Instructor Resource
Luttrell, Public Relations Campaigns: An Integrated Approach 1e
SAGE Publishing, 2019
Chapter 4: Research, Part 1: Diagnosis and Developmental
Research
Test Bank
Multiple Choice
1. A successful public relations campaign begins with ______.
a. a diagnosis of the organization’s needs
b. a commitment of resources to the task or assignment
c. assigning qualified individuals to manage the campaign
d. reporting to the organization leaders about the nature of the campaign
2. According to Jugenheimer, Kelley, Hudson and Bradley, which one of the following is
NOT cited as a benefit of research?
a. clarifying organizational values
b. saving money
c. adapting to change
d. improving internal operations
3. What is a common problem that PR professionals make at the beginning of a
campaign?
a. not budgeting enough time to carry out all phases of a campaign
b. adhering to organizational historical practices
c. moving ahead without an understanding of audiences and publics
d. allowing organizational leaders influence the direction of the campaign
Instructor Resource
Luttrell, Public Relations Campaigns: An Integrated Approach 1e
SAGE Publishing, 2019
4. Which one of the following is NOT cited by PR expert Stacks as pertinent to a
campaign?
a. refinement research
b. developmental research
c. historical research
d. evaluative research
5. Finding out about the organization and communications environment is part of which
one of the following?
a. situational research
b. institutional research
c. background research
d. developmental research
6. What is a challenge the PR practitioner faces as work begins on a campaign?
a. Organizational leaders may require extensive vetting of anyone outside the
organization that will be involved in the campaign.
b. Organizational leaders may exert influence to control the direction of the campaign.
c. Organizational leaders may withhold information or not fully understand the problem
at hand.
d. Organizational leaders often want to limit the use of outside service providers to a
campaign.
7. Why is it valuable for an organization to consider broad questions regarding its
aspirations and place in its field?
a. It can create transparency for the public.
b. It can help lead to an understanding of the role of public relations in the organization.
Instructor Resource
Luttrell, Public Relations Campaigns: An Integrated Approach 1e
SAGE Publishing, 2019
c. It can shine a light on the organization’s strengths and weaknesses.
d. It can be the foundation for developing effective campaign tactics.
8. Bloom and Dozier say the gap between what a group of people perceive and what is
actually desired is called ______.
a. the communications problem
b. the communications goal
c. the research hypothesis
d. the communication dichotomy
9. All formal research begins with ______.
a. background of the problem
b. a theory of the problem
c. measurable expectations
d. a problem statement
10. Informal research in the diagnostic stage of a project typically has which
characteristic?
a. It is produced the scientific method to enhance reliability.
b. It is NOT produced with the scientific method.
c. It addresses current situations as well as historical contexts.
d. It results in the research problem being refined.
Instructor Resource
Luttrell, Public Relations Campaigns: An Integrated Approach 1e
SAGE Publishing, 2019
11. A particular distinction of informal research is which one of the following?
a. It is less costly than formal research.
b. It is produced faster than formal research.
c. It requires greater numbers of people to produce than formal research.
d. It is not usually generalizable to larger groups.
12. When a PR practitioner reads a small sample of the output from a media outlet to
get a feel for how a topic is covered, this is called which one of the following?
a. spot research
b. informal research
c. focused research
d. issue research
13. A researcher is analyzing all the articles in the past five years for the occurrences of
a particular phrase or idea. This would be an example of which one of the following?
a. a literature review
b. informal research
c. formal research
d. sample research
14. Research that attempts to measure the tone of conversations about a given client or
topic is ______.
a. social research
b. quantitative research
c. qualitative research
d. semantic research
Instructor Resource
Luttrell, Public Relations Campaigns: An Integrated Approach 1e
15. Some research attempts to measure phenomenon with the goal of predicting future
events. This is called ______.
