Test 1 Research

Statistical tools would be applied to a research project during which of the following stages?

data analysis

Experiential knowledge is based on:

1st hand personal observations of events

Which of the following would BEST illustrate the use of prior research as a source of a research topic?

A research project that will use a sample of urban minority children

Which of the following would best illustrate the "program" as the unit of analysis in research?

A research project that will use a sample of urban minority children

Qualitative research would probably be chosen over quantitative when:

A researcher adopted the positivist position

All of the following are goals of research described in the text EXCEPT:

Accountability

According to the text, which of the following is among the weaknesses of detecting fraud in research through peer review and replication?

All of the answers represent such weaknesses

Which of the following is a limitation of experiential knowledge?

All of the other answers represent limitations

Which of the following statements indicates a positive relationship between the variables X and Y?

As the value X decreases, the value of Y decreases

Which of the following statements is true?

Basic research can have applications in the human service field

At the implementation stage of human service practice, practitioners are primarily concerned with:

Carrying out an intervention strategy that will produce some change in clients

Which of the following would be the best demonstration of the validity of a scale for the measurement of suicide potential?

Correlate the scale results with the actual occurrence of suicides

A pretest relates most closely to which stage of social research?

Data collection

_______________ is a technique for selecting small samples in a way that enhances their representativeness.

Dimensional sampling

Why is careful operational definition a critical issue in terms of minority groups and disadvantaged populations?

Inappropriate operational definition can lead to a biased, distorted view of a minority group

Which of the following would be true of science as a source of knowledge about the world?

It has advantages that make it superior to other wasys of gaining knowledge

Which of the following would be the most complete definition of "science" as a source of knowledge?

It is a method of obtaining objective knowledge about the world through systematic observation

One of the major disadvantages of traditional knowledge is:

It tends to confuse knowledge with values

Which of the following best illustrates the source of the research problems for researchers at the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) described in Research in Practice 4.1?

Policy implementation

Which of the following are differences between science and journalism as sources of knowledge?

Science is concerned with theory building but journalism is not

According to the text, human service professionals can play an important role in the political issues surrounding the selection of research problems by:

Serving as advocate, inclusion on the social research agenda of problems relevant to there clients.

Which of the following types of research is most clearly linked in the text with the focal area of practice effectiveness evaluation ?

Single System design

What stance is taken by researchers today over the Nazi era research?

Some argue that the data should be used if it is valid and reliable, and some researchers argue that social outrage against Nazi racism forbids using the data

The "ecological fallacy" would be best defined as:

The "ecological fallacy" would be best defined as:

The review of the literature in research typically has which of the following goals?

The review of the literature in research typically has which of the following goals?

Which of the following is a reason for replication in science?

To reduce the chance of error or misinterpretation in research

Which of the following conclusions can be drawn from the text's discussion of the historical development of ethical standards for research?

Unethical research is likely to occur if there are not guidelines to prevent it.

When he published his study of men having impersonal sex in public rest rooms, Laud Humphreys was accused of violating which of the following ethical issues?

Violating the privacy of individuals

Which of the following is the formula used to show the logic of measurement in the social sciences?

X=T+E

Sponsorship of research influences people's decision to participate in research in that people are least likely to participate in research sponsored by:

a commercial organization

Identifying and properly defining the concepts that will be the focus of a research study is called:

a conceptual development

The group from which some treatment is withheld is called:

a control group

Which of the following might threaten the confidentiality of participants in a research project?

a court request to see all of the data that a researcher has collected, and an effort by a sponsor of research to identify research participants

Which of the following would be most clearly a nominal definition of poverty?

a deficiency of resources to the extent that one can't obtain a minimally acceptable lifestyle.

Which of the following best describes an availability sample?

a physiologist studying singe mother using those single mother who are among her

Qualitative research would probably be chosen over quantitative research when:

a researcher believed that the aspects of the human experience being studied cannot be meaningfully reduced to numbers and measures

A theory would be best defined as:

a set of interrelated, abstract concepts and statements that offer an explanation of some phenomenon

As used in the social and behavioral sciences, the term "social research" includes all of the following EXCEPT:

a strategy for intervention that will be effective in alleviating the personal or social problems confronting a client.

