You want to know why some states that have the death penalty as a punishment use it
more than other states. In order to develop your design, you identify those states that
have capital punishment and those that do not. Among those that do have capital
punishment, you separate states by the following criteria: annual executions over the
last 20 years; states with less than annual executions over the last 20 years; and those
states that have not executed in the last 20 years. What sampling method are you using?
a. convenience
b. quota
c. stratified
d. purposive
The following is an example of which type of question? Q1: Have you ever protested
against the death penalty?
– yes
– no If you answer yes, go to Q2
Q2: Where did the protest take place? __________________
a. closed ended question
b. open ended question
c. matrix question
d. contingency question
Coding in content analysis involves the logic of conceptualization and:
a. application
b. operationalization
c. validity
d. generalization
A major issue of the NCVS is that only residents over the age of may be interviewed.
a. 18
b. 12
c. 10
d. 5
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 for privacy
A researcher is interested in using content analysis to determine how the United States
Supreme Court has changed its interpretation of the 4th Amendment’s “unreasonable”
search and seizure prohibition over time. Which of the following are the units of
analysis?
a. individual justices
b. court decisions in 4th Amendment cases
c. the dissenting opinions
d. the concurring opinions
In deductive reasoning, one starts from a general law and applies that law to a particular
instance.
a. True
b. False
Logical sets of attributes are known as:
a. values
b. variables
c. concepts
d. operational definitions
A questionnaire is sent to 1,000 police departments in Florida and gathers information
on the number of sick days officers use after being involved in a shooting incident. This
is an example of what type of research?
a. variable-oriented research
b. case-oriented research
c. experimental design
d. cohort design
Which of the following would not be an appropriate target of content analysis?
a. speeches
b. newscasts
c. constitutions
d. number of domestic violence arrests
The NIBRS has a relatively low level of sophistication and cost.
a. True
b. False
The research process starts with:
a. observations
b. data processing
c. an idea
d. research methods
Recidivism represents a collection of related phenomena either observed or heard
about.
a. True
b. False
The value for a given variable in a population is a:
a. population parameter
b. sample element
c. sample statistic
d. equal probability of selection method
Which of the following represent advantages to the use of computer aided interviews?
a. the cost of the hardware and software is quite high
b. large scale systematic error can happen
c. batteries of laptops don”t last long, and computers and software are subject to
malfunctions
d. they prompt the researcher with the questions
The first decision for selecting subjects for an experiment is:
a. deciding how particular members of the target population will be selected
b. deciding on the target population
c. threats to internal validity
d. threats to external validity
What is one of the chief advantages of measuring crime through victim surveys?
a. cheaper cost to collect data
b. assists with obtaining counts of incidents not reported to police
c. more honest and detailed incident reporting
d. police reports tend to use legal jargon that is hard for evaluators to understand
The threat of is a concern any time the researcher begins with subjects who exhibit
extreme values on the dependent variable.
a. True
b. False
The excitement and commitment to scientific advancement may lead researchers to
a. overlook possible harms to participant wellbeing
b. overlook possible participant harms
c. allow the ends to justify the means
d. all of the above
With regard to evaluation designs, which of the following statements is not accurate?
a. variation in the levels of treatment delivered by a program can be a major threat to
the validity of even randomized evaluation studies
b. uncontrolled variation in treatment is equivalent to unreliable measurement of the
independent variable
c. controlled variation in treatment represents a threat to generalizability
d. varying degrees of participation by clients in a program will impact the outcome
Which of the following is the best example of the use of judgmental sampling?
a. exit polls on election days
b. surveys of all police chiefs in America
c. interviews of female inmates in the Los Angeles County Jail
d. households participating in the National Crime Victimization Survey
Virtually all research that uses human subjects is:
a. subject to international review board review
b. considered to be unethical
c. considered unreliable
d. subject to institutional review board review
With regard to limitations of a crime measure, self report studies can tell us something
about shoplifters, but it would be difficult to use this method to measure:
a. total shoplifting incidents
b. total theft incidents
c. effectiveness of probation for shoplifters
d. none of the above
Which of the following would be an example of experimental mortality?
a. a subject deciding that he/she wants to participate
b. inmates in an experiment at the state maximum security prison being moved to a
minimum state prison
c. police officers within one year of retirement participating in a job satisfaction study
d. police officers change their behavior during a study because of a new law that was
passed
When we trust the judgments of people who have special training, such as a doctor or a
lawyer, we are accepting their:
a. wisdom
b. expertise
c. authority
d. word
The ecological approach to understanding crime suggests that human behavior is
partially the result of the physical and social environment where the behavior takes
place.
a. True
b. False
A hypothesis is a specified expectation about an empirical reality derived from axioms.
a. True
b. False
Which of the following does not illustrate a population where cluster sampling would
be the best choice?
a. law enforcement officers in the United States
b. citizens of Florida
c. probation officers in America
d. inmates in the Wayne County jail
Another word for an exploratory research study is:
a. cross-sectional research study
b. longitudinal research study
c. correlational study
d. double blind study
Questions that encourage respondents to answer in a particular way are known as:
a. unfair
b. biased
c. double-barreled
d. vague
The main difference between the UCR and NIBRS is:
a. the name of the crime report
b. reporting each crime incident rather than reporting the total number of certain crimes
for each law enforcement agency
c. the method of gathering data
d. nothing, they are the same report
With the use of stratified sampling a researcher wants to reduce the:
a. sampling error
b. standard error
c. number of dependent variables
d. time it takes to draw a sample
A reason why you should not contract with a professional firm for a survey might be
that
a. drawing a sample is a complex process
b. they already have a pool of trained researchers
c. they may be trained in the intricacies of questionnaire construction
d. you are never sure if they follow the survey as you would
Selective observation can be the result of
a. replication
b. illogical reasoning
c. ideology and politics
d. overgeneralization
An interrupted time-series design can be very useful in what type of research?
a. applied research
b. exploratory research
c. descriptive research
d. double-blind research
Estimates of population parameters, standard error, and confidence intervals assume
unbiased sampling the foundation of unbiased sampling is the random sample.
Tables where the values of the dependent variable are based on values of the
independent variable are known as
____________________ tables.
A researcher engaged in field research would likely use data that is defined as
observations that are not easily reduced to numbers.
What is CASI? What advantages and disadvantages does it offer for researchers?
Answer:N/A
Identify the four levels of measurement and give examples of each.
Answer:N/A
of crime are important for many criminal justice research purposes.
Please outline and compare and contrast the steps to gaining access to formal
organizations. IN your opinion, which step is most important?
Answer:N/A
A(n) cause is a condition that more or less guarantees the effect in question.
Subsequent questions in series are called questions.
Patterns of cause and effect are ____________________ in nature.
A(n) is frequently required for eliciting responses to open-ended questions.
Reliability does not ensure any more than precision ensures it.
If you want to ask several questions that have the same set of answer categories, the
best type of question to use is the ____________________ question.
The text details the work of the “Chicago School” and the impact that perspective had
on the field of criminology.
What aspects of the ecological approach could be applicable today and why?
Answer:N/A
Because of some controversial medical and social science research, the U.S.
Department of Health and Human Services has had to step in and establish regulations
designed to protect subjects.
Give a hypothetical situation that would lend itself to a cross-sectional study. What
would be the research purpose in your hypothetical situation? Why would your example
not lend itself to a longitudinal approach?
Answer:N/A