Construct 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
Which of the following is not considered a threat to internal validity in an experimental
design?
a. maturation
b. instrumentation
c. randomization
d. statistical regression
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
Surveys may be used for
a. exploratory, and applied research only
b. applied research only
c. descriptive research only
d. descriptive, explanatory, exploratory, and applied research only
Which of the following is true concerning the reliability of quantitative field studies?
a. Reliability can be strengthened by reviewing police records
b. Reliability can be strengthened by reviewing by the director of the organization
c. Reliability can be strengthened by contacting various personnel within the
organization
d. The reliability of quantitative field studies can be enhanced by careful attention to the
details of observation.
An assertion must have both _________ and _________ support.
a. logical and data driven
b. question and answers
c. logical and empirical
d. research and development
Which of the following is not something of concern in the evaluability assessment?
a. determine the degree of support for your project
b. determine what the general program goals are as well as the specific objectives
c. determine how the goals are translated into the program components
d. do people in the organization have some sort of direct or indirect stake in the
program
In structured field observations, the data collection form resembles a survey
questionnaire. For example, the environmental surveys are used for which of the
following research purposes?
a. determining the grounded theory
b. planning police strategies in drug enforcement and to assess the impact of those
strategies
c. developing notes on graffiti and vandalism damage in an urban area
d. finding out green environment
Which of the following does not represent steps in the policy analysis process?
a. there is a demand for some new course of action or strong opposition to an existing
policy
b. formulate a hypothesis that will allow for exploration
c. identify the ultimate goals and the different actions for achieving those goals
d. consider the impact of the policy outputs
Which of the examples below would create an ethical dilemma when doing applied
research that is evaluative in nature?
a. In an attempt to measure the success of a prison pre-release program, the researchers
measure re-arrests and re-convictions and determine those to be failures.
b. Program staff of a pre-trial diversion program visit the homes of those awaiting trial
on a nightly basis to make sure that they adhere to a curfew.
c. Upon review of a juvenile probation department, researchers found that contact
sheets, which are designed to keep track of both phone and personal interactions
between the officer and the juvenile, in one probation officer’s files were all dated June
15th.
d. To measure the success of an adult drug treatment facility, researchers offered both
the clients and the treatment staff confidentiality.
If a researcher uses only those subjects who volunteer for a study, then which of the
following may result?
a. non-volunteers feel left out
b. the results could not be generalized to a larger group of people
c. no one would be interested in the outcome because non-volunteers are not included
d. subjects may not like the results.
Focus groups are most useful _____.
a. when precise generalization to a larger population is essential and the focus groups
participants and the larger population are relatively heterogeneous
b. when precise generalization to a larger population is essential and the focus groups
participants and the larger population are relatively homogeneous
c. when precise generalization to a larger population is not necessary and the focus
groups participants and the larger population are relatively homogeneous
d. when precise generalization to a larger population is not necessary and the focus
group participants and the larger population are relatively heterogeneous
When assessing the potential for harm, the researcher should _____.
a. proceed only when they are confident that no harm will result
b. proceed only when the harm potential is psychological and not physical
c. never proceed when harm is a potential
d. proceed when the benefit outweighs the harm
Which of the following is an example of a panel study?
a. National Incident-based Reporting System
b. U.S. Census
c. National Crime Victimization Survey
d. Uniform Crime Reports
Which of the following is not a guideline for good field note taking?
a. don”t trust your memory, write down as much as possible unobtrusively
b. develop your notes from sketchy to more detailed with rewrites
c. use only key words and phrases in your notes, you will remember the details at a later
date
d. record as many details as you can right after each observation session
Which of the following would not be an example of organizations as units of analysis?
a. police departments
b. federal courthouses
c. drug treatment facilities
d. measurement levels
When including an item on a questionnaire that asks about marijuana use in the
following way: never used, used 1 ” 5 times, used 6 ” 10 times, used more than ten
times, this would be an example of what type of variable?
a. nominal
b. ordinal
c. interval
d. ratio
The unit about which information is gathered and forms the basis for analysis is known
as _____.
a. a sampling element
b. a unit of observation
c. a sampling frame
d. a sample
What is the advantage to using unstructured interviewing techniques when conducting
field research?
