Chapter 5, Chapter 6, Chapter 7

Which term refers to how detailed and specific a measure is?

precision

Which of the following is the correct term for a measure that is consistent, dependable, and predictable?

reliable

Compared to telephone surveys, in face-to-face interviews,

researchers can capture more paradata.

A researcher creates a scale to measure students' satisfaction with their sociology courses. After identifying six key questions and organizing them into a composite measure, the researcher averages the six items into a variable called "sociology satisfaction." The Cronbach's alpha score was 0.8, which means the

scale items are all measuring some aspect of satisfaction with sociology courses

A survey in which a randomly selected subset of respondents, typically 50% of those persons selected to participate in the survey, receives one topical module while the other 50% receives a different topical ballot is called a(n) ________ design.

split-ballot

A 95% confidence interval for a 40% approval rating with a 3% margin of error would be

37% to 43%.

According to your textbook authors, a high-quality random sample can provide accurate estimates of the characteristics, behaviors, and attitudes of an entire population, even if the survey sample includes just ________ people.

1,000 to 2,000

A perfect Cronbach's alpha score is

1.

________ means that no identifying information can be linked to respondents or their survey answers.

Anonymity

________ refers to the possibility that the mere presence of an interviewer, or that interviewer's personal characteristics, may lead a respondent to answer questions in a particular way, potentially biasing the survey responses.

Interviewer effects

For which question would you use a Likert scale?

How strongly do you agree or disagree with the statement: "Gun control is unconstitutional"?

________ sampling allows researchers to oversample groups so that researchers have more data on those groups than they would with simple random sampling.

Stratified

________ is an example of an omnibus survey.

The General Social Survey (GSS)

Lisa is analyzing the results of her pretest. What would indicate to her that a question needs revision?

The cognitive interview showed that the question was confusing.

Jasmine is doing research on poor single mothers. For which question is leaving the response open-ended MOST appropriate?

What kinds of assistance do you think the government can provide that does not currently exist?

Which of the following studies would have the LEAST external validity?

a case study examining an environmental organization

The terms validity and reliability would be most applicable to which of the following projects?

a nationally representative survey of 1,200 Americans about their TV viewing habits

When we consider a concept, such as marital quality, there is not universal agreement about what that concept means. This lack of clear agreement is because of the ________ quality of concepts.

abstract

In scientific research, an idea that can be clearly named, defined, and eventually measured is called a

concept

Megan is collecting data for a research project. She has decided to increase her sample size from 500 participants to 1,000 participants. As her sample size increases, her sampling error ________ and her margin of error ________.

decreases; decreases

The CBCL, HOME, and CLASS are measures often used in research because they

have been vetted and therefore researchers can have confidence in using them.

Luka has decided to collect quantitative survey data on health behaviors to test a general theory about social learning. He defines health behaviors as dietary habits and then writes standardized survey questions that measure that dimension of health behaviors. He then collects and analyzes those data. Luka's conceptualization and operationalization decisions follow a(n) ________ approach.

deductive

When a researcher makes a decision to focus only on certain units or angles of a concept, she is choosing to study only certain

dimensions

What mode of administration is MOST susceptible to interviewer effects?

face-to-face interviews

What mode of administration is MOST susceptible to missing responses?

mail surveys

When a researcher decides to represent adolescent risk behaviors with variables about illegal drug use and the use of tobacco products, he or she is

moving from an abstract to a more concrete phase of the study.

There are critiques of the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale (CES-D). Some of those critiques surround its development for use with English-speaking people of European descent. Thus, some of the trouble in assessing reliability for depression scales points to which of the following?

the need to take into account diverse populations when using any measure

Sanjay has decided to study poverty comparatively across several nations and chooses to measure poverty by whether people have access to safe drinking water. Sanjay's measure is problematic because it does not properly consider the importance of

NOT the unit of analysis

A researcher is carefully making decisions that will affect how much variation he or she needs to adequately measure a variable. This concern with variation will influence his or her decisions regarding

NOT whether the values should be mutually exclusive.

Megan wants to study bullying in high school. She randomly selected 1,000 students at a high school, and 400 students completed the survey. What is the response rate?

