Hypotheses & Research Questions

Question 1

what is a hypothesis?

Answer 1

a formal (and testable) prediction of what will occur?

Question 2

what is a research question?

Answer 2

a question around which research activities are organized?

Question 3

when should you use an hypothesis?

Answer 3

1) when we are testing the relationship between two or more variables
2) when we have an educated/informed guess as to what is likely to occur

Question 4

what should you use a research question?

Answer 4

when we’re exploring a new area and/or aren’t clear about the relationships between the variables in our study

Question 5

how is quantitative data frequently collected?

Answer 5

Questionnaires

Question 6

are the terms questionnaires and surveys interchangeable?

Answer 6

No
- surveys: method of data collections
- questionnaires: the instrument containing the questions

Question 7

what is the first step in developing a questionnaire?

Answer 7

develop a list of variables that you want to measure

Question 8

what are the two broad types of variables?

Answer 8

variables of primary interest
control and descriptive variables

Question 9

what are variables of primary interest?

Answer 9

variables you are explicitly interested in learning more about

Question 10

what are control and descriptive variables?

Answer 10

variables whose collection gives the research the ability to describe what the sample looks like in terms of demographics and to address spuriousness

Question 11

T or F: it is important to think about variables that might confound the relationship(s) between our variables of primary interest

Answer 11

True

Question 12

How do write a good questionnaire?

Answer 12

• Develop a thorough list of variables you want to collect
• Think about the best way(s) to measure each variable
• Think of all possible answers to each question
• Avoid biased, misleading, socially desirable, or double-barreled questions and overly technical terms
• Pay attention to contingency questions
• Think about the presentation order of your questions
• Use clarity and brevity
• Think long and hard about scaling/measurement level
• Pre-test!

Question 13

What are ways to deploy questionnaires?

Answer 13

1) in-person
2) telephonically
- manual
- computer-assisted
3) online

Question 14

What is the next step after post-collection?

Answer 14

format/tabulate the data

Question 15

T or F: most forms of quantitative data analysis require data to be in tabular format

Answer 15

True: data is organized using columns and rows
- each column represents a variable while each row represents a unique respondent or media artifact

Question 16

what is the next step after formatting data in a tabular form

Answer 16

inspect the data for obvious errors/flaws

Question 17

T or F: missing data is not an important factor to consider

Answer 17

False

Question 18

how to handle missing data?

Answer 18

1) listwise deletion: delete all cases with one or more bit of missing data
2) pairewise: exclude cases with missing data on a variable-by-variable basis
3) imputation: replace missing data with an educated guess of how the respondent is likely to have answered

Question 19

what is the next step after data has been inspected?

Answer 19

conduct statistical analyses

Question 20

what aids statistic analysis?

Answer 20

computer programs;
- Excel
- IBM SPSS
- STATA
- R
- Python