chapter 9 Flashcards
often the purpose of a ______ is simply to determine how people feel about a particular issue.
survey
A major function of surveys is to _______
dispel myths
“the empty nest syndrome” survey found that, rather than being depressed, virtually all of the mothers experienced a sense of ______.
relief
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?)
increased; increased
The measures of social psychological attitudes series also reviews and lists numerous measures of __________, _________, ________, and so forth
subjective well-being
social anxiety
depression
Why might the first question be “What do I expect to accomplish?” when designing a questionnaire?
because beginning researchers sometimes tend to design and administer a questionnaire without thinking through the purpose of doing the survey in the first place.
An _________ question is one that the respondents answer in their own words
open-ended
A __________ question is one that limits the respondents to certain alternatives
closed-ended
Which two basic categories can surveys questions be divided into?
1) open-ended questions
2) closed-ended question
The ________ question permits respondents to answer more completely and to reveal the reasoning behind their answers.
open-ended
Using open-ended questions makes it more likely that the questionnaire will discover something ____________ by its designers.
not anticipated
_______ questions are harder to code because the answers are in narrative form.
open-ended
it is necessary to ____________ in some way to summarize the data after the survey is complete
categorize responses
_________ require more effort from the respondents and are more difficult for less articulate respondents to answer.
open-ended questions
The advantages and disadvantages of open-ended questions make them more useful for _______ and _____ studies.
smaller and preliminary
________ questions are easier to code and analyze, and there are fewer off-the-wall responses.
closed-ended
The disadvantages of closed-ended questions are that the issue being studied maybe ________________, or _________________.
- too complex to reduce to a small set of alternatives
or - the respondent may not agree with any of them (resulting in simplistic answers)
_____ can creep into closed-ended question
error
to reduce errors, many questionnaires requires that each response be __________, so that the responses can be tested for consistency
recorded in two places
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.
flexibility; standardization
when addressing single issues per items, the principle concern is that the questionnaire items be ________.
unambiguous
questionnaires must avoid _______.
bias
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.
similar
________ refers to categories defined so that membership in one rules out membership in another
mutually exclusive
categories are mutually exclusive if no individual case could ________________.
belong to more than one category at a time.
_________ refers to categories defined so that all possible cases will fall into one of them
exhaustive
For the categories to be __________, all cases must fall into one or another of the alternatives.
exhaustive
bias often enters when respondents perceive one alternative as more socially acceptable than the other - a phenomenon called ________
social desirability
_________ is a characteristic of certain responses that causes people to choose that response even if it does not represent their true tendency or opinion
social desirability
how do researchers avoid social desirability?
by wording questions so that each alternative appears equally socially desirable
To balance people’s natural tendency to agree with any item, what might an experimenter also include?
a question that presents the matter the other way
A ________ is a collection of items on a questionnaire designed to detect dishonest answers.
verification key
Formatting a questionnaire entirely with binary close-ended questions makes it highly susceptible to bias caused by _________.
acquiescence
________ refers to the tendency to agree with a statement on a questionnaire, regardless of its content
acquiescence
It is estimated that the effect of acquiescence accounts for approximately ____% of responses.
10
A ____________ is a question that asks for a response by marking a line between the minimum and maximum value for the statement
visual analogue scale
A _________ is a question that asks for a rating of extent of agreement or disagreement with a statement; a rating scale.
Likert scale
attitudes elicited by questionnaire items are frequently measured on a
__-point scale or ___-point scale
7-point scale
9-point scale
_____ categories of agreement are the maximum that can be distinguished on most dimensions, though.
seven
It is worth noting that scales are ____________ , just as thermometers or EEG machines are.
measurement instruments
Using an appropriate scale to measure a response is as important as….
having an accurate ruler to measure the length of a line
when creating questionnaires that concern _______, the usage of likert or VAS scales may produce less valid results than using the general labeled magnitude scale.
sensations.
past experiences form a context for judging ______ and thus allows comparison of sensations between people.
strengths
When constructing questions, often it is convenient to write ________ that permit the respondent to skip inappropriate items and move through a questionnaire more efficiently
branching items
_________ refer to a set of questions that enable the respondent to move through a survey in different ways, depending upon the responses
branching items
It is important to ________ the items in a questionnaire, and determine ___________
sequence
how the data will be analyzed
A _________ in survey research is the percentage of individuals in the sample who return the completed survey
response rate
The computerized questionnaire has the advantage of being impersonal, so ______ may be reduced.
social desirability
computerized administration suffers from some of the same problems as the __________.
written response method
How might written administration of questionnaires take several forms?
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.
What is the main advantage of written questionnaires?
low cost
another drawback with written responses is that there is no possibility of __________, illiterate or uncooperative participants will provide meaningless data.
clarifying questions that might be misunderstood.
What is the main advantage of the telephone as a method of administering surveys?
low cost
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.
external validity
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
telephone interviews
A principle concern with all methods of administering surveys is the problem of ________
response rate
A survey with a ____ response rate will be biased in the direction of the more vocal people.
low
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
50%, and prefer 90%
Lower response rates do not necessarily translate into _______, even though the quality of the data is a direct function of the return rate.
less accurate results
A ________ sample refers to the population subgroup for whose selection the researcher uses hit-or-miss methods
haphazard
_______ are almost worthless.
haphazard samples
A _______ sample refers to a nonrandom sample that is chosen for some characteristic that it possesses.
purposive
A _________ is a nonrandom sample that is chosen for practical reasons
convenience sample
the main problem with ________ is that an error in judgment by the researcher in selecting the sampling may influence the results.
purposive sampling
__________ samples permit one to apply various statistics.
probability
A ______ sample is a sample in which every number of the population has an equal and independent chance of being selected.
random
A ______ sample is a probability sample but not a random sample
systematic
________ involves selecting items from an ordered sampling frame
systematic sampling
