chapter 9

Question 1

often the purpose of a ______ is simply to determine how people feel about a particular issue.

Answer 1

survey

Question 2

A major function of surveys is to _______

Answer 2

dispel myths

Question 3

“the empty nest syndrome” survey found that, rather than being depressed, virtually all of the mothers experienced a sense of ______.

Answer 3

relief

Question 4

An international survey of mothers and children from six different countries showed that in general, as physical punishment ______, anxiety and aggression ________ in children.

(hint: increased or decreased?)

Answer 4

increased; increased

Question 5

The measures of social psychological attitudes series also reviews and lists numerous measures of __________, _________, ________, and so forth

Answer 5

subjective well-being
social anxiety
depression

Question 6

Why might the first question be “What do I expect to accomplish?” when designing a questionnaire?

Answer 6

because beginning researchers sometimes tend to design and administer a questionnaire without thinking through the purpose of doing the survey in the first place.

Question 7

An _________ question is one that the respondents answer in their own words

Answer 7

open-ended

Question 8

A __________ question is one that limits the respondents to certain alternatives

Answer 8

closed-ended

Question 9

Which two basic categories can surveys questions be divided into?

Answer 9

1) open-ended questions

2) closed-ended question

Question 10

The ________ question permits respondents to answer more completely and to reveal the reasoning behind their answers.

Answer 10

open-ended

Question 11

Using open-ended questions makes it more likely that the questionnaire will discover something ____________ by its designers.

Answer 11

not anticipated

Question 12

_______ questions are harder to code because the answers are in narrative form.

Answer 12

open-ended

Question 13

it is necessary to ____________ in some way to summarize the data after the survey is complete

Answer 13

categorize responses

Question 14

_________ require more effort from the respondents and are more difficult for less articulate respondents to answer.

Answer 14

open-ended questions

Question 15

The advantages and disadvantages of open-ended questions make them more useful for _______ and _____ studies.

Answer 15

smaller and preliminary

Question 16

________ questions are easier to code and analyze, and there are fewer off-the-wall responses.

Answer 16

closed-ended

Question 17

The disadvantages of closed-ended questions are that the issue being studied maybe ________________, or _________________.

Answer 17

• too complex to reduce to a small set of alternatives
  or
• the respondent may not agree with any of them (resulting in simplistic answers)

Question 18

_____ can creep into closed-ended question

Answer 18

error

Question 19

to reduce errors, many questionnaires requires that each response be __________, so that the responses can be tested for consistency

Answer 19

recorded in two places

Question 20

the ______ of open-ended questions makes them more useful for small-scale and preliminary studies; whereas the ________ of closed-ended questions makes them more suitable for large studies.

Answer 20

flexibility; standardization

Question 21

when addressing single issues per items, the principle concern is that the questionnaire items be ________.

Answer 21

unambiguous

Question 22

questionnaires must avoid _______.

Answer 22

bias

Question 23

When patients in a doctor’s office questionnaire are asked for their level of pain and fatigue without a specified reporting period, they report levels ______ to their current pain.

Answer 23

similar

Question 24

________ refers to categories defined so that membership in one rules out membership in another

Answer 24

mutually exclusive

Question 25

categories are mutually exclusive if no individual case could ________________.

Answer 25

belong to more than one category at a time.

Question 26

_________ refers to categories defined so that all possible cases will fall into one of them

Answer 26

exhaustive

Question 27

For the categories to be __________, all cases must fall into one or another of the alternatives.

Answer 27

exhaustive

Question 28

bias often enters when respondents perceive one alternative as more socially acceptable than the other - a phenomenon called ________

Answer 28

social desirability

Question 29

_________ is a characteristic of certain responses that causes people to choose that response even if it does not represent their true tendency or opinion

Answer 29

social desirability

Question 30

how do researchers avoid social desirability?

Answer 30

by wording questions so that each alternative appears equally socially desirable

Question 31

To balance people's natural tendency to agree with any item, what might an experimenter also include?

Answer 31

a question that presents the matter the other way

Question 32

A ________ is a collection of items on a questionnaire designed to detect dishonest answers.

Answer 32

verification key

Question 33

Formatting a questionnaire entirely with binary close-ended questions makes it highly susceptible to bias caused by _________.

