In order to conduct research involving non-human subjects a university must establish
an institutional review board (IRB).
a. True
b. False
Studying how people think is not an appropriate topic of study for a qualitative
interview.
a. True
b. False
During observation, if you choose to follow “the exception that proves the rule,” you
have made what error?
a. inaccurate observation
b. overgeneralization
c. illogical reasoning
d. selective observation
Value is a relative concept and cannot be settled by science.
a. True
b. False
In research, the process of regarding something as real (such as crime seriousness)
when it is not is called:
a. reification
b. validity
c. typology
d. reliability
How can a researcher be sure that threats to internal validity are being ruled out in the
design?
a. sorting out what threats are applicable in which settings
b. comparing the results of several post-tests
c. random selection will rule out, or greatly reduce the chances for statistical regression
d. all the above
It is necessary to be charged before one can be convicted. This statement is
representative of:
a. real cause
b. necessary cause
c. sufficient cause
d. probabilistic cause
Which type of question should be avoided on a questionnaire?
a. short items
b. contingency questions
c. ambiguous questions
d. matrix questions
is the most open style of interviewing:
a. unstructured
b. structured
c. quantitative
d. hybrid
A group of students who completed a research methods class at the local college were
given a questionnaire to assess their feelings about the homeless and after were
randomly assigned to either the experimental group or the control group. The
experimental group was required to volunteer at the local homeless shelter while the
control group was not. After one month of volunteering, members of both groups were
asked to complete the questionnaire on feelings concerning the homeless again. What
type of research design is this?
a. a quasi-experimental design
b. a classical experimental design
c. a time-series design
d. an interrupted time-series design
The penalties that are assigned to different crimes by law are best characterized as a
dimension of:
a. public opinion
b. crime seriousness
c. retribution
d. cultural tastes
The use of rates in the reporting of criminal justice data allow the researcher to:
a. standardize by the data
b. compare groups of differing size
c. make the data valid
d. make the data reliable
Haney, Banks and Zimbardo designed a simulated prison to measure
a. the dispositional hypothesis
b. the degree of violence that prison guards innately have
c. the situational hypothesis
d. how violent inmates can be subdued
Data that is based upon households has which of the following as potential problems?
a. they are inherently inaccurate
b. law enforcement cannot use them
c. they are difficult to generalize to other populations
d. they are not that different from official measures like NIBRS
The goal of the classical experiment is for the researcher to:
a. have control over the dependent variable
b. have control over the independent variable
c. measure the effect the dependent variable has upon the independent variable
d. make sure the subjects in the control group get the independent variable and those in
the experimental group do not
Which of the following is not a guideline for the presentation of tabular data?
a. there is no need to display information about missing data, include only that
information which pertains to the independent and dependent variables
b. when using percentages in a table, the base on which the percentages are computed
should be indicated
c. a heading or title for the table should be given that succinctly describes what is
contained in the table
d. the attributes of each variable should be clearly indicated
Survey research is generally weaker on validity and stronger on reliability.
a. True
b. False
A specifiable aspect of a given concept is referred to as a:
a. dimension
b. concept
c. construct
d. direct observable
Which of the following is a data series that has been collected since 1930?
a. USPS
b. DAWN
c. UCR
d. NICVS
Unlike the UCR, NIBRS does not implement:
a. a higher level of sophistication in reporting
b. the hierarchy rule
c. single time reporting
d. all of the above
Which of the following is accurate?
a. the reason that researchers use probability samples is because they guarantee
representativeness of the sample
b. in general, the more heterogeneous a population, the smaller the sample needed for
representativeness
c. a simple random sample is appropriate when the researcher wants to over-represent a
characteristic in the population
d. a sample is representative of the population from which it is drawn if the aggregate
characteristics of the sample approximate those of the general population
Clinic workers in a major Northwest city have been asked to track the incidence and
patterns of STDs in their patients as part of a research project dealing with public
health. They ask a number of specific questions upon intake but do not ask about their
clients’ sexual partners. The only way to examine patterns in the spread of the STDs is
to add a question to the intake form about the identity of their sexual partners. The data
that was gathered illustrates:
a. nonpublic agency records
b. published statistics
c. new data collected by agency staff
d. content analysis
The primary distinction between a paradigm and theory is based on:
a. intersubjective agreement
b. a hypothesis
c. organization and structure
d. operationalization
A researcher concerned with whether a particular measurement technique will, after
repeated measures, yield the same results is concerned with:
a. accuracy
b. reliability
c. precise measurement
d. validity
When taking conscious and deliberate steps to insure that what you are looking at is
what you intended to look at, you avoid:
a. overgeneralization
b. inaccurate observation
c. illogical reasoning
d. generalization
Which of the following questions is best for a survey?
a. What grade did you get in your last criminal justice course and why did you get it?
b. If you did not do as well in your last criminal justice course was it because of the
teacher, the book, the time the class was offered, or what?
c. What grade do you expect to get in research methods?
d. Why did you miss class so many times during the last semester and were your grades
impacted by the misses or was it a good trade-off because you were doing things for
your school organization?
Topics that lend themselves to the use of content analysis tend to focus upon the links
between communication and:
a. criminal justice policy
b. the actual crime rates
c. the media’s understanding of criminal court convictions
d. understanding why people commit crime
Many aspects of physical settings are probably best studied through
a. asking questions
b. reviewing written documents
c. direct observation
d. surveys
Sometimes there are problems with the people or patterns that are gathered as agency
data within the criminal justice system. Which of the following is an incorrect statement
with respect to the data gathered by the agencies identified?
a. police officers deal not with individual calls but with cases
b. prosecutors document their work by case
c. judges document their work by their dockets
d. the FBI collects arrest data for NCIC based upon the individual
What is the relationship between desired outcomes and empirical indicators?
a. desired outcomes represent the program goals while empirical indicators determine
whether the desired outcomes are achieved
b. desired outcomes are the empirical indicators
c. desired outcomes represent the results of a program while empirical indicators are
used to identify the goals
d. desired outcomes are what an agency hopes to get while empirical indicators identify
what must be done to get them
Age of an offender is an example of which level of measurement?
a. interval
b. nominal
c. ratio
d. ordinal
In general, survey research is:
a. strong on reliability and strong on validity
b. strong on reliability and weak on validity
c. weak on reliability and strong on validity
d. weak on reliability and weak on validity
When one moves from particular instances to general principles ” from facts to theories,
one is using
____________________ reasoning.
When a sample closely reflects the population in terms of aggregate characteristics, the
sample is said to be
of the population.
Not harming people is an easy to accept in theory, but it is often difficult to ensure in
practice.
questionnaires are generally the least expensive and easiest to complete.
The logic of social scientific inquiry is based in the use of ____________________ to
guide the inquiry.
In a classical experiment the researcher uses a to offset the effects of the experiment
itself.
is an effort to convert the UCR to a more comprehensive crime report.
The unit about which information is collected and that provides the basis of analysis is
called the sampling
______________________.
When reporting findings, the choice of the , or the total number of cases, depends
entirely on the purposes of the analysis.
Field research is usually considered to be strong on validity yet weak on .
Characteristics or qualities that describe some object are known as
____________________.
The victim in crimes such as prostitution, drug use and bookmaking is .
A(n) is the general explanation that prisons are brutal and dehumanizing because of the
types of people who run them and are incarcerated in them.
The potential for increases as the number of clerical entries increases.
When random assignment to experimental and control groups is not possible the
researcher may be forced to use a(n) ____________________ design.