Suppose you wish to measure progress in increasing the amount of time a child in
institutional care spends studying as an indicator of the effectiveness of your groupwork
intervention. Which of the following approaches most likely would be least vulnerable
to reactivity problems?
a. Have the child record the amount of time and report back to you.
b. Have cottage parents run spot checks in the cottage at different intervals.
c. Interview the child each day about the time spent studying the previous day.
d. Show up at the cottage and observe the child yourself for one hour during the same
period each day.
Which of the following statements is NOT true about the utilization of program
evaluation results?
a. They are less likely to be used if they contradict deeply held beliefs.
b. If the results are clear and have obvious policy implications, they will always be
used.
c. They are less likely to be used when they threaten vested interests.
d. None of these; they are all true.
Which of the following statements is true regarding the influence of ethical
considerations on social work research?
a. If a study violates any ethical guidelines, regardless of how subtle the violation is and
regardless of the study’s expected benefits, it will not be approved by an IRB.
b. It is sometimes difficult to judge whether the expected benefits of a study outweigh
subtle and arguable ethical concerns.
c. Most agency studies that involve their clients as research participants do NOT require
obtaining IRB approval.
d. If a study is being done on clients who are court ordered for treatment, voluntary
participation and informed consent are no longer relevant as an ethical issue.
Which of the following statements is true about the phases of the research process in
mixed methods studies?
a. Data collection methods are determined during the problem formulation phase.
b. Data collection methods are determined during the study design phase.
c. The research question is posed during the study design phase.
d. The sequence of the problem formulation phase depends on whether qualitative or
quantitative methods are emphasized.
When someone who has sexually abused a child consistently denies having done so, it
is an example of
a. systematic measurement error.
b. random measurement error.
c. unreliable data.
d. both b and c.
Which of the following statements is NOT true if you include only women in a study of
a hypothesis:
a. You rule out any effect that gender might have on the two variables under study.
b. Gender is a third variable in the study.
c. Female is a constant in the study.
d. You are controlling for the effects of gender.
Qualitative research is especially effective for
a. descriptive research.
b. providing a comprehensive perspective to the researcher.
c. meeting the scientific norm of generalizability.
d. meeting the scientific norm of precision.
A sampling interval of 5 was used to select a sample from a population of 1,000. How
many elements are to be in the sample?
a. 5.
b. 50.
c. 100.
d. 200.
e. 1,000.
Descriptive studies do NOT
a. study relationships between variables.
b. tell why something occurred.
c. use operational definitions.
d use concepts.
e. Descriptive studies DO all of the above.
The primary function of the probe is to
a. loosen up the respondent.
b. get the correct answer from the respondent.
c. get the respondent to answer a question more fully.
d. indicate an understanding and interest in the respondent.
After examining the FBI Crime Reports for a 30-year period, Professor Hall claimed
that the incidence of rape has increased. After examining the same reports, Professor
Shine claimed that the reporting of rape, not the incidence of rape, has increased. This
illustrates
a. the problem of reliability in using existing statistics.
b. the problem of validity in using existing statistics.
c. the need to replicate existing statistics.
d. the ecological fallacy.
Code notes:
a. Cover reflections about the dimensions of concepts
b. Cover relationships among concepts
c. Identify the code labels and their meanings
d. Discuss the deeper meanings of concepts
Recruitment of minority and oppressed populations in research studies can be enhanced
by:
a. providing transportation to the research site.
b. conducting research activities in participants’ homes.
c. providing childcare for young children
d. all of these.
If a researcher wanted to know why there was a noticeable increase in the number of
reported incidents of child abuse in the town of Southpaw during 2005, the researcher
would design
a. a descriptive study.
b. an explanatory study.
c. a trend study.
d a longitudinal study.
e. an exploratory study.
Every kth element in a list is chosen for inclusion in the sample in
a. simple random sampling.
b. systematic sampling.
c. disproportionate sampling.
d. cluster sampling.
e. stratified sampling.
The problem of an interaction between the testing and the experimental stimulus is
handled by
a. the Solomon four-group design.
b. quasi-experimental designs.
c. the classical experimental design
d. all of these.
For a causal relationship to exist there must be evidence
a. of a relationship between variables.
b. that one variable precedes the other in time.
c. that a third variable did not cause the changes observed in the first two variables.
d. all of these.
Which of the following statements is FALSE regarding semiotic analysis?
a. There is no meaning inherent in any sign
b. Language is the only sign system of interest to those doing semiotic analysis
c. Meanings reside in minds
d. Semiotics is concerned with our agreements about meanings
Which of the following statements is NOT recommended for literature reviews that are
part of larger studies or proposals?
a. The review should be thorough and up to date.
b. The review should be terse.
c. The review should provide extensive details about each prior study.
d. The review should point out any disagreements among previous researchers.