a. quantitative research
b. qualitative research
c. predictive research
d. social research
16. An example of content analysis research would be ______.
a. an examination of how news editors selected stories to publish
b. the number of voters who understood the intended message of a political candidate
c. a comparison of how two different media covered the same news story
d. a count of how many times a particular phrase is used in an article
17. One mark of high quality research would be ______.
a. having one researcher review all the data
b. having multiple researchers review the same data
c. being sure the collected data came from the same time frame
d. making allowances for differences in how the data was collected
18. A PR practitioner who represents a book author stays abreast of what is happening
in the publishing field by reading book-trade journals. What kind of research is this?
a. industry research
Instructor Resource
Luttrell, Public Relations Campaigns: An Integrated Approach 1e
SAGE Publishing, 2019
b. primary research
c. background research
d. secondary research
19. Of the things that affect the value research, which one of the following is NOT cited
as one of them?
a. the budget set out for research
b. the number of people undertaking the research
c. the timelines/deadlines set out for the research
d. the experience of the researchers
20. Research that is found to have little relevance to what it was trying to measure is
said to lack which one of the following?
a. confidence interval
b. correlation
c. significant difference
d. validity
21. In qualitative research, multiple sources of data are used to confirm that the study
has validity. This use of multiple sources is called ______.
a. triangulation
b. configuration
d. correlation
d. confirmation data
Instructor Resource
Luttrell, Public Relations Campaigns: An Integrated Approach 1e
22. A specific source of secondary research that is NOT cited in the text is ______.
a. scholarly research
b. case studies
c. government data
d. citation data
23. Think-tank research has been cited to have which of the following characteristics?
a. It may be biased.
b. It is often crowd-sourced.
c. It is done by independent contractors.
d. It usually addresses controversial topics.
24. Research produced by trade associations often possess which of the following
characteristics?
a. It is produced by think-tanks.
b. It is produced by third parties.
c. It is produced with an industry purpose in mind.
d. It is produced using foundation grants.
25. An organization conducts a survey to gauge various reactions in a new product.
This is an example of ______.
a. market research
b. primary research
c. secondary research
d. social research
Instructor Resource
Luttrell, Public Relations Campaigns: An Integrated Approach 1e
SAGE Publishing, 2019
26. Primary research differs from informal research in which one of the following ways?
a. Primary research is often more costly than informal research.
b. Primary research is often more timely than informal research.
c. Primary research is more unbiased than informal research.
d. Primary research is more often conducted by experts with statistical expertise than
informal research.
27. Surveys are often used to ______.
a. confirm existing hypotheses
b. uncover unexpected insights
c. test new theories
d. explain how frequent phenomenon occur
28. To derive the tone or sentiment of what customers are saying about an organization,
the organization would typically require which kind of research method?
a. two-tailed statistical test
b. statistical analysis
c. correlational analysis
d. content analysis
Instructor Resource
Luttrell, Public Relations Campaigns: An Integrated Approach 1e
SAGE Publishing, 2019
29. A researcher decides that the occurrence of a particular viewpoint from audience
members in a study is a relevant unit to measure in a content analysis study. This
viewpoint is described and noted in which one of the following?
a. index
b. glossary
c. codebook
d. view book
30. In a content analysis study, information about where the data originated from is
called ______.
a. raw data
b. aggregate data
c. metadata
d. context data
31. Research that attempts to measure if one factor causes a change in another factor
is called ______.
a. correlational research
b. experimental research
c. causation research
d. inductive research
32. In an experimental study, changing only one variable at a time the experiment does
what?
a. It reduces the risk of other factors influencing the study results.
b. It increases the length of time required to execute the study.
c. It minimizes the potential for researcher bias in the study.
d. It allows for simpler statistical analysis and therefore more valid data.
