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Chapter_5 Concepts Operationalization and_Measurement
1. Conceptualization is the process by which we specify precisely what we mean when we use particular terms.
a. True
b. False
2. Recidivism represents a collection of related phenomena either observed or heard about.
a. True
b. False
3. Every variable should have two important qualities; their attributes should be exhaustive as well as mutually
exclusive.
a. True
b. False
4. Ordinal measures are variables whose attributes may be logically rank-ordered.
a. True
b. False
5. Recidivism is a term to represent a collection of unrelated phenomena that we have either observed or heard about
somewhere.
a. True
b. False
6. Reliability is measuring what you think you are measuring.
a. True
b. False
7. Reliability is threatened every time there is a single observer as the source of data.
a. True
b. False
8. Mental images of serious crime may vary among individuals depending on their backgrounds and experiences.
a. True
b. False
9. One good indicator of crime seriousness is harm to the crime victim.
a. True
b. False
10. A lower-level measure cannot be converted to a higher-level one.
a. True
b. False
11. Sometimes it is necessary to make the same measurement more than once, which is known as:
a. test-retest method
b. inter-rater reliability
c. split-half method
d. face validity
12. It is always a good idea to make more than one measurement of any subtle or complex social concept, which is
known as:
a. test-retest method
b. inter-rater reliability
c. split-half method
d. face validity
13. An empirical measure that adequately reflects the meaning of the concept under consideration is known as:
a. reliability
b. validity
c. accuracy
d. face validity
14. Particular empirical measures that may or may not agree with common understandings of our individual mental
images about a specific concept are known as:
a. reliability
b. validity
c. accuracy
d. face validity
15. Content validity refers to:
a. a comparison of measures to some external criterion
b. an empirical measure that may or may not agree with our common understanding of a particular concept
c. the degree to which a measure covers the range of meanings included within the concepts
d. the basis of logical relationships among variables
16. Criterion related validity refers to:
a. a comparison of measures to some external criterion
b. an empirical measure that may or may not agree with our common understanding of a particular concept
c. the degree to which a measure covers the range of meanings included within the concepts
d. the basis of logical relationships among variables
17. According to Abraham Kaplan’s (1964) discussion; which of the following are not included in the three classes of
things that a researcher measures?
a. direct observables
b. indirect observables
c. constructs
d. discreet observables
18. Age of an offender is an example of which level of measurement?
a. interval
b. nominal
c. ratio
d. ordinal
19. A researcher concerned with whether a particular measurement technique will, after repeated measures, yield the
same results is concerned with:
a. accuracy
b. reliability
c. precise measurement
d. validity
20. Ratio measures are the highest level, followed by:
a. interval, nominal and ordinal
b. nominal, interval, ordinal
c. interval, ordinal, and nominal
d. ordinal, nominal, interval
21. Although a person’s observations and experiences are real, his or her concepts are:
a. mental creations
b. subliminal
c. discreet
d. reliable
22. The specification of conceptual definitions serves as a specific working definition and also:
a. focuses observational strategy
b. focuses research on the task at hand
c. focuses readers on the core issue
d. focuses on fixing the problem
23. Professor Smith is studying attitudes toward gun control and plans to assess support for firearms registration by
determining whether or not her research subjects say they would travel to countries where the possession of
unlicensed guns is legal. Her critics argue that this measure lacks:
a. face validity
b. construct validity
c. convergent validity
d. criterion-related validity
24. The process of developing operational definitions is known as:
a. conceptualization
b. proprietary means
c. reification
d. operationalization
25. Which of the following is representative of the dimension “victim harm”?
a. economic gain
b. gender of victim
c. physical injury
d. location of injury
26. The number of counts on an indictment is what level of measurement?
a. nominal
b. ordinal
c. interval
d. ratio
27. The production report generated at the city police department contains the number of arrests made by each officer
on a monthly basis. What level of measurement would number of arrests be?
a. nominal
b. ordinal
c. interval
d. ratio
28. Measures of jail capacity were operationalized as whether or not there were more inmates housed at the end of the
year than the original building design called for would be an example of what level of measurement?