Which of the following statements most clearly represents an effort at a nomothetic explanation?

a study attempting to show whether all juveniles who shoplife have a weak attachment to their parents

Which of the following would be LEAST LIKELY to be classified as a research problem selected on the basis of program evaluation?

a study conducted to determine whether the propositions of exchange theory could predict which marriages would fail

Which of the following would be the BEST illustration of explanatory research?

a study of the reasons why juvenile delinquency occurs in a community

Which of the following would most clearly be an illustration of predictive research?

a study whose goal is to project how many children will suffer from malnourishment if funding for some social program is reduced

When a research topic is selected on the basis of personal interest in a particular problem, the main purpose of the research should be to:

advance scientific knowledge

In developing a research contract with a sponsor, it would usually be unethical to:

agree to publish the results only if they turn out a certain way

When we say that social research is systematic, we mean that:

all aspects of the research are carefully planned in advance and nothing is done in a casual fashion

In a literature review, a systematic search is conducted for which kinds of information?

all of the answers represent information sought in a literature review

When choosing which of several indicators to use in a research project, which of the following would play a role in the decision?

all of the answers would play a role in the decision

Prior research is a fruitful source of research problems because:

all research projects have limitations and leave some research questions unanswered

Regarding scientific misconduct, the text concludes that:

although the number of cases of scientific misconduct appears to be small they still can damage the credibility of all research

A single indicator of a variable is called:

an item

An "indicator" in both research and practice is best defined as:

an observation that is assumed to be evidence of the attributes or properties of something

Which of the following types of samples is subject to the greatest sampling error?

area samples

Which of the following is the unit of analysis that is LEAST LIKELY to be used in human service research?

artifacts

Research whose purpose is to advance our knowledge with little concern for any immediate, practical benefits is called:

basic research

Why is it that asking for people s written and informed consent to participate in a research project reduces the likelihood that they will agree to participate?

because it appears that confidentiality might be violated

One of the parallels between social research and human service practice that is mentioned in Chapter 1 is that:

both are based on observation

In selecting an indicator to measure a variable, a researcher should:

both strive for the highest level of measurement possible, and be guided predominantly by the theoretical nature of the variable.

Research on Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) was delayed in the early 1980s because:

both the Reagan Administration was cutting social programs, and the disease first appeared in groups for whom they powers-that-be felt little sympathy

The stage of drawing conclusions in social research would be parallel to which stage in human service practice?

closure

Sampling in which a person first samples among larger units and then takes samples of smaller units within those larger ones is called:

cluster sampling

The adage birds of a feather flock together is used in the text as a way of illustrating which source of knowledge?

common sense

Of the following, the most complex form of validity is:

construct validity

Of the following ways of demonstrating validity, which is the weakest demonstration of validity?

content validity

A central part of the evidence-based approach to the human services is to:

critically evaluate research studies to determine how much confidence we have in their conclusions

The type of research that is intended to provide a single "snapshot" in time of some phenomenon is:

cross sectional research

Which of the following types of research would generally be cheaper and faster to conduct?

cross sectional research

The "implementation" step in human service practice would be most equivalent to which stage of social research?

data collection

Ethical absolutists would call for the elimination of which of the following?

deception in research

Reasoning that involves inferring a specific conclusion from some general or abstract premises is called:

deductive reasoning

When scientific analysis moves from the level of theoretical statements to that of testable hypotheses, the process has involved:

deductive reasoning

The purpose of a pretest is to:

determine whether the data gathering techniques to be used are adequate

variables are variables that have a finite number of distinct and separate values or categories.

discrete

When testing the reliability of a measuring device, a solution to the problem of multiple-testing effects is to:

divide the test group into two groups one tested twice and one once

During which stage of the research process would you assess how much support exists for the hypotheses stated in the research?

drawing conclusions

Which of the following is true of all probability samples?

each element in the population is a known chance of being included in the sample

The motivation to define the human services as a scientific discipline has arisen from the effort to:

enhance the accountability of the helping professions

The concept of socioeconomic status possesses all of the following characteristics related to its level of measurement EXCEPT:

equal spacing between categories

In the formula presented to show the logic of measurement in the social sciences, X = T + E, the E stands for:

error

If the potential for harm or distress exists in a research investigation, then the researcher should do the following:

fully inform the participants

According to the approach to human-service practice known as evidence-based practice, the best evidence for use in practice is that which:

has been gained via the research process

In regard to theories, the text states that nearly all research should, at a minimum:

have some implications for verifying existing theory.

