Research final exam

After examining the FBI Crime Reports for a 30 year period, Professor Hall claimed that the incidence of rape has increased. After examining the same reports, Professor Shine claimed that the reporting of rape, not the incidence of rape, has increased. This illustrates

The problem of reliability in using existing statistics

Given the following values, the median is 8, 12, 9, 15, 17, 11, 13, 14, 7

12

Given the following age distribution, the mean is 18, 33, 7, 32, 6, 5, 4

15

In an evaluation of an intervention that seeks to increase self-esteem scores, if the mean of the experimental group is 60, the mean of the control group is 50, and the standard deviation of the control group is 5, the Cohen's d effect size is

2

Given the following age distribution, the range is 12, 15, 8, 17, 34, 43, 2, 16, 43, 3

2, 43

Suppose 100 clients referred for substance abuse problems receive new Intervention A and another receive treatment as usual (TAU). Suppose further that 20% of the recipients of Intervention A recidivate as compared to 50% of the TAU recipients. The odds ratio would be

4.0.

Which of the following is true about negative case testing in qualitative content analysis?

The data should be searched to find all cases that would contradict the original hypothesis

Which of the following statements is true about focus groups?

The group dynamics may bring out information that may not have emerged in individual interviews

Which of the following is a social constructivist standard for appraising the trustworthiness of qualitative research?

member checking

The most frequent attribute, in either grouped or ungrouped data, is the

mode

In comparison to surveys, qualitative research is

more subjective and less generalizable

The qualitative researcher

seldom approaches the task with precisely defined hypotheses to be tested attempts to make sense out of an ongoing process that cannot always be predicted in advance alternates between induction and deduction makes initial observations, develops tenative conclusions that suggest further observation, and revises the conclusions

An example of the participant-as-observer includes

telling a motorcycle gang that you are a researcher and would like to ride with them for a year to understand their interaction patterns

If an experimental group's mean of 20 indicates fewer undesirable symptoms than the control group's mean of 25, and the standard deviation is 10, then the Cohen's d effect size should be reported as

+.50

Which of the following statements is true about the emic and etic perspectives in qualitative research?

Although the two perspectives seem contradictory, the participant observer should try to blend them

Which of the following is poor advice about recording observations in the field?

Always constantly take notes while you are observing

In which of the following analyses is content analysis least likely to be useful?

Dating patterns among high school seniors

Professor Smith was interested in reporting the reality of the experiences of teenage runaways living on the streets in their own terms. Smith is probably most interested in

Ethnography

An experiment evaluating the effectiveness of an intervention for improving attitudes about something finds that the mean posttest score of the experimental group is 70, which is better than the control group's mean posttest score of 65. The significance level is .05, and the p value is .01. The standard deviation is 5. True/False The results certainly are substantively significant

False

True/False A Cohen's d effect size of less than 1.0 is considered to be weak

False

True/False A researcher using official government documents need not be concerned about the the reliability of those records

False

True/False Cluster sampling techniques should not be used in content analysis

False

True/False Corroboration in historical research is best done using the same type of source, not different types of sources

False

True/False Manifest content refers to the meanings contained within communications

False

True/False The mean is almost always sufficient in portraying the typical case in a distribution

False

True/False The mean or median can be used to describe the central tendency of the variable "ethnicity"

False

True/False The substantive significance of a relationship is always automatically indicated by the strength of the relationship

False

True/False The table shows that regardless of type of illness, recipients of social work services were more likely to die in the hospital

False

True/False The variable "number of children" is at the nominal level of measurement

False

True/False: An informant is one of your colleagues who attempts to gain membership into the group being studied

False

True/False: Due to their similarity, it is relatively easy, and not paradoxical, to blend the emic and etic perspectives in qualitative observation

False

True/False: Field notes should records what you "know happened," NOT what you "think" has happened

False

True/False: Qualitative researchers should never participate as an actor in the events under study

False

True/False: Qualitative researchers should wait to record observations until enough time has passed to put the events in proper perspective

False

True/False: The complete participant role prevents researchers from having an effect on what they are observing

False

True/False: The qualitative researcher in the role of participant-as-observer participates fully with the group under study but does not disclose his or her role as researcher

False

True/False: The standards for appraising the trustworthiness of qualitative research are the same regardless of one's epistemological paradigm

False

For social scientists, an advantage to utilizing available records for data is

The data can be obtained with limited financial cost

Which of the following illustrates a grouped data frequency distribution?

Five new students have been accepted on the editorial staff of their school paper. Two of the students are 18 years of age, one is 19 years, and two are 21 years of age

A measure of dispersion describes

How spread out the data are

In comparison to coding the manifest content of communication, coding the latent content

Is better designed for tapping the underlying meaning of communications

Which of the following statements are true about historical/comparative analysis?

