Which of the following is typically, but which should not be necessarily, of greater
concern to a researcher with regard to a test of a Hypothesis?
a. the power of the test
b. the rejection of a true null hypothesis
c. the failure to reject a false null hypothesis
d. committing a Type II error
e. none of the above
Which of the following statements is true?
a. Marketing research studies employing the exploratory strategy generally have as a
starting point an hypothesis specifying relationships between variables.
b. Trend analysis employing replicated cross’‘sections is more appropriate than
longitudinal analysis for studying brand switching behavior.
c. An advantage of the case or field study method over the field survey method is that
the former is more objective.
d. The objective of cross’‘classification analysis in the field survey method is to
establish categories such that classification in one category implies classification in one
or more other categories.
e. None of the above.
A researcher is interested in studying the effect of geographic location of grocery stores
on the prices they charge for various food items. A typical “market basket” is selected
and the researcher obtains data on the total basket price from 15 randomly selected
stores as shown below. Note that 5 of the stores were inner city stores, 5 suburban
stores and 5 campus stores.
Campus Inner City Suburban
xC= 59 xI=51 xS=52
x = 54
The degrees of freedom associated with the within’‘group sum’‘of’‘squares in the above
problem is
a. 2.
b. 3.
c. 12.
d. 14.
e. 15.
Which of the following is FALSE?
a. A good test of a summary is self’‘sufficient in that a summary should not require the
appended full report but should be able to stand on its own.
b. In general, it is not desirable for the researcher to draw conclusions in the written
report. Rather they should limit their reports to presentation of the facts and should let
the reader draw his or her own inferences from this presentation.
c. The good summary in a research report contains the necessary introductory
information to provide background, and the important results and conclusions.
d. The true summary is an abstract of the whole report in which everything is restated in
condensed form.
e. As a general rule, the research report with wide distribution will require a more
extensive introduction than a report for a narrow audience since a major purpose of the
introduction is to provide the background information the reader needs to appreciate the
discussion in the body of the report.
Working for the Allstate Insurance Company, you gather data on the following
characteristics for a representative sample of 10,000 drivers: age, sex, miles driven/year,
and number of accidents during the past five years. This is an example of
a. an exploratory research strategy.
b. a descriptive research using the field study approach.
c. a descriptive research using the field survey approach.
d. field experiment.
e. none of the above.
Which of the following is FALSE?
a. Better sampling designs and more sophisticated samples may well be instrumental in
eliminating nonsampling errors in research. The more efficient the sample design, the
less important are nonsampling errors.
b. The researcher should experience little difficulty in constraining sampling error to
whatever bounds he or she desires.
c. It is somewhat paradoxical but true that the more statistically efficient the sample
design, the more important nonsampling errors are likely to be.
d. Nonsampling errors arise from weaknesses in research procedure. They are likely to
increase with increases in the sample size.
e. Nonsampling errors contribute more than sampling errors to total error in most
surveys.
Which of the following statements about conjoint analysis is FALSE?
a. The use of a linear preference model implies that subjects always prefer more or less
of the attribute.
b. If the analyst suspects that subjects might prefer an intermediate level of an attribute,
the analyst should attempt to fit their preferences using a part’‘worth model.
c. The ranges of the various attributes should be somewhat narrower than what is
normally found so as to increase the believability of the task.
d. The number of stimuli should be relatively large versus the number of parameters to
be estimated.
e. With the paired-comparison data collection method, respondents can be asked to
simply choose which alternative in each pair they prefer.
Which of the following does NOT affect a respondent’s willingness to produce a
response?
a. amount of work involved
b. the person’s ability to articulate an answer
c. the sensitivity of the issue
d. the individual’s ability to remember the event
e. a through d all affect a respondent’s willingness to provide a response
Which of the following is a limitation of individual depth interviews?
a. They are typically much more expensive than groups.
b. They generally do not get the same degree of client involvement as focus groups.
c. They are physically exhausting for the moderator, so it is difficult to cover as much
ground in one day as it is with groups.
d. a and b.
e. a, b, and c.
The principle which guides the framing of a null hypothesis is:
a. one either rejects or accepts the null hypothesis on the basis of the evidence at hand
b. a null hypothesis may be rejected but can never be accepted
c. one must always reject the null hypothesis unless the evidence is convincingly
(determined by the a level) to the contrary
d. one must always accept the null hypothesis unless the evidence is convincingly
(determined by the a level) to the contrary
e. there is no guiding scientific principle and the analyst should frame them as he or she
sees fit
Which of the following is FALSE?
a. A laboratory experiment is conducted under artificial conditions while manipulating
some marketing variables and controlling others.
b. A field experiment is conducted in a natural or realistic setting in which one or more
independent variables are manipulated by the experimenter under as carefully
controlled conditions as the situation will permit.
c. Laboratory experiments are distinguished from field experiments primarily in terms
of the degree of control over the variables, e.g. price, being manipulated.
d. The specially designed conditions of a laboratory experiment provide more control
than a field experiment.
e. They are all true.