a. nominal
b. ordinal
c. interval
d. ratio
29. Ranks in the local police department represent what level of measurement?
a. nominal
b. ordinal
c. interval
d. ratio
30. The penalties that are assigned to different crimes by law are best characterized as a dimension of:
a. public opinion
b. crime seriousness
c. retribution
d. cultural tastes
31. The words or symbols in language used to illustrate subjective thoughts or mental images about things we may
encounter in daily life are known as:
a. operations
b. concepts
c. observations
d. measurements
32. Operationalization involves:
a. describing how actual measurements will be made
b. adding up the sum of the parts to determine the whole
c. removing negative correlations from variables
d. making the necessary measurements
33. A specifiable aspect of a given concept is referred to as a:
a. dimension
b. concept
c. construct
d. direct observable
34. Which of the following sequences illustrates the progression of measurement steps?
a. conceptual definition, conceptualization, operational definition and real-world measurement
b. operational definition, conceptualization, conceptual definition and real-world measurement
c. operational definition, conceptual definition, conceptualization and real-world measurement
d. conceptualization, conceptual definition, operational definition and real-world measurement
35. The assignment of grades by the professor to major research papers is an example of:
a. measurement
b. operationalization
c. conceptualization
d. validity
36. Researchers must be able to classify every observation in terms of one and only one attribute. Which of the
following terms best describes this concept?
a. reliability
b. validity
c. mutual exclusiveness
d. exhaustiveness
37. Logical sets of attributes are known as:
a. values
b. variables
c. concepts
d. operational definitions
38. The primary difference between the interval and the ratio level of variables is that:
a. interval is rarely used
b. with ratio there is an absolute meaning of zero
c. with interval there is an absolute meaning of zero
d. none of the above
39. What two qualities should every variable possess?
a. meaning and value
b. exhaustive and thorough
c. exhaustive and mutually exclusive
d. operational definition and meaning
40. The test-retest method is used to examine:
a. reliability
b. validity
c. generalizability
d. precision
41. Validity that is related to the logical relationships between variables is known as:
a. criterion-related validity
b. face validity
c. convergent validity
d. construct validity
42. When the actual distance that separates the attributes composing some variables does have meaning, the variables
are described as:
a. interval
b. nominal
c. ordinal
d. none of the above
43. Because low marital adjustment should lead to divorce, Professor Quinn checked his measure of marital adjustment
by examining whether couples with low martial adjustment scores later obtained divorces. This illustrates the use of:
a. criterion-related validity
b. face validity
c. content validity
d. construct validity
44. Professor Jenkins is interested in attitudes toward the trying juveniles as adults and plans to assess support for this
hypothesis by asking whether or not subjects say they would travel to countries that allow juveniles to stand trial as
an adult. Critics would say this measure lacks:
a. face validity
b. criterion-related validity
c. content validity
d. construct validity
45. The key standards for measurement quality are:
a. mutual exclusivity and exhaustibility
b. reliability and validity
c. pattern and repetition
d. duplicity and veracity
46. A person’s height as a measure of a person’s IQ would be seen as having what problem?
a. precision
b. reliability
c. accuracy
d. validity
47. Many criminal justice measures are imprecise, so reporting approximate values is:
a. often necessary
b. often preferable
c. undesirable
d. unacceptable
48. Numerous studies have shown that measures of crime based on police records often suffer from:
a. reliability problems
b. validity problems
c. accounting problems
d. typology problems
49. Validating an individual measure to compare it with alternative measures of the same concept is known as:
a. content validity
b. multiple measures
c. construct validity
d. criterion-related validity
50. Composite measures are frequently used in criminal justice research for all of the following reasons except:
a. in some cases the researcher is unable to develop single indicators of complex concepts
b. the researcher may desire to use a rather refined ordinal measure of a variable, arranging cases in several
ordinal categories from very low to very high on a variable
c. indexes and scales are efficient devices for data analysis
d. the researcher is seeking a method for measuring disorder and composite measures are the only allowable
measure
51. What type of variable allows you to arrange attributes from greater than to less than, but does not allow you to tell
how much greater or how much less than one attribute is from another?
a. nominal
b. ordinal
c. interval
d. ratio
52. Which of the following variables allows for attributes to be placed on a continuum with equal distance between
points?