Answer 33

acquiescence

Question 34

________ refers to the tendency to agree with a statement on a questionnaire, regardless of its content

Answer 34

acquiescence

Question 35

It is estimated that the effect of acquiescence accounts for approximately ____% of responses.

Answer 35

10

Question 36

A ____________ is a question that asks for a response by marking a line between the minimum and maximum value for the statement

Answer 36

visual analogue scale

Question 37

A _________ is a question that asks for a rating of extent of agreement or disagreement with a statement; a rating scale.

Answer 37

Likert scale

Question 38

attitudes elicited by questionnaire items are frequently measured on a __-point scale or ___-point scale

Answer 38

7-point scale | 9-point scale

Question 39

_____ categories of agreement are the maximum that can be distinguished on most dimensions, though.

Answer 39

seven

Question 40

It is worth noting that scales are ____________ , just as thermometers or EEG machines are.

Answer 40

measurement instruments

Question 41

Using an appropriate scale to measure a response is as important as....

Answer 41

having an accurate ruler to measure the length of a line

Question 42

when creating questionnaires that concern _______, the usage of likert or VAS scales may produce less valid results than using the general labeled magnitude scale.

Answer 42

sensations.

Question 43

past experiences form a context for judging ______ and thus allows comparison of sensations between people.

Answer 43

strengths

Question 44

When constructing questions, often it is convenient to write ________ that permit the respondent to skip inappropriate items and move through a questionnaire more efficiently

Answer 44

branching items

Question 45

_________ refer to a set of questions that enable the respondent to move through a survey in different ways, depending upon the responses

Answer 45

branching items

Question 46

It is important to ________ the items in a questionnaire, and determine ___________

Answer 46

sequence how the data will be analyzed

Question 47

A _________ in survey research is the percentage of individuals in the sample who return the completed survey

Answer 47

response rate

Question 48

The computerized questionnaire has the advantage of being impersonal, so ______ may be reduced.

Answer 48

social desirability

Question 49

computerized administration suffers from some of the same problems as the __________.

Answer 49

written response method

Question 50

How might written administration of questionnaires take several forms?

Answer 50

The questionnaire may be administered to a group, they may be dropped off at a particular location, or they may be mailed to the respondents.

Question 51

What is the main advantage of written questionnaires?

Answer 51

low cost

Question 52

another drawback with written responses is that there is no possibility of __________, illiterate or uncooperative participants will provide meaningless data.

Answer 52

clarifying questions that might be misunderstood.

Question 53

What is the main advantage of the telephone as a method of administering surveys?

Answer 53

low cost

Question 54

the ________ of telephone surveys is reduced by the fact that only people who have a home telephone and are willing to put up with the intrusion can be sampled.

Answer 54

external validity

Question 55

compared with face-to-face interviews, _________ make it harder to establish rapport or to judge the degree of seriousness with which the respondent is taking the interview

Answer 55

telephone interviews

Question 56

A principle concern with all methods of administering surveys is the problem of ________

Answer 56

response rate

Question 57

A survey with a ____ response rate will be biased in the direction of the more vocal people.

Answer 57

low

Question 58

Most researchers require at least __% and prefer __% response rates, although many will accept a lower rate if ways of increasing return rate are not practical

Answer 58

50%, and prefer 90%

Question 59

Lower response rates do not necessarily translate into _______, even though the quality of the data is a direct function of the return rate.

Answer 59

less accurate results

Question 60

A ________ sample refers to the population subgroup for whose selection the researcher uses hit-or-miss methods

Answer 60

haphazard

Question 61

_______ are almost worthless.

Answer 61

haphazard samples

Question 62

A _______ sample refers to a nonrandom sample that is chosen for some characteristic that it possesses.

Answer 62

purposive

Question 63

A _________ is a nonrandom sample that is chosen for practical reasons

Answer 63

convenience sample

Question 64

the main problem with ________ is that an error in judgment by the researcher in selecting the sampling may influence the results.

Answer 64

purposive sampling

Question 65

__________ samples permit one to apply various statistics.

Answer 65

probability

Question 66

A ______ sample is a sample in which every number of the population has an equal and independent chance of being selected.

Answer 66

random

Question 67

A ______ sample is a probability sample but not a random sample

Answer 67

systematic

Question 68

________ involves selecting items from an ordered sampling frame

Answer 68

systematic sampling