a. the researcher knows a lot about the subject under study
b. the researcher may not want be likely to enter into casual conversation with the
subject as a means of gathering data
c. the researcher and subject may have short fixed time for the interview
d. the researcher and subject may witness an event together
Which of the following situations would not have an impact upon error in agency
records?
a. computers have the capacity to magnify clerical error
b. a single crime could be recorded by two agencies, thus making that event
over-represented
c. having very little data to input
d. even rare events can be recorded improperly
Regardless of the techniques used to identify subjects from subcultures, there will be
concerns. Which of the following is not one of them?
a. lack of probability sampling
b. selection bias
c. generally a small sample size
d. there are no concerns once you get an informant to introduce members of their
subculture
Most criminal justice professionals routinely review which type of data?
a. computer readouts and news reports
b. archived and updated spreadsheets
c. performance reports and statistical tabulations
d. none of the above
Which of the following statements is not true concerning field research?
a. It has greater validity and reliability than does survey research.
b. It often involves theory creation.
c. It often combines observation and asking questions.
d. It can provide both qualitative and quantitative data.
One objective of this book is to help future criminal justice professionals become
_____.
a. informed consumers of research
b. informed consumers of books
c. experts in the department of justice
d. expert readers
Traditional beliefs about patrol effectiveness, response time, and detective work are
examples of _____.
a. known reality
b. agreement reality
c. experiential reality
d. assumed reality
Inexperienced researchers tend to fear that their questionnaires will look _____.
a. too easy
b. too complex
c. too long
d. too cluttered
If the researcher feels they will need to ask questions of the subjects, what is the best
technique in field research to use?
a. complete observer
b. complete participant
c. a combination of observer and participant
d. surveys
Published statistics and agency records are often used in _____.
a. survey research
b. descriptive studies
c. experimental studies
d. qualitative research
Clinic workers in a major Northwest city have been asked to track the incidence and
patterns of STDs in their patients as part of a research project dealing with public
health. They ask a number of specific questions upon intake but do not ask about their
clients’ sexual partners. The only way to examine patterns in the spread of the STDs is
to add a question to the intake form about the identity of their sexual partners. The data
that was gathered illustrates _____.
a. nonpublic agency records
b. published statistics
c. new data collected by agency staff
d. content analysis
With respect to standard deviation, which of the following statements is correct?
a. it is the distance separating the highest and lowest value
b. it is the square of the variance
c. it can be a positive or negative number
d. comparing standard deviations for different groups of cases indicates relative
amounts of dispersion within each group
The relationship between attributes and variables lies at the heart of
a. both science and fiction
b. publishing your outcomes
c. units of analysis
d. both description and explanation in science
Scientific theory deals with
a. the logical aspect of science
b. the observational aspect
c. operationalization
d. data analysis
In order to make sure that there was no long-term damage done to the participants of
the simulated prison, the researchers held _________ sessions with “prisoners” and
“guards” after the termination of the project.
There may be legal reasons why randomization cannot be used in criminal justice
research to assign subjects to either a control group or an experimental group.
Because extremes in a distribution (a very large or very small number) can impact the
mean, it is usually important to examine measures of dispersion about the mean.
To gain access to a formal organization for the purposes of field research, one needs to
find a(n) ____________ who is personally known to and respected by the director.
The existence of exceptions does not support the existence of regularities.
Ordinal measures are variables whose attributes may be logically rank-ordered.
The advantages and disadvantages of using secondary data are not the same as agency
records.
Each of us is born into and inherits a culture made up, in part, of firmly accepted
knowledge about the workings of the world.
A sample element is that unit about which information is collected and that provides the
basis of analysis.
As a rule, possible harm to subjects may be justified when the potential benefits of the
study outweigh the possible harm.
Tests of statistical significance should not be calculated on relationships observed in
data collected from whole populations.
The __________________________ is the range of sample statistics we would obtain
if we selected many samples.
Research that asks people to recall their pasts is called _____________ research.
When a researcher reports findings from data gathered on groups to the individuals
within those groups, a(n) ________________________ has occurred.
A scientific realist approach to examining mechanisms in context bridges idiographic
and nomothetic approaches to causation.
Problem analysis takes place in the policymaking stage while ________ studies are
conducted in later stages.
Surveys may be used for descriptive, explanatory, and applied research.
We live in a world of two realities; agreement and empirical.