INLS 1 201 RESEARCH METHODS Fall 2004 PRACTICE EXAM For question 1 through 3, identify the correct level of measurement for the variable. 1. Price of a book, measured in US dollars. a. b. c. d. Nominal Ordinal Interval Ratio
2. Martial status, measured as "single," "married," "separated," "divorced," or "widowed." a. b. c. d. Nominal Ordinal Interval Ratio
3. Approval for a newly established library policy on Internet use, measured on a 5-point Likert scale, where the anchors are "Strongly Approve" and "Strongly Disapprove." NOTE: mark "real" level, not one used for data analysis. a. b. c. d. Nominal Ordinal Interval Ratio
4. A measure that is ________ is also necessarily ___________ . a. Valid, reliable b. Reliable, valid 5. Grounded theory begins with a. Patterns b. Themes c. Common categories d. Observations 6. In comparison to experiments and surveys, interviews have a. Greater reliability and greater validity b. Greater reliability and less validity c. Less reliability and greater validity d. Less reliability and less validity
2 7. According to Babbie, the minimum level for an adequate response rate for analysis and reporting is: a. 30% b. 40% c. 50% d. 60% Questions 8 through 12 are based on the following information. A researcher wants to test the hypothesis that people from high socio-economic status (SES) categories have a less favorable attitude towards public libraries than those from low SES categories. The researcher measures SES as either "high" or "low," and creates a scale to measure attitudes toward public libraries using 5, 7-point Likert-type items. 8. Attitude towards public libraries is the: a. b. c. d. independent variable dependent variable moderating variable intervening variable
9. SES is the: a. independent variable b. dependent variable c. moderating variable d. intervening variable 10. What is the null hypothesis?
11. Which inferential statistical test should the researcher use? a. b. c. d. Frequency distribution Pearson's correlation T-test Mean
12. Suppose the researcher conducts an inferential statistical test, and finds that the p-value is .08 (p=.08). What decision should be made? a. claim hypothesis is true b. claim support for hypothesis c. fail to reject the null hypothesis d. reject the null hypothesis
3 13. In an _______________, the _______________ is manipulated. a. b. c. d. interview, independent variable interview, dependent variable experiment, independent variable experiment, dependent variable
14. Consider the following survey item, which would be answered with a 5-point Likert scale: Please rate your satisfaction with the amount and kind of service you received while in the library. What type of question is this? a. b. c. d. contingency question open-ended question biased question double-barreled question
15. A researcher is interested in comparing male and female high school students' attitudes towards technology. The researcher has created an instrument to assess attitudes towards technology and would like to establish its reliability. To do this, the researcher administers the instrument to 100 students at a local high school. Two months later, the researcher administers the same instrument to the same 100 students. Which technique does the researcher use to establish reliability? a. b. c. d. Test-retest method Split-half method Using established methods Follow-up method
16. Which of the following descriptive statistics is most appropriate for describing nominal data? a. Mean b. Mode c. Standard Deviation d. Maximum 17. Which of the following descriptive statistics is most appropriate for describing ratio data? a. Mean b. Median c. Mode d. Range
4 18. Which of the following best describes the purposes of operationalization? a. To gather data from a sample. b. To indicate the scholarly history leading to the present study. c. To assess the theoretical relationships among variables. d. To devise procedures for measuring variables. 19. Which of the following best describes the main purpose of sampling? a. To enhance the reliability of measurements. b. To enhance the validity of measurements. c. To validate the theoretical concepts used in a study. d. To select a set of people with the same characteristics as the population from which they are chosen.
Questions 20 30 are based on the following information. A researcher, Sue, is interested in comparing the cognitive impact of two different nonfiction writing styles on primary school children. The first writing style presents nonfiction material to children within the context of a story (story-telling style). The second writing style presents nonfiction material to children in essay format, similar to an encyclopedia (encyclopedia style). To measure cognitive impact, Sue plans to use the well-established, "Cognitive Impact Questionnaire." The result of the "Cognitive Impact Questionnaire" is a single score, where higher a score means a higher cognitive impact (this variable is a ratio level of measurement). Sue believes that nonfiction written in the story-telling style will have a greater cognitive impact than nonfiction written in the encyclopedia style. Sue selects two different books to use in her study. Each book is about the same topic and is about the same length. One book is written using the story-telling style, and the other book is written using the encyclopedia style. The children are randomly divided into two groups. Children in the first group are given copies of the story-telling style book, while children in the second group are given copies of the encyclopedia style book. The children are asked to read the book and are then given the Cognitive Impact Questionnaire when they are finished. Sue selects 100 third and fourth graders from the volunteer pool of students within the Orange County, North Carolina school system to participate in her study. Sue only selects children whose primary language is English and who are not learning-disabled for inclusion in the study. Sue predicts that children who read the story-telling style book will have higher scores on the Cognitive Impact Questionnaire than children who read the encyclopedia style book. After computing the descriptive statistics, Sue obtains a mean cognitive impact score of 12.3 for children who read the story-telling style book and a mean cognitive impact score of 5.8 for children who read the encyclopedia style book. The p-value for the inferential statistical test exploring the differences between these means is .03 (p=.03).
5 20. Cognitive impact is the: a. b. c. d. Independent variable Dependent variable Moderating variable Intervening variable
21. What is the level of measurement for the independent variable? a. b. c. d. nominal ordinal interval ratio
22. What procedure is used to measure the independent variable? a. b. c. d. Direct observation Indirect observation Manipulation Self-report
23. What is the unit of analysis in this study? a. children b. writing styles c. cognitive impact d. families 24. What type of method does Sue use to collect data? a. Interview b. Experiment c. Content Analysis d. Focus Group 25. What is the independent variable? a. cognitive impact b. writing style c. story-telling style d. encyclopedia style
6 26. Which inferential statistical test did Sue use? a. b. c. d. Kendall's Tau Chi-Square T-test ANOVA
27. What kind of sampling was used? a. Systematic b. Purposive c. Stratified d. Snowball 28. Based on the p-value, what can Sue conclude? a. Accept the null hypothesis b. Fail to reject the null hypothesis c. Reject the null hypothesis d. claim support for her hypothesis e. both c) and d)
Use the following information for Questions 29 - 37. In a recent survey, subjects were asked to report the number of hours they spend each week using the Internet. The following responses were observed: 12 10 8 4 30 13 3 6 8 7 11 12 12
29. What is the mean number of hours that...