a. nominal and ordinal
b. ordinal and interval
c. interval and ratio
d. all of the above
53. An example of direct observables are:
a. individual values
b. are mandatory sentences fair
c. the words in a crime report
d. all of the above
54. A definition that spells out exactly how we plan to measure a variable is known as:
a. operational definition
b. measurement
c. concept
d. conceptualization
55. What is the main distinction between measurement and operationalization?
a. measurement involves actually making observations and assigning scores to those observations
b. operationalization involves actually making observations and assigning scores to those observations
c. the operationalization process starts much earlier, usually with conceptualization
d. there is not a difference between the terms
56. When a supervisor for a survey contacts a subset of the respondents to verify certain information, it is an example
of:
a. lack of generalizability
b. interrater reliability
c. split-half method
d. construct validity
57. The study of food-buying habits where researchers were interested in learning whether people who drank wine ate
healthier foods than people who drank beer—is a good example of:
a. research exhaustiveness
b. face validity
c. interrater reliability
d. split-half method
58. In general, whenever researchers are concerned that measures obtained through coding may not be classified
reliably, they should:
a. have each measure independently coded by different people
b. not obtain measures through coding
c. perform split-half method test
d. perform an interrater reliability test
59. A questionnaire contained the item “social class” with responses of lower class, lower middle class, middle class,
upper middle class, upper class. The researcher asks respondents to check the one that describes them. The
researcher is using this question to measure:
a. direct observables
b. indirect observables
c. constructs
d. nominal variables
60. Which of the following best represents the abstract “reliability”?
a. a measure adequately reflects the meaning of the concept
b. a measure does not adequately reflect the underling concept
c. the measure is stable
d. the measure is unstable
61. Which of the following represents problems for reliability?
a. any time you have a single observer as the source of data
b. use of different interviewers during the course of a research project
c. there are different coders used to evaluate the data
d. all of the above
62. If we consider the theft of $20 from a poor person to be more serious than the theft of $2,000 from a wealthy oil
company CEO, victim wealth, in this case, could be considered a(n):
a. influencing attribute
b. mitigating circumstance
c. dimension
d. indicator
63. Which of the following statements is not correct?
a. a measure is valid if it truly measures the underlying concept
b. a measure is reliable if it is observable over time
c. a measure is reliable if it is constant
d. both validity and reliability are important in a measure
64. The design and execution of criminal justice research requires eliminating the confusion over concepts and reality.
To accomplish this, scientists have found it useful to distinguish three kinds of definitions: real, conceptual, and:
a. apparent
b. operational
c. congruent
d. altruistic
65. If a researcher is concerned with combining variables to result in a different composite measure, the researcher is
using what technique?
a. typology
b. validity
c. operationalization
d. reliability
66. A researcher has measured fear of crime by asking the subjects whether or not they were afraid of crime and by
asking them to rate from 1 – 10 their own fear of crime. Which is the highest level of measurement that is illustrated
by this example?
a. nominal
b. ordinal
c. interval
d. ratio
67. With respect to levels of measurement which of the following is not correct?
a. a variable measured at the ratio level can also be measured at the ordinal level
b. a variable measured at the interval level can also be measured at the nominal level
c. a variable measured at the ordinal level can also be measured at the interval level
d. a variable measured at the ordinal level can also be measured at the nominal level
68. Which of the following is an attribute of the variable “employment status”?
a. unemployed
b. minimum wage
c. number of employees
d. all the above
69. In research, the process of regarding something as real (such as crime seriousness) when it is not is called:
a. reification
b. validity
c. typology
d. reliability
70. Measurement is difficult and , therefore researchers try to describe the measurement
process explicitly.
71. Words are symbols in language that we use to represent mental images are known as .
72. is the process by which we specify precisely what we mean when we use a particular
term.
73. Specifying the different of a concept often paves the way for a more sophisticated
understanding of what we are studying.
74. The process of regarding as real things that are not is called .
75. A definition that spells out precisely how the concept will be measured is known as .
76. The conceptualization and operationalization processes can be seen as the specification of variables and the
____________________ composing them.
77. Variables whose attributes have only the characteristics of exhaustiveness and mutual exclusiveness are
____________________ measures.
78. is a matter of whether a particular measurement technique, applied repeatedly to the
same object, will yield the same result each time.
79. Reliability does not ensure any more than precision ensures it.
80. The method lays the groundwork for a check on reliability in regards to making multiple
measures of the same complex concept.
81. validity refers to particular empirical measures that may or may not accurately reflect
the common agreements on concepts.
82. Content validity refers to the degree to which a measure covers the range of meanings included within the
____________________.
83. Combining measures often produces more valid and reliable indicators.
84. Researchers combine in different ways to produce different composite measures.
85. Identify the four levels of measurement and give examples of each.
86. For each of the following variables, give its level of measurement and whether the variable is discrete or continuous.
a.________________ ________________ verdict at trial
b.________________ ________________ gender of victim
c.________________ ________________ age of offender
d.________________ ________________ violent offender
e.________________ ________________ ranks in a police department
87. Discuss the threat to validity. Cover the following threats: face, content, criterion-related, and construct.
88. Discuss the measures used to insure reliability: test-retest method, inter-rater, and split-half method.
89. Use an example from criminal justice and create an index.
90. Betsie developed a definition of school bullying in such a way that this concept represented what researchers in
the field have come to agree upon as the concept's meaning. Betsie developed a/an:
a. conceptualization process
b. operational definition
c. real definition
d. nominal definition
