below) by answering the information
literacy questions provided next to each image. Finally, make suggestions about the type of
representation and suggested changes to presentation. Upload a document (.docx or .pdf)
with your response to the instructions above.
The Wittgenstein Trick Scenarios:
The image to the left depicts a stem-and-leaf chart
of BMI data from different countries being
transformed into a histogram. What information
about BMI can you gather from this image? What
information do you lose when you only look at the
stem-and-leaf plot, or when you only look at the
histogram? What are the strengths and
weaknesses of each plot?
The image to the right depicts smoking data in men
vs. women in different countries. Looking only at the
“Average smoked per day” column, draw a
conclusion about smoking rates by gender. Now do
the same while only looking at the data on the left.
Why is it beneficial to present both of these data
sets?
Week 2: Fieldwork
Doing sociology and medical sociology
Implantable Cardioverter Defibrillator
Ablation
Occupations
Example MCAT questions, and themes
1. Vocab
Which best describes institutions?
A. Stable systems that bring order to society, serving a common purpose.
B. Organizations that serve to deliver fundamental needs for survival to society.
C. A system of beliefs from which individuals develop experiences of life, death, mortality, etc.
2. Problem-solving
Jamie lives a town where about half of the population is overweight or obese. Many of the members of this
community are unemployed and rely on food stamps for their next meal. From Jamie’s house, the nearest
grocery store is three miles away but there are several fast-food/drive-thru restaurants close to her home.
This situation in Jamie’s town could be described as:
A food desert
Absolute poverty
Relative poverty
A. I only
B. III only
C. I and III
D. II and III
3a. Take a patient history and pay attention
In early 2019, Nova Scotia was set to enforce a policy known as “opt out” organ and tissue donation,
sparking serious ethical discussions. Ontario, Canada is said to follow suit. England is beginning its opt
out process next year, and many U.S. states are considering adopting this policy of default organ
donation. France, Belgium, Austria, Spain and Wales already have an opt out policy in place. The opt out
policy is intended to increase the amount of organ donations, as many communities face a shortage. It is
also argued that it alleviates stress on families during their time of grief trying to determine the wishes of
the deceased… (Total 347 words)
1.
a.
b.
c.
Which of the following countries can be presumed to be lacking organ donors currently?
France
Canada
Russia
3b. Racial biases (Bias 1) in treatment have been well documented in cases of emergency and analgesic
treatment. Study 1 conducted research pertaining to if analgesia was given or not given to patients (n=3,252) with
the same type of injury, low limb fracture and reporting the same levels of pain. This information was then
categorized based on ethnic/racial group of the patient.
Race of patient
Patients given analgesia
(%)
Patients not given
analgesia (%)
White (n=2,002)
1,341 (67)
661 (33)
Black (n=763)
305 (42)
458 (58)
Hispanic (n=487)
239 (49)
248 (51)
Cognitive biases have also become part of the systematic errors of physician decision making. An example of cognitive biases is related to the left
digit bias (Bias 2). This is when the severity of a clinical report is affected by the number of digits to the left of the decimal point. For example,
patients with hemoglobin results of 9.8 g/dL may be perceived as being significantly more anemic than patients with a hemoglobin report of 10.1
g/dL, although there is no statistical or clinical significance between these numbers.
Another cognitive bias (Bias 3) is based on unexpected side effects of commonly prescribed medications. Doctors are not less likely to prescribe
the same medication to a patient, even directly after seeing a patient that had unexpected negative implications from the common drug.
What type of mental shortcut is part of Bias 3?
a.
Mnemonic
b.
Availability heuristic
c.
Method of loci
d.
Operant conditioning
The goal is to screen for people who can
make quick decisions that are not guesses.
Recall Vocab 1, 3 and 6
We can classify these questions as asking
test-takers to recall vocab.
Exercise 1: Categorizing MCAT Data
1. The Stroop Color-Word Test in Study 1 primarily tests:
A.
Divided attention
B.
Signal detection
C.
Selective attention
D.
Difference threshold
3. Vygotsky’s theory of development is best described as a theory of how
children:
A.
Learn to follow social norms in accordance with their in-groups.
B.
Achieve each potential developmental level of identity formation.
C.
Master stages of social learning sequentially.
D.
Learn new abilities and social roles with the guidance of others.
6. The field of attribution theory focuses on the study of:
A.
How people subconsciously develop beliefs about the factors
that motivate actions by others.
B.
How each individual develops unique identity attributes.
C.
How people consciously and unconsciously form ideas about the
causal factors behind the behaviors of others.
D.
How people reason about the causal factors behind their own
behaviors.
Contextualize Vocab 2, 5 and 8
Exercise 1: Categorizing MCAT Data
We can classify these questions as
asking test-takers to contextualize
vocab.
2. A parent attempts to motivate a child to eat her vegetables by stressing how good it will feel for her to know that
she will grow up to be strong and healthy. Which theory of motivation is consistent with the parent’s strategy?
A.