Researchers should strive for the highest level of measurement possible because:

higher levels of measurements are more percise

When the text refers to the politics of research problem selection, it is referring to:

how access to power and resource affect research

In choosing among a number of intervention theories, a major consideration in the selection of a theory to use is:

how much empirical evidence supports the theory

The level of measurement that will allow researchers to perform common arithmetic operations on the numbers is:

interval

Which of the following levels of measurement possess mutually exclusive categories, a fixed order to the categories, and equal spacing between the units of measurement?

interval and ratio

A negative relationship is the same thing as a/an:

inverse relationship

One inherent weakness of concurrent validity is that:

it assumes the existing measured used for compassion purpose are valid

One of the advantages of the test retest method of assessing reliability is:

it can be used with many measures

Which of the following is true of reactivity?

it is a problem for all sciences

A major drawback to using simple random sampling is that:

it is often impractical and costly with a large sampling frame

One of the drawbacks of snowball sampling is:

it may miss people who are isolated from social networks

According to the text, the danger of scientists becoming advocates for certain applications of their research is that:

it might hamper the objective collection and analysis of data

One of the criticisms of common sense knowledge is that:

it often explains everything, even when those explanations conflict with one another

Based upon a review of the literature, a researcher should:

learn from others experiences and avoid pitfalls in earlier research

As a general rule, the _______________ are the data in a research project, the _______________ will be needed to analyze them.

less structured; more time

If you wanted to study changes in the ways in which children who were born deaf adapt to their handicap at different ages, the preferred research method to use would be:

longitudinal research

The text states that only concepts that are can be used in the research process.

measurable

The text suggests that racial and ethnic minorities sometimes have rare event status. This means that:

minorities constitute a relatively small percentage of some populations that are sampled.

The two principles that serve as a basis for the techniques for estimating the reliability of a measure are:

stability and equivalence

Nominal measures classify observations in which of the following ways?

mutually exclusive and exhaustive categories

A(n) explanation focuses on a class of events and attempts to specify the conditions that seem common to all those events.

nomothetic

Confidentiality refers to:

not publicly linking any particular information to any specific individual who has participated in a study

The preeminent ethical obligation of researchers in terms of disclosing research results is to:

not publish inaccurate, deceptive, or fraudulent research results

In the process of theory verification in research, ____ is analogous to _______in the process of theory verification in practice

observation....intervention

The text refers to measurement as the process of:

operationalizing concepts

A research study measures height by having observers judge people s heights and classify them into one of three categories: tall height, medium height, and short height. The resulting measure would most clearly be at which level of measurement?

ordinal

According to the text, the best kind of research to achieve the goals of longitudinal research is:

panel study

Some researchers argue that attitude scales with response alternatives such as strongly agree, agree, disagree, and strongly disagree can be considered to be at the interval level of measurement because:

people perceive the distance between choice alternatives on such scales to be equal

For which of the following groups would it probably be most difficult to develop an adequate sampling frame?

people suffering from mental disorders

One social researcher was interested in conducting research on battered women because she had been abused by her husband. This most clearly exemplifies selecting a research problem based on:

personal interest

Two aspects of the data collection stage of research that show how careful scientists are about data collection are called pretests and:

pilot studies

A small scale "trial run" of all of the procedures planned for use in a research project is called a:

pilot study

Which of the following is the best statement of "informed consent" in social research?

potential research participants should be told about all aspects of the research that might reasonably influence their decision to participate

According to the text, scientific human service practice should have all of the following EXCEPT:

practice approaches should be based on the practitioners intuitive, common sense assessment of the suitability of techniques

The known groups approach to validity is a variation on:

predictive, validity

A researcher has a group of people complete a preliminary version of a questionnaire in order to determine whether any revision in the questionnaire is called for. This researcher has conducted a/an:

pretest

"The ability to control when and under what conditions others will have access to your beliefs, values, or behavior" is the ethical issue of:

privacy

When each element in a population has a chance to appear in a sample and the researcher can determine what that chance is, we have a:

probability sample

The first step in conducting social research is:

problem formulation

"The use of scientific research techniques to assess the results of a program and evaluate whether the program as currently designed achieves its stated goals" refers to which of the following focal areas?

program evaluation

The final stage in the process of social research is:

public dissemination of results

The "risk benefit" approach to requiring informed consent is that:

questionable practices such as deception can be used if they are essential to the research and will bring no harm to participants

A research project asks people to state the number of times that they have been arrested. This variable would be considered at which level of measurement?

ratio

Which of the following levels of measurement will permit us to make statements about proportions and ratios?

