The age of an offender is an example of which level of measurement?
a. interval
b. nominal
c. ratio
d. ordinal
Case flow represents the process through which subjects are accumulated in which two
kinds of groups?
a. experimental and control
b. deductive and inductive
c. equivalent and nonequivalent
d. voluntary and involuntary
Randomized experiments for evaluation purposes require which of the following?
a. case flow must be adequate to produce enough subjects in both the experimental and
the control groups
b. program staff may minimize the exceptions to randomization
c. special interventions must be consistently applied
d. maintaining the desired level of control over experimental conditions
When considering probability sampling in general, it is usually the preferred method for
selecting study elements because _____.
a. probability sampling sanctions intuition on the part of the researcher
b. probability sampling permits the researcher to estimate the sampling error
c. probability sampling allows unconscious biases in the selection process
d. probability sampling allows selection of the best subjects
A major midwestern university does annual surveys of its alumni. These surveys are
designed to gauge the attitudes that alumni hold about the university, its academic
programs, and the major team sports. These surveys have been an annual event for the
last two decades and represent which type of study?
a. cohort study
b. panel study
c. trend study
d. cross-sectional study
Field notes should include all but which of the following?
a. specific names of those being studied and where events happen even if those being
studied are criminals
b. what you specifically witnessed
c. what you think that you witnessed
d. your interpretations of what you witnessed
Which of the following is an accurate statement?
a. if the mean is much higher than the mode, it indicates that there are no extreme cases
b. if the standard deviation is high, it indicates that there is no variability
c. if the mean is the same as median, it indicates that the mode will be higher.
d. Whenever the mean is much higher than the mode, it indicates that the mean is
distorted
Multistage cluster sampling with stratification, systematic sampling, simple random
sampling and disproportionate stratified sampling are examples of _____.
a. nonprobability sampling
b. probability sampling
c. sampling distributions
d. sampling frames
Social artifacts such as written documents or articles from newspapers represent which
of the following types of data?
a. content analysis
b. secondary analysis
c. agency records
d. surveys
Professor White asked his students to put the number of hours each studied for the final
exam on a piece of paper and turn that paper in with the exam. The pieces of paper
indicate that students studied 10, 3, 4, 25, 1, 4, 4, 12, 6, 8, and 10 hours. What is the
modal number of hours studied?
a. 10
b. 25
c. 4
d. there is no mode for this distribution
Researchers may face legal liability when _____.
a. researchers refuse to work with their subjects
b. they become participants in the criminal activity they are observing
c. both of the above
d. fortunately, researchers are protected from legal liability
Which of the following is not included in the “CRAAP Test?”
a. policy
b. authority
c. accuracy
d. purpose
Any public policy discussion involves politics. 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
Measures of central tendency include all except _____.
a. standard deviation
b. median
c. mean
d. mode
It is often said that agency data are not designed for research purposes. Which of the
following support that statement?
a. some criminal justice agencies collect data because they want to help researchers
b. often the data collected by criminal justice agencies is for their research use
c. agency records can be easily adapted to research purposes
d. data they do collect often reflect discretionary decisions by numerous individuals.
Which of the following is not one of the research methods discussed in your text?
a. cross-sectional
b. survey
c. field
d. evaluation
When using a nonequivalent-groups design, the researcher will handle subject
assignment to groups by _________________.
a. random assignment to experimental and control groups
b. allowing subjects to pick which group they want to be in
c. matching subjects in the experimental group to those in the comparison group
d. using cohort studies
In the following research conclusion, what units of analysis are being used? “An
enormous variation of deviant activities was represented in a sample of 1,485 news
items. We categorized these deviant activities into five general types of analysis:
violence, economic, political, ideological/cultural and diversionary.”
a. individuals
b. social artifacts
c. organizations
d. groups
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
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. ratio level is on a true zero point, while interval level is not
Which of the following statements is not accurate concerning the use of published data
in aggregate forms?
a. Published data is never used in criminal justice research because it is not readily
available.
b. Published data is appropriate for measuring highly aggregated patterns or trends such
as drug use over time.
c. Published data can be used for the covariation in two estimates of crime.
d. Published data are easy to obtain.