40%

The most commonly used value for confidence levels by social science researchers is ________

95%

A key difference between ordinal variables and interval variables is that the values

have known relative distances in interval, but not ordinal variables.

When should weighting be used to create accurate population estimates?

in a stratified sample

The ________ poses the question, and the ________ provide(s) the preset answers that respondents may select.

stem; response options

There are different types of confusion that can emerge around a study's unit of analysis. If a researcher draws conclusions about individuals using group-level data, the mismatch is called ________. If he or she draws conclusions about a group based on individual-level data, the mismatch is called ________.

NOT reductionism; an ecological fallacy

If a researcher studying poverty decides to measure poverty solely in terms of income, very wealthy people with no income would be erroneously counted as poor. This example shows the problem of measures being

*NOT* at the wrong unit of analysis

When a researcher is making decisions about the operational process, he or she must typically first choose the field of study from several quantitative and qualitative research methods. If it were very important that his or her study clearly establish the effect of a reading program on students' graduation rates, it would probably be best if he or she

*NOT* created a survey and wrote standardized questions for respondents to answer.

________ questions allow researchers to easily compare responses across different populations and time periods.

Closed-ended

Which set of response options reduces acquiescence bias?

NOT 1. agree; 2. disagree

Choose the set of response options that is forced choice and exhaustive.

NOT 1. strongly agree; 2. slightly agree; 3. slightly disagree; 4. strongly disagree

Which of the following statements concerning the collection of demographic data is true?

States use data about race to assess racial disparities in health

Sanjay is creating a composite measure to identify individuals at risk of depression. He believes that a greater number of certain experiences will increase the chance of developing depression. Which type of composite measure should he use?

index

Farhad is deciding between studying the importance of cultural sexual norms of religious denominations versus those same norms of different countries. His is a choice between a ________ level of analysis and a ________ level of analysis.

institutional; societal

Mary is a researcher studying sexual harassment. What can she use to make the face-to-face interview setting more comfortable when discussing this topic?

audio computer-assisted self-interview (ACASI) technology

Which of the guidelines below needs to be considered by the writer of this question: "Should loving soon-to-be mothers take prenatal vitamins?"

avoid leading questions

Sarah is designing an international study of the effect of age composition on voting behaviors. After deciding to compare older, middle-aged, and young nations on rates of voting in national-level elections, she will assign values to the age composition variable, categorizing them by those who have at least 12% of residents who are over 64, those who have at least 35% of residents who are under 15, and those who have neither a high number of young or old residents. In assigning these values, Sarah is choosing

indicators

If a researcher creates a measure of exercise frequency by averaging individual reports of exercise behavior across a neighborhood, this researcher is studying exercise at the ________ level

group

If a researcher creates a measure of exercise frequency by averaging individual reports of exercise behavior across a neighborhood, this researcher is studying exercise at the ________ level.

group

In a study of social phenomena that are complex, the researcher creates variables that represent certain units or parts of a concept and assigns values to those variables to set out a blueprint for measurement. This is relevant to the fact that ________ are more abstract and ________ are more concrete.

dimensions; indicators

What is the most effective method for increasing the reliability of a research method?

doing a very careful job of conceptualization and operationalization

A question that asks about two or more ideas or concepts in a single question is known as a(n) ________ question.

double-barreled

For which study would you recommend that the researchers use a census instead of a sample?

exploring gender differences in the bylines of articles published at the New York Times

Reports, observations, artifact counts, and manipulation are the four basic

forms of measurement.

A presentation of the possible values of a variable along with the number or proportion of observations for each value that was observed is known as a

frequency distribution.

A team of researchers wants to study whether the type of neighborhood a person lives in impacts his or her health. Because many different observers will be involved in the study, there is a need to make sure these different observers agree with each other when they make evaluations about neighborhood type and about what "health" looks like. If the various observers agree when they look at the data, they would have achieved which of the following?

intercoder reliability

Which of the following is a term that describes the consistency of items on a scale and assesses how well responses to the first item on a scale predict responses to the second item?

internal reliability

Steve wants to study the organizational structure of churches. He wants to contact a single knowledgeable person at each church who will serve as the respondent. This respondent is known as the ________ informant.

key

Felicia is studying religious affiliation and chooses to measure this by asking respondents how often they celebrate religious holidays in the course of a year. Felicia's study is likely to

*NOT* inconsistently yield good information about religious affiliation. yield good information about religious affiliation in a highly consistent way

The key difference between an interval and a ratio variable is that only

*NOT* interval variables have a true zero point.