ratio

The detailed plan developed by a researcher to outline how observations that are a part of a research project will be made is called:

research design

When social work researcher W. David Harrison explained burnout among social workers on the basis of role theory, he was using:

role theory

All of the following are measurement techniques used in the social sciences EXCEPT:

sampling validity

The major reason for using a scale for measurement rather than a single item is that:

scales enable us to measure variables in a more precise and accurate fashion

Which of the following statements would be most clearly consistent with positivist approach to science?

science uses objective techniques to discover a world that exists independently of the scientists perceptions if it

Certificates of confidentiality are generally awarded only for:

sensitive research

Empirical data are based on:

sensory experiences

Which of the following variables would be considered nominal variables at the theoretical level?

sex, ethnicity

At the evaluation stage of practice intervention, the evidence-based model would emphasize the employment of:

single-system designs, and systematic assessment strategies

Which of the following is most clearly NOT a discrete variable?

social class position

Max Weber's "value free" approach to science posits that:

social scientists should create knowledge not apply it

Which of the following is true of a sampling frame developed from the address listing for a community provided by the United States Postal Service?

some addresses may not appear on the list

In regard to conducting research on minorities and women, the text states that:

standard research methods can at some times result in misleading conclusions when used with minorities

Error that is consistent and patterned is called:

systematic error

Which events in this century served as major catalysts for efforts to codify a set of ethical standards for scientific research?

the Nazi experiments on people in concentration camps and the US public health service study of syphillis

In sampling, the term precision refers to:

the amount of sampling error contained in a given sample

The opportunity for the researcher to alleviate the impact of any distress research participants might experience occurs during:

the debriefing

If a research project collected data from heads of households about the characteristics of the household, the unit of analysis would be:

the group

An important ethical objection to conducting research on prison inmates is:

the inmates are not really free to give consent

One of the major shortcomings of quota sampling is that:

the interviewers do the actual selection of cases

In defining a population, we need to specify all of the following EXCEPT:

the level of measurement

In addition to the behavior or characteristics of clients, human service practice research has also focused on this area as an important source of research problems:

the mode and process of human service practice itself

All possible cases of what a researcher is interested in studying would be called:

the population

We conduct a research project in which we collect data from individual teenagers about their drug use and then draw conclusions about rates of drug use in the communities the teenagers are from. This research may well be subject to:

the reductionist folicy

A spurious relationship is one in which:

the relationship between two variables disappears when effects of other variables are taken into account

In criminal cases, the courts have generally ruled that:

the right of the public to be protected from criminal activity supersedes any assurance of confidentiality in research

The term level of measurement refers to:

the rules that define permissible mathematical operations on a measuring device

The more homogeneous a population is on the variables being studied:

the smaller the sample size needs be to be representative

The reliability test that is subject to the multiple-testing effect is:

the test retest approach

Measurement is a part of the scientific process that involves moving from _______________ to _______________.

the theoretical....the concrete

With disproportionate stratified samples, when the goal is to ensure sufficient numbers of cases for analysis, the variables on which the researcher stratifies are:

the variable that has a category with a small number of cases in it

Which of the following is a reason for using sampling in research rather than studying the whole group in which we are interested?

the whole group is sometimes too large to be feasible to study, and carefully drawn samples can provide better information than can be gotten from studying the whole group

Theories serve as a guide for research in that:

theories focus research attention on certain phenomena as being relevant to the issues of concern

The notion that scientific research and human service practice are totally distinct enterprises is disappearing because:

there are strong parallels between the conduct of research and the conduct of practice

According to the text, evidence-based practice has emerged because:

there is a growing body of social-science research evidence that can guide practice

To infer causality, all of the following must be present EXCEPT:

there must be a positive relationship between the two variables.

One of the advantages of availability samples is:

they are less expensive than many other sampling procedures

In research that involves deception, the purpose of the debriefing is:

to inform research participants of any deceptions that were utilized in the research

A psychoanalyst accepts the teachings of Sigmund Freud without question, assuming that such a great historical figure could not be wrong. This is an example of:

traditional knowledge

The elements whose characteristics we wish to describe or explain and about which data will be collected are called:

units of analysis

Which of the following is NOT included in the text as a possible source of research problems?

units of analysis

In the sampling mistake created by the Literary Digest magazine, the thing they did wrong was to:

use a sampling frame consisting of lists of automobile owners

Which of the following issues was cited as being a crucial ethical concern when conducting research on vulnerable groups, such as those with few social, psychological, or financial resources with which to protect their own interests?

voluntary and informed consent

One of the major weaknesses of cross sectional research is that:

you cannot observe changes in the same people over time