It is comparative in that it seeks to discover common patterns that recur in different times and places. Primary sources for raw data might include old letters, diaries, or lectures. Flaws might exist in both primary as well as secondary sources. Even official government records might be biased.

Suppose a study reports that the average number of times that control group participants got drunk during the year was five. What is appropriate to conclude?

It is conceivable that most of the control group participants got drunk less than five times or more than five times

Which of the following statements is true about participatory action research?

It is distinguished by its social action aims The researcher serves as a resource to those being studied It often involves poor people

Which of the following statements is true about the strengths or weaknesses of content analysis?

It is likely to be economical in terms of times and money

Professor Perlman was interested in comparing two textbooks to determine whether one used more sexist language than the other. Perlman counted the number of times a gender reference appeared in each book. Perlman was using

Manifest content coding

At what level of measurement is the variable "ethnicity"?

Nominal

A research article reports that clients who received Intervention A had a 30% recidivism rate, while clients who received Intervention B had a 40% recidivism rate. What can be inferred from these statistics?

None of these

Which of the following statements is true about analyzing existing statistics?

None of these

Which of the following contemporary positivist strategies is recommended for enhancing the rigor of qualitative studies?

Prolonged engagement Triangulation Negative Case Analysis Leaving a paper trail for auditing

Qualitative research is epecially effective for

Providing a comprehensive perspective to the researcher

At what level of measurement is the variable "number of future incidents of child neglect?"

Ratio

Coding refers to

The assignment of a number or numeral to the attributes of a variable

Professor Perlman from question 4 found that textbook A contained the word "he" 80 times, whereas textbook B contained it 20 times. In addition, textbook A used the word "chairman" 16 times, whereas textbook B used it only 4 times. Perlman was correct in concluding that

The word "he" and "chairman" appeared four times more in textbook A than in textbook B

Which of the following is NOT a limitation of secondary analysis?

Trends over time cannot be assessed

An experiment evaluating the effectiveness of an intervention for improving attitudes about something finds that the mean posttest score of the experimental group is 70, which is better than the control group's mean posttest score of 65. The significance level is .05, and the p value is .01. The standard deviation is 5. True/False The Cohen's d effect size statistic is +1.0

True

An experiment evaluating the effectiveness of an intervention for improving attitudes about something finds that the mean posttest score of the experimental group is 70, which is better than the control group's mean posttest score of 65. The significance level is .05, and the p value is .01. The standard deviation is 5. True/False The results are statistically significant

True

True/False A bivariate table is read by comparing the independent variable subgroups with one another in terms of a given attribute of the dependent variable

True

True/False A danger in working exclusively with secondary sources in historical research is that you may merely repeat that mistakes contained in those sources

True

True/False An ideal type is a conceptual model composed of the essential characteristics of social phenomena

True

True/False As a mode of observation, content analysis is essentially an operation of coding

True

True/False Half the cases are above the median and half the cases are below the median

True

True/False Historical analysis can overlap with content analysis

True

True/False Historical research can involve quanitative as well as qualitative methods

True

True/False If the table were collapsed into a bivariate table with only two rows and two columns, deleting the type of illness variable, recipients of social work services would appear to be more likely to die in the hospital

True

True/False Latent coding has the advantage of tapping underlying meanings, while reliability is an advantage of manifest coding

True

True/False Secondary analysis refers to the analysis of data collected by another researcher for a purpose similar to your research interests

True

True/False Terminally ill patients are both more likely to receive social work services and to die in the hospital

True

True/False The cost savings of secondary analysis enable researchers to study larger and representative samples

True

True/False The odds ratio shows how much more or less likely a certain dependent variable outcome is for the categories of the independent variable

True

True/False Whereas univariate analysis and subgroup comparisons focus on the descriptions of the people under study, the focus of bivariate analysis is on the relationships among the variables themselves.

True

True/False: Ethnography focuses on providing detailed, accurate descriptions of the way people in a particular culture live and the way they interpret the meaning of things

True

True/False: Feminist studies aim to generate findings that can be used to improve the well being of women in an historically male dominated society

True

True/False: Grounded theory emphasizes inductive processes, but can incorporate deductive processes

True

True/False: Prolonged engagement is used to reduce the impact of reactivity and respondent bias

True

True/False: Using the life-history method, researchers ask open-ended questions to discover how participants in a study understand the significant events and meanings in their own lives

True

Among the advantages of qualitative research is that it

allows for the modification of research design

A study that begins with observations and then looks for patterns, themes, or common categories is using what method?

ground theory

An advantage of qualitative research is that

phenomena can be studied in a natural setting

Professor Jenner was interested in using Census Bureau data to examine the trend in unemployment rates in the United States. However, Jenner's definition of unemployment did not match the one used by the Census Bureau. Jenner was dealing with the issue of

validity

The adage that you must walk a mile in another person's shoes before judging the person is similar to which of the following concepts

verstehen