chapter 9 social research

The chief advantage of telephone surveys over those conducted face-to-face center primarily on:

time and money.

How many follow-ups to the original mailing is the most efficient in terms of response rate?

two

A key problem associated with secondary analysis is:

validity.

Assume that the following would be reasonable conversational questions/statements based on a subject's previous statement. Which is(are) the best probe(s)?

All of these choices are good probes.

What is the desired ordering of items in interviews and self-administered questionnaires?

Ask the demographic items first in interviews and last in questionnaires.

Which question construction guideline does the following questionnaire item most clearly violate? "Would you not say that crime is not a serious problem in the U.S.?"

Avoid negative items.

Which of the following is NOT an advantage of interviews as compared to self-administered questionnaires?

Interviews handle sensitive issues more effectively.

Stephanique used this item in her questionnaire: "My working conditions are not satisfactory," and used "strongly agree" to "strongly disagree" as responses. What is the major weakness with this item?

It is a negative item.

Which of the following is NOT recommended for conducting online surveys?

Keep changing terminology to keep respondents interested

A good interviewer is one who is able to do all but which of the following?

Pry into the respondent's personal life.

In Greg's survey of high school students, he accidentally had a question asking "How many grandchildren do you have?" What is the problem with this?

Respondents are not competent to answer the item.

Which of the following is NOT an advantage of the telephone interview as compared to the face-to-face interview?

Telephone interviews prevent interviewer bias.

Babbie recommends that the interviewer training session begin with:

a description of what the study is about

A return rate graph:

begins on the day the questionnaires were mailed.

Which of the following techniques does Babbie recommend as the "best" for the presentation of response categories to the respondent?

boxes

During an interviewer training session, Jones, a trainee, asks you, "What should I do if. . . ?" You tell Jones the first thing to do is

check the specifications.

Belinda wanted to ask several questions asking about which dimensions of feminism that respondents would agree with. All the items have the same answer categories. Which type of questions would be the best to use?

closed-ended matrix

Surveys are particularly appropriate to:

collect original data to describe a large population.

Which of the following types of surveys yields the LEAST amount of interviewer bias?

mail surveys

The questionnaire item "Did you file federal and state income tax reports last year?" with a response set of yes, no, can't remember, other, is an example of a(n):

negative item.

Oregonia wanted to survey women who came to a battered women's shelter, and was particularly concerned with hearing women's own answers to questions. It would be best to use:

open-ended questions

A well designed training session for new interviewers should include all but which of the following:

practice interviewing on actual participants in the research

After designing a questionnaire, the surest protection against such mistakes as ambiguous questions is to:

pretest the questionnaire with people who at least somewhat resemble your eventual sample.

This technique is employed in interviewing to solicit a more complete answer to a question. It is a nondirective phrase or question used to encourage a respondent to elaborate more on an answer.

probe

When respondents in an interview give inappropriate or incomplete responses, the interviewer should:

probe

This is a document containing questions and other types of items designed to solicit information appropriate for analysis.

questionnaire

On a survey measuring respondents' fear of crime, including a question about one's political views would be an example of which problem in survey research

questions should be relevant

When follow-ups are planned with mail surveys:

response rates typically increase.

A particular problem with matrix questions is:

response-set.

Generally, interviewers should dress:

similar to the people they will be interviewing.

In general, survey research is:

strong on reliability and weak on validity

A response rate of what percent is adequate for analysis?

50

According to Babbie, the minimum level for an adequate response rate for any type of survey is:

50%

Which of the following is NOT an example of a new technology for doing survey research?

BRS (biometric response system)

Which one of the following is NOT an advantage of interviews over questionnaires?

Bias is reduced by the presence of an interviewer.

Which of the following statements is(are) INCORRECT?

Closed-ended questions should limit respondents to three or four choices.

Which of the following is a benefit of mail surveys over interview surveys?

They allow more honest responses from participants.

Which of the following statements is FALSE regarding push polls?

They are a source of useful political information

This is a data-collection technique in which a telephone survey questionnaire is stored in a computer, permitting the interviewer to read the questions from the monitor and enter the answers on the computer keyboard.

computer-assisted telephone interviewing

Questions that are used to screen for whether or not the subsequent question applies to the respondent or not are known as:

contingency questions.

Bias in a questionnaire item:

encourages respondents to answer questions in a particular way.

Which of the following lists the three main methods of administering survey questionnaires to a sample of respondents?

face-to-face interviews, self-administered questionnaires, and telephone surveys

The primary function of the probe is to:

get the respondent to answer a question more fully.

Monitoring questionnaire returns may enable you to detect which of the following threats to internal validity?

history

This is a data-collection encounter in which one person asks questions of another. These may be conducted face-to-face or by telephone

interview

Issues that are complex and often require interpretation are most well suited for which survey modality?

interview survey.

All politicians are crooked. How crooked do you feel your own representatives are? The major flaw in this item is that it:

is biased.

Margaret used this question in her questionnaire given to students: "Are you satisfied with your grade in this class and the amount of homework?" What is the major weakness with this item?

it is double barreled

Steve used this item in his questionnaire: "What do you think about the conflict?" What is the major weakness with this item?

it is unclear