Instructor Resource
Luttrell, Public Relations Campaigns: An Integrated Approach 1e
SAGE Publishing, 2019
33. What is cited as one of the most common challenges to conducting effective
experiments?
a. establishing causation
b. establishing correlation
c. establishing validity
d. establishing reliability
34. Interview research is particularly good at determining which one of the following?
a. audience actions
b. audience perceptions
c. audience size
d. audience bias
35. Interview research with small groups ensures which one of the following?
a. a wider range of topics
b. depth of conversation
c. truthfulness in responses
d. validity of the resulting data
36. Reviews of post-interview data, such as audio recordings and transcripts, are best
done by which one of the following?
Instructor Resource
Luttrell, Public Relations Campaigns: An Integrated Approach 1e
SAGE Publishing, 2019
a. the single researcher-interviewer who conducted the interview, along with the
interviewed subject
b. the single researcher-interviewer who conducted the interview alone
c. a single reviewer who was not present at the original interview
d. a team of multiple reviewers
37. Focus group research has an advantage over single-interview research, in which
one of the following ways?
a. It produces less biased viewpoints.
b. It often results in information that might not emerge in single-interview situations.
c. It is considered more reliable because it represents multiple viewpoints.
d. It is faster at garnering sentiments.
38. One hazard of focus group research is which one of the following?
a. Focus group may be challenging to moderate.
b. Focus group studies are costly to run.
c. Larger focus groups are more difficult to schedule and organize.
d. The data from focus groups can suffer from group-bias.
39. SWOT analysis is used to produce which one of the following?
a. comments directly from an organization’s external audiences
b. statistical factual data about the organization
c. viewpoints of the members of an organization
d. goals and objectives for the organization
Instructor Resource
Luttrell, Public Relations Campaigns: An Integrated Approach 1e
True/False
1. It is possible to begin tactical work without having done research.
2. Developmental Research reveals information about an organization’s audiences
3. Discovering baseline data for measuring improvements is done following the
developmental research stage.
4. A PR team will often conduct an internal discussion within the organization to create
distance from the most pressing issues.
5. A problem statement is where formal research begins.
Instructor Resource
Luttrell, Public Relations Campaigns: An Integrated Approach 1e
SAGE Publishing, 2019
6. Gathering information from external sources such as viewpoints and expertise from
sources outside the organization should always be done using formal research.
7. Informal research is generalizable to a larger context.
8. Research that is found to have high relevance is said to have high validity.
9. Qualitative research is better at measuring the tone of a social media content than
quantitative research methods would be.
10. In the realm of experimental research, the independent variable represents that
which is likely to be changed.
11. Research from trade associations often has an industry purpose in mind.
Instructor Resource
Luttrell, Public Relations Campaigns: An Integrated Approach 1e
13 Interview research is particularly good at determining which one of the following?
14. Post-interview data should be reviewed by multiple reviewers.
15. Focus group research may be difficult to moderate.
16. SWOT analysis usually produces the viewpoints of the members of an organization.
Instructor Resource
Luttrell, Public Relations Campaigns: An Integrated Approach 1e
SAGE Publishing, 2019
Short Answer/Essay
1. Explain the primary purpose of completing the developmental research stage is to a
PR campaign.
2. Explain the difference between developmental research and refinement research.
3. Explain the value to the organization of evaluative research.
4. In the developmental research phase of a project, members of an organization may
hinder the public relations practitioner in what way?
5. What characterizes the general nature of how informal research is gathered?
Instructor Resource
Luttrell, Public Relations Campaigns: An Integrated Approach 1e
6. Name three sources of secondary research a public relations practitioner might use?
7. Surveys can often reveal what kinds of information from interview subjects?
8. Describe some of the limitations of using a large-scale survey such as an opinion
poll.
9. Content analysis research can be done both manually and in an automated manner.
Compare both with regard to efficiency and effectiveness.
Instructor Resource
Luttrell, Public Relations Campaigns: An Integrated Approach 1e
SAGE Publishing, 2019
10. A research study follows two identical experiments, with only one factor being
different between the two experiments. Explain why.