Agency records and statistics published by agencies or governmental entities are most
commonly used for which type of studies?
a. explanatory
b. descriptive
c. experimental
d. qualitative
With respect to standard deviation, which of the following statements is not correct?
a. the total deviation is zero
b. the average deviation is zero
c. the value can range from negative 1 to positive 1
d. the sum of the deviations from the mean will always be zero
Questions that encourage respondents to answer in a particular way are called _____.
a. unfair
b. biased
c. double-barreled
d. short and clear
Following the model of London, England, Center City, USA decided to install closed
circuit television (CCTV) cameras in a downtown park in hopes of reducing the public’s
fear of crime. Which technique would be the best choice to determine if fear has in fact
decreased?
a. send out a questionnaire to all citizens living in Center City, USA
b. select, via simple random sampling, 20 citizens to interview
c. interview, via convenience sampling, citizens that are in the park
d. because you want to measure a “feeling,” there is no accurate way to do this
Content analysis is well-suited for which of the following situations?
a. to determine unemployment rates
b. to find out public relations with police
c. to answer the classic questions of communications research
d. court records
A _______is the most appropriate method for studying both general concern and fear
for personal safety
a. survey
b. interview
c. focus group
d. randomized trial
A promise of anonymity is unlikely to be extended in which of the following
techniques?
a. use of department of corrections summary data
b. personal interviews
c. questionnaires that do not request identifying information
d. anonymity is really impossible in all forms of research
Confidence levels allow the researcher to have some idea of how closely their samples
reflect the parameter. Which of the following statements about confidence levels is
true?
a. If a simple random sample is used, probability theory suggests that researchers can be
95 percent sure the estimates of that sample fall within one standard error of the
parameter.
b. If a simple random sample is used, probability theory suggests that researchers can
be 68 percent sure that estimates of that sample fall within two standard errors of the
parameter.
c. If a simple random sample is used, probability theory suggests that researchers can
almost be positive (99+ percent) that estimates of that sample fall within three standard
errors of the true value.
d. If a simple random sample is used, probability theory suggests that researchers can
be positive that sample mean is equivalent to population mean.
Which of the following statements is inaccurate?
a. impact assessments evaluate whether or not specified goals are attained
b. process evaluations focus on whether programs are carried out according to plans
c. problem analysis usually considers a limited range of alternative choices
d. ideally impact assessments and process evaluations are conducted separately
Closed ended questions are useful because they _____.
a. provide varied responses
b. responses can be transferred directly into a data file
c. can be altered to fit the needs
d. are more easily processed
The size of the sample and the standard error are related in which of the following
ways?
a. the standard error is not related to the size of the sample
b. when the sample size increases so does the standard error
c. when the sample size increases the standard error decreases
d. the standard error moves in the same direction as the sample size
Most government organizations routinely collect and publish compilations of data ,
which we refer to collectively as:
a. statistical and or graphic data
b. electronic data
c. published statistics
d. crime rates
Relating to randomization, which of the following statements is inaccurate?
a. as the number of exceptions to random assignment increases, the statistical
equivalence of the experimental and control groups decreases
b. when exceptions to random assignment are made, no bias enters the selection process
c. randomization in experiments for evaluation purposes are best suited for programs
where exceptions are at a minimum
d. Random assignment of people to receive some especially desirable or punitive
treatment may not be possible for legal, ethical, and practical reasons.
A group of researchers from an urban institute want to employ some target hardening
techniques in their area. Which of the following might they expect?
a. an immediate increase in crime in their area
b. a decrease in crime in surrounding areas
c. an increase in crime in surrounding areas
d. crime rates staying the same since target hardening has been proven time and again to
be ineffective
The benefits and burdens of participating in research should be distributed fairly.
The research goal of voluntary participation may be impossible to follow.
_____________ means repeating a study, checking to see whether similar results are
obtained each time.
When using students in your class as research subjects and having them complete a
questionnaire, there is a potential for ethical problems in that their participation may not
be __________________.
__________ leads to misrepresentation and simplification of the problems
It is relatively easy and common to have agencies modify their data collection forms in
order to get information needed for a specific research project being conducted from
someone outside the agency.
The main reason why ____________ is used to select subjects for control and
experimental groups in a classical experiment is that the groups will be statistically
equivalent.
The policy process, like the research process in general, is fluid and does not always
‘start at the beginning and conclude at the end.”
Face-to-face interviews are best for complex questions and other specialized needs.
The threat of statistical regression is a concern any time the researcher begins with
subjects who exhibit extreme values on the dependent variable.
When a researcher cannot match a given response to a specific research subject, this is
known as __________________.
Quasi-experiments differ from true experiments in that they lack random assignment to
control and experimental groups.
When reporting findings, the choice of the ________________, or the total number of
cases, depends entirely on the purposes of the analysis.
When scientists consider whether causal statements are true or false, they are concerned
with the validity of causal inference.
__________________________________________moves from the specific to the
general, from a set of particular observations to the discovery of a pattern that
represents some degree of order among the varied events under examination.
Subsequent questions in series are called contingency questions because whether they
are to be asked and answered is _________ on the response to the first question in the
series.
Creaming, or skimming the best risks off the top to be incorporated in an experiment, is
a threat to _________________ validity.
National Crime Victimization Survey can be used to evaluate local crime prevention
programs.