Gregory has designed a study of how health differs by level of educational attainment among adults. He decides to focus on degenerative diseases, such as heart disease, diabetes, and cancer. From there, he chooses simple representations about whether the respondents have ever had these conditions, and then constructs a series of yes/no questions. In this study, ________ is most closely connected to the importance of dimensions.

*NOT* representing disease by whether respondents have had that disease

Poverty can be defined according to some specific quantitative criteria, like income, without differentiating poverty by context. This is an example of a(n)

*NOT* unit of analysis.

Give an example of a research question that would be suitable for telephone surveys. Explain why. Discuss the strengths and limitations of telephone surveys. How can the advance letter be used to reduce some of the limitations of telephone surveys?

Answers will vary. One kind of research question would be one that requires little advanced planning; for example, immediately after a presidential debate, survey research organizations conduct telephone polls to measure whether Americans' views of a particular candidate are more favorable or less favorable than they were prior to the debate.In the rest of the student's answer, he or she should mention that a skilled interviewer guides the respondent through the survey questions, ensuring that no questions are skipped and offering explanations for terms or phrases that the respondent does not understand. Also, the cost is substantially lower. Further, phone interviews typically are conducted in a central location, such as a survey organization's calling center, where multiple interviewers sit at their computers in cubicles. These call centers typically have a supervisor on duty at all times who can monitor the interviewers' work and answer questions as needed. This supervision helps ensure that the data collected are of high quality. Furthermore, unlike face-to-face interviews, telephone interviews can be conducted with relatively little advance planning. In addition, telephone surveys can also gauge national sentiment on hot-button issues.Also, students should mention the limitation of telephone surveys. Some people are reluctant to discuss personal matters over the phone, while others offer positively biased accounts of their attitudes and behaviors. Interviewer effects also are possible. Even though respondents cannot see the interviewer, they may still glean his or her gender, age, or ethnicity on the basis of voice.Telephone interviews also have limitations that differ from those of face-to-face interviews. First, many people do not want to be bothered in their homes. Also, respondent fatigue is a concern. Furthermore, the questions administered in telephone interviews must be very simple and straightforward. In addition, telephone interviews do not allow researchers to capture some types of paradata. Lastly, a relatively new limitation of telephone surveys is that a respondent's cell phone number does not necessarily correspond to where the respondent lives.Students should also mention that one approach to increase response rate is to send potential respondents an advance letter.

A sociologist studying American neighborhoods identifies a causal effect of income on the availability of healthy and nutritious foods. Specifically, people with lower incomes tend to live in neighborhoods where there are more fast food restaurants and less access to fresh fruits and vegetables. Given this finding, the researcher can be confident in concluding that the study has

NOT Face Validity

________ sampling allows researchers to make decisions about what additional data to collect based on findings from data they've already collected.

NOT Purposive

Agata is planning two different studies. One will be a content analysis of how often romantic storylines occur among older adult movie characters. The second will be a study of whether those who see older adults in romantic film roles have different attitudes about older adults' sexuality than those who do not see older adults in romantic film roles. The form of measurement Agata will most likely use for the first study is ________. Alternatively, she will probably use ________ as the form of measurement for the second study.

NOT observation; reports

In ________ sampling, cases are deliberately selected on the basis of features that distinguish them from other cases.

NOT stratified

Miko is interested in attitudes about drinking on campus and plans to conduct an Internet-based survey of a random sample of all undergraduates at her college. She plans on conducting a pretest. Who should she survey?

NOT students who live in her dorm of all genders and class levels who will participate in the official survey

Classroom quality can be measured in many different ways. If a researcher is careful to map out each dimension of classroom quality, and observers have a clear plan for how to determine classroom quality when they see it, what have the researchers accomplished?