Validity is
a. concerned with the relationships of random error with systematic error.
b. equal to the true score plus the systematic error.
c. equal to the true score plus systematic error minus random error.
d. concerned with the extent to which differences in scores reflect true differences in the
characteristic.
e. concerned with the extent to which differences in scores reflect instability in the
measurements.
Which research design(s) is (are) typically guided by an initial hypothesis?
a. causal
b. descriptive
c. exploratory
d. exploratory and causal
e. descriptive and causal
The interesting thing about confidence intervals established employing stratified
sampling is that
a. the within-strata variability does not enter into the calculation of the standard error of
estimate.
b. the between-strata variability does not enter into the calculation of the standard error
of estimate.
c. neither the within-strata variability nor the between-strata variability enters into the
calculation of the standard error of estimate.
d. the confidence interval is wider than that established employing simple random
sampling.
e. the sample mean provides a biased estimate of the population mean.
Failure to include some units, or entire sections, of the defined survey population in the
actual operational sampling frame represents
a. noncoverage errors.
b. nonresponse errors.
c. sampling errors.
d. random errors.
e. observation errors.
Which of the following statements pertaining to the contingency coefficient is FALSE?
a. The contingency coefficient is directly related to the chi’‘square test.
b. Its upper value limit is determined by the number of categories in a problem.
c. Some of the difficulties encountered in interpreting the contingency coefficient are
overcome by squaring the coefficient, thereby obtaining the proportion of variance in
the criterion variable explained by the predictor variable.
d. The contingency coefficient as a measure of association is difficult to interpret purely
by examining the calculated value.
e. The contingency coefficient provides a measure of the strength of the association
between the variables.
Which of the following is FALSE?
a. The empirical evidence suggests that an interviewer’s own opinions on a subject
affect the responses he/she receives and that in particular, these responses are likely to
be opposite his/her opinions.
b. The behaviors of interviewer and respondent in the interview situation represent the
major outcome of perceptual processes.
c. In general, the evidence indicates that the more characteristics the interviewer and the
respondent have in common, the greater the probability of a successful interview.
d. Both the interviewer and interviewee bring certain background characteristics to the
interview that can affect the interview process.
e. Both the interviewer and interviewee bring psychological predispositions to the
interview that could affect the interview process.
The ordinal scale represents a higher level of measurement than the nominal in that
a. the assigned numerals serve to identify the objects.
b. the magnitude of the differences in the objects is shown.
c. the assigned numerals represent the order as well as identifying the object.
d. it has a natural zero.
e. it has an arbitrary zero.
While giving guidelines to her field interviewing staff, a researcher states, “I want you
to interview every tenth customer entering a K mart store at the following key sites.”
This is an example of ____ sampling.
a. judgement
b. quota
c. sequential
d. simple random
e. convenience.
In testing hypotheses about a single mean with unknown variance and small n, which of
the following formulas are used to calculate the test statistic?
a. z = (x-µ) / σ
b. t = (x-µ) / σ
c. z = (x-µ)/s
d. t = squareroot(Σ(x1-x)2 /(n-1)
e. none of the above
A researcher wants to study the effects of social class on consumption behavior. He
establishes three different categories of social class in terms of amount of income. He
then assigns each field worker a specified number of interviews with people in each
income category although the interviewers are allowed to select whom they interview.
This is an example of
a. random sampling.
b. systematic sampling.
c. area sampling.
d. quota sampling.
e. probability sampling.
Which of the following estimated population proportions would require the largest size
sample to estimate it with a specified degree of precision and confidence?
a. .5
b. .4
c. .1
d. .9
e. 1.0
Which of the following is true?
a. When sampling from a population that is highly skewed, a cluster sample generally
provides the most representative sample.
b. Stratified sampling is a very useful sampling technique. It allows closer examination
of the characteristics of particular subgroups. It also lowers the chance of error by
ensuring that subgroups are adequately represented in the sample. However, this
method generally produces less precise estimates of population values than simple
random samples.
c. In calculating the standard error of the mean when using a stratified sample, one finds
that differences among strata means do not enter the estimate.
d. When using proportional allocation in stratified random sampling, one samples from
each of the strata in proportion to their respective variabilities.
e. All of the above statements are true.
Suppose that the relationship between sales (Y, in $000) and number of salespeople (X)
is represented by the following regression equation:
Y = 105.2 + 35.8X
What will be the average contribution to sales of one additional salesperson?
a. $35.80
b. $141,000
c. $35,800
d. $141.00
e. more information is needed to answer this question
TABLE
Family Size and Ownership of a VCR by Household
(Figures in millions of households)
___________________________________________________________
Family OWN A VCR
Size Yes No TOTAL
___________________________________________________________
Less than 4 10 38 48
4 or more 24 28 52
____________________________________________________________
TOTAL 34 66 100
____________________________________________________________
The above table is an example of
a. one’‘way classification.
b. cross tabulation.
c. one’‘way tabulation.
d. four’‘way classification.
e. none of the above.