Every local and state enforcement agency:
a. shares records among themselves
b. maintains its own records
c. transfers all information and data to the Internet
d. destroys all information not pertinent to crime studies
A great way to make sense of qualitative data is through:
a. thinking units
b. mental blocks
c. linear regression
d. none of these answers are correct
Which method begins with a matrix or table describing the characteristics of a target
population?
a. probability
b. snowball
c. quota
d. simple random sampling
As we learn about the world around us we use personal inquiry and direct experience.
However, what other sources of knowledge do we rely on?
a. tradition and authority
b. exploration and description
c. surveys and observations
d. aggregate data and survey data
National Crime Victimization Survey and the British Crime Survey both use the
following technique to gather data?
a. simple random samples
b. stratified sampling
c. multistage cluster sampling
d. quota sampling
How does a cohort design differ from other quasi-experimental designs?
a. the use of random assignment to control and experimental groups
b. the use of matching to assign subjects to control and experimental groups
c. there is some date or event in common to all members of the control and the
experimental groups
d. all quasi-experimental designs are basically the same
If a researcher has a population of college students from which a sample has been
drawn and concludes that on average there are higher grades achieved by those students
who live on campus than those who commute, higher grades is an example of what?
a. a sample element
b. a population parameter
c. a sample statistic
d. an unreliable result
Unstructured interviews are typically best for what kind of study:
a. quantitative studies
b. qualitative studies
c. exploratory studies
d. correlational studies
Surveys are best suited for studies that have what as their units of analysis?
a. individuals
b. groups
c. organizations
d. social artifacts
The term substantive frame refers to:
a. The purpose of the interview
b. what you plan on doing
c. the depth of interview questions
d. the depth of interview questions
D. none of the answers are correct
If randomization is not possible, what should the researcher do?
a. pre and posttest
b. use the classical design
c. consider using a quasi-experimental design
d. randomization is always possible
With respect to standard deviation, which of the following statements is correct?
a. it is based on the squared deviations from the mean
b. it is the square of the variance
c. it is always a negative number
d. all of the above
Stakeholders are persons and organizations with an indirect interest in a program.
a. True
b. False
In contrast to interviews, self-administered questionnaires have the advantages of:
a. being more effective in dealing with complicated issues
b. producing fewer incomplete questionnaires
c. dealing with the context of social life
d. handling sensitive issues more effectively if surveys are anonymous
Specifying program goals and objectives in operational terms produces:
a. empirical indicators of program outcomes
b. conceptual definitions
c. program outcomes
d. program integrity
The policy process, like the research process in general, is fluid and does not always
‘start at the beginning and conclude at the end”.
a. True
b. False
Which of the following is not considered to be a published statistic?
a. Criminal Victimization in the United States
b. Sourcebook of Criminal Justice Statistics
c. Detroit Police Department call of service statistics
d. Correctional Populations in the United States
Explanatory studies are not cross-sectional.
a. True
b. False
When follow-ups are planned with mail surveys:
a. response bias is not an issue
b. the anonymity of respondents is not guaranteed
c. the response rate increases
d. none of the above
After you have identified a sponsor and sent a letter to a formal organization stating
your interest in research, a phone call is typically the next step in the process. You have
agreed upon a time and day for the phone call and at the appointed time, you call. The
director will not take your call. In this case you should do which of the following?
a. forget that specific organization as a target of your research because if the director
will not take your call now, you cannot expect much from him once the research begins
b. keep calling back until your call is taken by the director
c. ask to speak the director’s assistant and make an appointment for a meeting
d. find another sponsor and see if you have better luck getting access to the director
The main purpose of ADAM was to provide an ongoing assessment of the prevalence
of drug use among:
a. high school seniors
b. persons enrolled in drug addiction rehabilitation
c. persons arrested for criminal offenses
d. persons under the age of 18
All but which of the following are examples of double-blind studies?
