Since its inception, the ____ has served as a measure to monitor the volume of crime,
including crimes not reported to police.
a. UCR
b. NCVS
c. NIBRS
d. NSDUH
Which of the following is accurate concerning data acquired during field research?
a. qualitative data that is easily reduced to numbers
b. quantitative data that is not easily reduced to numbers
c. qualitative data that is not easily reduced to numbers
d. all the data gathered must be reducible to numbers
External validity in an experimental design refers to _____.
a. the accuracy of measurements
b. the lack of concern with issues internal to the study
c. the ability to apply findings to other populations
d. whether appropriate outcome measures have been used
Which of the following represent targeted victims surveys?
a. Bureau of Justice Statistics
b. Uniform Crime reports
c. National Crime Victimization Survey
d. court records
Researchers may face legal liability when _____.
a. they make honest mistakes in data analysis
b. they become participants in the criminal activity they are observing
c. they do not include everyone who wants to participate
d. never, since researchers are protected from legal liability
Informed consent ____.
a. allows subjects to weigh the risks and benefits of participating
b. is not required when results are kept confidential
c. must disclose the true purpose of the research
d. is rarely used in criminal justice research
Threats to internal validity in an experimental design can be minimized by _____.
a. proper selection and assignment of subjects to groups
b. large sample size
c. small sample size
d. nothing can rule out threats to internal validity
Qualitative field research compared to surveys ___________________________.
a. is easier to conduct
b. is more reliable
c. is stronger on validity but weaker on reliability
d. is less expensive
In order to study active criminals who have not been arrested for their criminal acts, the
researcher would be wise to employ which type of sampling technique?
a. purposive sampling
b. snowball sampling
c. convenience sampling
d. stratified random sampling
Generalizability of qualitative studies is often limited by ___.
a. representative of the population
b. of sufficient size
c. generalizable
d. of insufficient size
The Sourcebook of Criminal Justice Statistics is the most comprehensive Bureau of
Justice Statistics publication. It includes a multitude of data including all of the
following except _____.
a. characteristics of criminal justice agencies
b. public opinion answers coming from the Gallup Poll
c. complete crime data from all local police departments
d. specific data on states using capital punishment and their execution statistics
Policy analysis is used to ____.
a. help design alternative courses of action
b. select a policy
c. seek explanations
d. select right employees
Which of the following is not correct concerning structured observations?
a. they enable the researcher to generate numeric measures of observed conditions
b. they are best suited for studies where a researcher is expected to encounter a wide
variety of situations
c. they are more reliable than other methods
d. they require careful training
If randomization is not possible, the researcher would be well-advised to ____.
a. do nothing, but mention the issue in the research report
b. switch to a classical design
c. switch to a quasi-experimental design
d. use pseudorandomization
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
Randomization may not be appropriate for assignment of people to treatment or
programs for all of the following reasons except ____.
a. practical reasons
b. agency support
c. ethical reasons
d. legal reasons
Which of the following is not a reason for using random selection methods in selecting
samples?
a. Random selection is a check on conscious or unconscious bias.
b. Random selection gives access to probability theory.
c. Random selection allows for estimates of error.
d. Random selection allows the researcher to selects cases on an intuitive basis
Ethical issues raised with the Sanford prison study include ________.
a. promising to pay participants but not doing so
b. allowing physical abuse of research subjects
c. failure to obtain informed consent
d. allowing guards to make up and modify rules
Surveys are best suited for studies that have which units of analysis?
a. individuals
b. groups
c. organizations
d. social artifacts
If the number of subjects in a program is small, statistical tests can detect only very
large program effects of differences in outcome measures between the two groups. This
illustrates the problem of ____.
a. generalizability
b. statistical conclusion validity
c. maturation
d. reliability
Which of the following is not correct with respect to process evaluations?
a. information about program implementation can be linked to outcome measures, even
when accompanied by a process evaluation
b. process evaluation aids in interpreting results from impact assessments
c. process evaluations are useful when a researcher is interested in the performance of
specific tasks within a program
d. process evaluations assume that tasks within a program are linked to program
outcomes
A researcher is developing a scale to reflect satisfaction with police services. Which
activity will yield an indication of the new scale’s criterion-related validity?
a. comparing scores on the new scale of satisfaction to scores on an established scale of
satisfaction
b. asking experts in the field whether it looks like it measures satisfaction
c. comparing scores on the first half of the scale to scores on the second half
d. determining whether the scale fits logically into relationships among variables related
to satisfaction
Field research in criminal justice may produce either or
a. Only qualitative data
b. Only quantitative data
c. either qualitative or quantitative data
d. Only grounded theory
What might be a useful indicator of the dimension “victim harm”?
a. economic gain
b. gender of victim
c. physical injury
d. gender of offender
Which statement is false with regard to surveys?
a. surveys are high on reliability
b. surveys are low on reliability
c. surveys are high on generalizability
d. surveys are low on validity
Problem solving is a fundamental tool in problem-oriented policing and involves which
step?
a. Carefully defined specific problems.
b. Conduct in-depth analysis to understand their causes.
c. Undertake broad searcher for solutions to remove these causes and bring about
lasting reductions in problems.
d. All of these answers are correct.
Which of the following is not accurate with respect to ethics and the political aspects of
applied research?
a. There is no set of political norms that are agreed upon by all criminal justice
researchers.
b. Just as there are codes for ethical conduct for researchers, there are formal codes of
accepted political conduct.
c. Ethics of criminal justice research deals more with the methods used while political
issues are more concerned with the substance and use of the research.
d. There is no formal code of accepted political conduct.
If field observations will be made on a phenomenon that occurs with some degree of
regularity, what sampling techniques can be used to select cases for observation?
a. Purposive sampling techniques
b. Snowball sampling techniques
c. Participant sampling techniques
d. Quantitative sampling techniques
Marvin Wolfgang’s study of males born in Philadelphia in 1945 was an attempt to
measure delinquency by following those males from their 10th birthday until they were
18. This is an example of what type of study?
a. cohort study
b. panel study
c. trend study
d. cross-sectional study
Treatment integrity is ____.
a. roughly equivalent to measurement reliability
b. roughly equivalent to measurement validity
c. the difference between the experimental intervention is delivered as intended
d. both reliable and valid
Which action does not represent a step 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
By accepting what everybody knows, we rely on ____.
a. tradition
b. myth
c. reality
d. logic
_______________ is a matter of whether a particular measurement technique, applied
repeatedly to the same object, will yield the same result each time.
Construct validity refers to generalizing from our experimental observations to causal
processes in the real world.
_____________ means repeating a study, in order to determine whether similar results
are obtained each time.
Surveys tend to be high on reliability and generalizability, but _______________ can be
a weak point.
The threat of statistical regression is a concern any time the researcher begins with
subjects who exhibit extreme values on the dependent variable.
Scientific realism bridges idiographic and nomothetic approaches to explanation by
seeking to understand how causal mechanisms operate in specific contexts..
Individuals may be units of analysis in criminal justice research.
Crimes must, at a minimum, have an offender, because without an offender there is no
crime.
Cross-sectional studies are those based on observations made at one time.
The benefits and burdens of participating in research should be distributed fairly.
Types of longitudinal studies include trend, panel, and _______________ studies.
When researchers can list each element of a population, that list is known as the
_______________.
To be scientifically useful, the attributes of every variable should be exhaustive as well
as mutually exclusive.
Field research is often associated with qualitative techniques.
Qualitative field research is the preferred method for studying many types of active
offenders, especially those with no recorded arrests or convictions for particular crimes.