They have increased the reliability of their research method.

For which of the following would it make sense to measure using a composite variable?

happiness

The reason that variables are more abstract than indicators is that

indicators assign values to variables, thus bringing them closer to final measurement.

The full set of questions that the interviewer asks the respondent is called the

interview schedule

What is a characteristic of someone who may not answer and return mail surveys?

low educational attainment

The NAS poverty line may offer a more accurate picture of poverty in the United States than the FPL, but it

may not be as reliable a measure over time.

Mario is a researcher interested in studying eating behaviors. He wants to use a mode of survey administration that can assess the quality of his data and potential sources of bias. He also wants to increase response rates. Which mode is best suited for the goals of his research?

mixed-mode approach

Affonso plans to study the effect of degree type on the income of college graduates. He chooses to represent degree type with college major and to represent income with individual annual income (in dollars). In this study, college major is a(n) ________ variable and individual annual income is a(n) ________ variable.

nominal; ratio

Qualitative research, often using an inductive approach, typically starts with data collection, which means that conceptualization and operationalization

often come later than they do in a quantitative study.

If a poll oversampled teenagers at three times their proportion in the U.S population, each teenager in the sample would only have ________ the weight of other respondents when researchers calculate population estimates.

one-third

In the quantitative social science research process, moving from a concrete definition of a concept to an actual measure of the defined concept involves

operationalization

Lisa wants to survey mothers and examine the kinds of attitude changes about mothering that occur as their children grow older. Which type of survey would be best suited for this research?

panel

If a researcher wanted to see how spouses' marital quality changed over time if and when children were born, he or she would probably use a ________ design.

panel study

If a researcher were interested in the general attitude trends of a society over time, he or she would probably use a ________ design.

panel study

Which approach involves the use of survey booklets that are subsequently given to data-entry assistants who enter all of the respondents' answers into a database?

paper-and-pencil interview (PAPI)

Observations about the noise level in the household, how well the respondent understood the questions, and whether another family member was present are examples of

paradata.

Michelle wants to study the eating habits of college students for her class research project. She will design and conduct her own survey that she will administer to her classmates. She is involved in ________ data collection.

primary

For which type of questions might unfolding questions be the MOST useful?

questions about household finances

Anh plans to study the effect of age on standardized test performance, and chooses to represent age with number of years of age and to represent standardized test performance with Graduate Record Examination (GRE) scores. In this study, age is a(n) ________ variable and GRE scores are a(n) ________ variable.

ratio; interval

Using statistical data on individual baseball players' performance in past games is not a good way to make predictions about which teams will win future games. Taking this approach would introduce the problem of

reductionism.

The ________ is a mode of administration in which self-administered questionnaires (SAQ) are usually used.

survey by mail

A team of researchers is using surveys to study college students' feelings about the dining hall on campus. In order to ensure reliability, the researchers employ a test-retest method. One potential problem with a test-retest might be that

the dining hall could have changed its food in between the two survey points and therefore students' attitudes about the dining hall may have changed.

When researchers want to test robustness, or how well an operational protocol is working, they might use which of the following techniques?

the test-retest method

Francis is interested in attitudes about the hookup culture on college campuses. He plans on conducting a cognitive pretest. Why do you think he is conducting a cognitive pretest?

to understand how respondents interpret particular questions

If you are interested in studying a city that has similar features to the average city in the United States, what type of case should you select?

typical

Which of the following terms refers to whether results are true or accurate?

validity

A variable that represents identification with different racial-ethnic groups is a nominal variable because the

values cannot be ranked.

Anurak is designing a study on the importance of parent-child relationship quality for children's social adjustment in school. For parent-child relationship quality, he has decided to focus on the children's perceptions of how much their parents love them, respect them, and make them feel important. In making this choice, Anurak is creating ________ that represent the level of parents' love and respect and children's importance.

variables

If a researcher asks a participant in a study to envision himself or herself as an unemployed autoworker living in Detroit, Michigan, with a partner and two children, who is struggling to afford food and housing, the researcher is using a

vignette