Drive reduction theory
B.
Incentive theory
C.
A cognitive theory
D.
A need-based theory
5. A camper recognizes that she is in the path of a deadly snake, realizes that there is no possibility of getting to the
hospital in time if she is bitten, and begins to panic. This scenario best describes:
A.
Cognitive appraisal
B.
Fight-or-flight response
C.
A cataclysmic event
D.
Elaboration likelihood model
8. Which of the following descriptions best aligns with the Cannon-Bard theory of emotion?
A.
Someone with a fear of spiders sees a spider, feels her heart racing, then recognizes that she is feeling
fearful.
B.
A viewer of a horror film simultaneously experiences a pounding heartbeat and a feeling of fear.
C.
A pedestrian walking home at night notices that she has a rapid heart rate. She interprets this emotional
response as excitement if she is looking forward to returning home, or as fear if she is being followed
home by an unknown person.
D.
A student with a fear of public speaking thinks about a public speaking event, becomes anxious, and then
experiences physical discomfort.
Information Literacy 4, 7 and 9
Exercise 1: Categorizing MCAT Data
We can classify these questions as
testing information literacy.
4. Which conclusion is NOT supported by Figure 1?
A.
Changes in neuronal activation from chronic stress can lead to impaired performance
of cognitive tasks.
B.
Decreased activity of the HPA axis can disrupt attention in such a way that the
performance on cognitive tasks is affected.
C.
Increased ANS reactivity is the source of impaired performance on the cognitive task.
D.
The physiologic changes experienced in chronic stress have effects on cognition.
7. Based on the results in Table 1, students may be avoiding
A.
The sick role
B.
Medicalization
C.
Health inequity
D.
The illness experience
9. Which conclusion is NOT consistent with the results of the study X?
A.
Genetics and psychological processes have largely separate effects on the
development of mental disorders
B.
Social status has a significant influence on mental health
C.
Psychological factors influence the relationship between genetics and mental health
D.
Psychological, biological, and environmental factors interact to influence the
development of mental disorders
Exercise 2: Information Literacy
Instructions: First complete Becker’s The Wittgenstein Trick: Review different sample visuals and respond to
the questions that follow. Draw conclusions/make predictions about what could be concluded based on the
figure when appropriate (below) by answering the information literacy questions provided next to each image.
Finally, make suggestions about the type of representation and suggested changes to presentation.
The Wittgenstein Trick Scenarios:
The image to the left (on the next slide) depicts a stem-and-leaf chart of BMI data from different countries
being transformed into a histogram. What information about BMI can you gather from this image? What
information do you lose when you only look at the stem-and-leaf plot, or when you only look at the histogram?
What are the strengths and weaknesses of each plot?
The image to the right
depicts smoking data in
men vs. women in
different countries.
Looking only at the
“Average smoked per
day” column, draw a
conclusion about
smoking rates by
gender. Now do the
same while only looking
at the data on the left.
Why is it beneficial to
present both of these
data sets?
Class 2
Thursday
Exercise 3: Fieldwork Task
Fieldwork is a key mode of data collection used by sociologists.
The core principles of fieldwork are important to better understand
the meaning and significance of a sociologist’s conclusions.
Communicating the work done in the field is important. This is done
through the practice of taking fieldnotes. It is crucial to practice this
skill so that your fieldnotes are clear and concise, but representative
of your fieldwork. This means finding the perfect balance between
too little writing, and not enough description, and too much writing
with too many unnecessary details that you surely will not use in
your evaluation of the fieldsite. However, sociologists typically err
on the side of caution, noting anything that could possibly be used to
draw conclusions later on in their work. Fieldnotes can be
personalized but often are used to directly communicate the
message and significance of the observations made by the
sociologist to the audience.
House M.D. Pilot – Young kindergarten teacher Rebecca Adler
collapses in her classroom after losing intelligible speech while
teaching
“Treating illness, not patients, is why we became doctors.”
Docs initially want to decide for her. “Could override her wishes”
Hear hoofprints. Think horses, not zebras.
BUT “Kindly doctor in trenton makes diagnosis, never gets here.”
Cuddy allows deviance because of his reputation.
Giving patient “false hope” vs. “hanging crepe”
5 doctors give 5 different diagnoses.
She decides she wants to die, and physicians object
Figure I. Total verb usage in Interdisciplinary Team Meetings
Figure II. Predictive verb usage in Interdisciplinary
Team Meetings
Figure III. Subjunctive verb usage in Interdisciplinary Team Meetings
Fieldwork write-up
These are some key features involved in writing up fieldwork.
1. Date, time, and place of observation
2. Specific facts, numbers, details of what happens at the site
3. Sensory impressions: sights, sounds, textures, smells, taste
4. Personal responses to the fact of recording fieldnotes
5. Specific words, phrases, summaries of conversations, and insider language
6. Questions about people or behaviors at the site for future investigation
7. Ways that your observations resemble (or contradict!) the concepts you’ve read
about in class