In choosing an existing scale as an operational definition of self-esteem before and after
an intervention, researchers should consider
a. its length.
b. how difficult it will be for subjects to complete.
c. its sensitivity to change over time.
d. its reliability and validity.
e. all of these.
Professor Perlman was interested in comparing two textbooks to determine whether one
used more sexist language than the other. Perlman counted the number of times a
gender reference appeared in each book. Perlman was doing
a. latent content coding.
b. manifest content coding.
c. quota sampling.
d. theoretical sampling.
Which of the following is NOT an attribute of a good research question?
a. There should be only one possible acceptable answer to it.
b. It should be stated in specific terms.
c. It should be answerable by observable evidence.
d. Its answer should be relevant to others concerned about social work or social welfare.
Professor Lip was interested in why grandparents went to court to obtain custody of
their grandchildren. One of the grandparents that Lip talked with commented on the
issue of “parental neglect” of the grandchild. Once the issue of neglect had been
identified, Lip began to notice that other grandparents also used the concept of “parental
neglect” to explain why they had a legal relationship with their grandchild. In the
Loflands’ terms, Professor Lip was interested in examining which of the following ways
of looking for patterns?
a. Frequencies
b. Magnitudes
c. Causes
d. Consequences
e. Processes
Which of the following is NOT one of the four stages of the constant comparative
method?
a. Comparing incidents applicable to each category
b. Integrating categories and their properties
c. Delimiting the theory
d. Writing theory
e. All of these are stages in the constant comparative method
To obtain samples of the same size from strata of varying sizes, it would be necessary to
use
a. simple random sampling.
b. systematic sampling.
c. proportionate stratified sampling.
d. disproportionate stratified sampling.
e. quota sampling.
In general, survey research is an appropriate observational method for
a. describing a population too large to observe directly.
b. cross-sectional or longitudinal studies.
c. the measurement of attitudes prevalent in a larger population
d. all of these.
Evaluation studies:
a. are done for exploration purposes.
b. are done for description purposes.
c. al are done for explanation purposes.
d. can be done for exploration, description or explanatory purposes.
Assume that Professor Rodgers had studied only people aged 65 or older and found that
they experienced increasing levels of happiness in the last 20 years. Suppose he had
concluded that people under 65 years of age also experienced increasing levels of
happiness during the same time period. He would have committed
a. the error of overgeneralization.
b. the error of selective observation.
c. the error of illogical reasoning.
d. the enrror of inaccurate observation.
e. no error.
A study that attempts to maximize precision and objectivity in testing whether an
intervention reduces an undesirable behavior is being guided by what paradigm?
a. postmodernism.
b. positivism.
c. interpretivism.
d. critical social science.
Asking subjects “Did your children go to high school and college?” after they told you
that they have no children violates which of the following criteria in question
construction?
a. Avoid double-barreled questions.
b. Questions should be relevant.
c. Avoid biased items.
d. Avoid double-barreled questions and questions should be relevant.
When searching for evidence, you should:
a. Refrain from looking at web sites
b. Use only one search term.
c. Avoid systematic reviews.
d. Examine the Cochrane and Campbell Collaboration resources.
If marital discord increases when socio-environmental stress increases, that would be an
example of a positive relationship.
According to the scientific method, scientific evidence that has been strongly supported
in numerous replications is not open to question.
If a self-report scale has high reliability and validity in group research, we can assume it
will have equally high reliability and validity in single-case experiments.
Whereas univariate analysis and subgroup comparisons focus on the descriptions of the
people under study, the focus of bivariate analysis is on the relationships among the
variables themselves.
When social work practitioners utilize research discriminatingly, they help uphold and
advance the values and mission of their profession.
If we hypothesize that a school social work intervention will prevent students from
dropping out of school through the mechanism of increasing their level of self esteem,
then level of self esteem would be viewed as a mediating variable.
Feminist studies aim to generate findings that can be used to improve the well being of
women in an historically male dominated society.
A researcher using official government documents need not be concerned about the
reliability of those records.
Historical research can involve quantitative as well as qualitative methods.
An effect size of less than 1.0 is considered to be weak.
According to the NASW Code of Ethics, social workers violate their ethical
responsibilities if they refrain from using research to guide their practice.
If a rigorous experimental assessment of program outcome finds that a program is not
effective in attaining its goals, then there is no need to evaluate the program’s
implementation.
Quantitative studies and qualitative studies are equally likely to employ probability
sampling procedures.
An experiment evaluating the effectiveness of an intervention for improving attitudes
about something finds that the mean posttest score of the experimental group is 70,
which is better than the control group’s mean posttest score of 65. The significance level
is .05, and the p value is .01. The standard deviation is 5.
The Cohen’s d effect size statistic is +1.0.
In constructing a questionnaire it is better to squeeze questions and response categories
close together and have a shorter, cluttered questionnaire than it is to have a longer,
uncluttered questionnaire.