a. medical experiments where a new drug is tested and one group gets the new drug and
the other gets a placebo and the researcher does not know who got which drug
b. domestic violence studies where intervention is designed to reduce repeat offenses by
focusing upon victim strategies when the victim does not know whether they are in the
control or experimental group
c. any study where the researchers and the subjects do not know whether they are in the
experimental or control groups
d. any study where the researchers know who is in the experimental and control groups
but promise not to tell the subjects
Which of the following would serve as a ‘snap shot” of a phenomenon at one point in
time?
a. panel study
b. cross-sectional study
c. cohort study
d. trend study
Ethical issues surrounding the prison simulation include all of the following except
a. subjects were not fully informed of the procedures they would undergo
b. the researchers were not fully aware of what they could expect from the simulation
c. the project utilized only 21 participants
d. guards were allowed to make up and modify rules as the project progressed
A method in which draft descriptions are used to check accuracy of work is referred to
as:
a. grounded theory
b. member checks
c. audit trail
d. data mining
Measures of jail capacity were operationalized as whether or not there were more
inmates housed at the end of the year than the original building design called for would
be an example of what level of measurement?
a. nominal
b. ordinal
c. interval
d. ratio
We live in a world of two realities; agreement and empirical.
a. True
b. False
Which of the following is not a concern about bias when selecting a sample?
a. selecting a sample based upon convenience
b. using probability statistics for drawing a sample
c. drawing a sample on a first come, first serve basis
d. the researcher’s personal bias
The three main elements in the traditional model of science include theory,
operationalization, and:
a. statistics
b. hypotheses
c. observation
d. conclusions
Which type of the listed studies are highly aggregated summary data from published
statistical series not typically used?
a. descriptive
b. explanatory
c. applied
d. exploratory
The second step in the traditional model of science is which of the following?
a. concepts
b. observation
c. operationalization
d. methodology
Explain the difference between quantitative and qualitative data. Give an example of
each from the field of criminal justice. Can both quantitative and qualitative data be
used in each of the four purposes of doing research? Why or why not?
Answer:N/A
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. civilians in the military
Field research that deals with crime is best served by focusing upon crimes that are
visible such as drug selling or prostitution.
a. True
b. False
Of the following, which time-dimension design is the most likely to be used for
descriptive purposes:
a. cross-sectional
b. trend
c. panel
d. cohort
systems have been developed to obtain alternative measures of drug use.
interviews involve a mixture of pre-determined and created on the spot questions.
Your criminal justice department has been requiring graduating seniors to take an exit
exam as a measure of departmental outcomes. How could that tool be used to determine
if the criminal justice major is effective?
Answer:N/A
takes place in the policymaking stage while program evaluation studies are conducted
in later stages.
Describe the steps that would be necessary to gain access to a formal organization for
the purposes of doing field research.
Answer:N/A
The main disadvantage of using secondary data concerns how variables were initially
operationalized and whether the secondary data provide measures of the variables you
want to analyze.
A theory that is created based upon experience and field observations is referred to as a
theory.
Researchers strive to do no harm to their subjects. Identify what type of harm may
occur to subjects and use specific examples to illustrate the potential harm. Include in
your answer whether harm is ever appropriate when completing research in criminal
justice.
Answer:N/A
A closedended question has a response set consisting of the categories ‘strongly agree”,
“agree”, “disagree” and ‘strongly disagree”. These responses are an example of a
____________________ scale.
An axiom is an assumption about reality, while a proposition expresses relationships
among
____________________.
Discuss the measures used to insure reliability: test-retest method, inter-rater, and
split-half method.
Answer:N/A
Content validity refers to the degree to which a measure covers the range of meanings
included within the
____________________.
When each element of a population has an equal chance of selection to the sample this
process is known as
___________________ selection.
When we are concerned with how well an observed relationship between variables
represents the underlying causal process of interest we are concerned with validity.
If a researcher is concerned with whether their findings can be generalized to another
population or environment, the researcher is expressing concerns about validity.
are logical groupings of attributes.
Much of our knowledge is based on rather than on direct experience.
Eye witness testimony that turns out to be inaccurate is an example of the inaccurate
____________________ type of error in personal human inquiry.
A(n) ____________________ is a fundamental model or scheme that organizes our
view of something.