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Definition
-Are techniques and procedures that produce evidence
-Involve sampling, measurement instruments, planned comparisons and statistical techniques
-Allow us to judge the quality of a study and the evidence presented |
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| True or false? Since we live in an “information age,” the ability to make use of complex sources of information is becoming an increasingly important skill. |
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| Research is an important aspect of modern public policy, as evidenced by applications in: |
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-Performance management
-Evaluation research
-Evidence-based policy and programs |
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| True or false? Misleading measurements, samples, and correlations are all ways that evidence can be wrong and embarrassing. |
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| Primary research can involve: |
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-Original collection of data
-Original analysis of other researchers' data
-Original exploration of existing surveys, records or transcirpts |
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| Generalizability refers to: |
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| The ability to take the results of research and apply them to other situations other than the exact one that was carried out |
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| The many ways of knowing, including use of the scientific method |
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| Through _________, the researcher begins by doing systematic observation of the world and then develops a logical explanation, versus ________________, where the researcher moves straight to the development of a logical explanation or theory and later gathers evidence to test the theory. |
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-Identify key variables
-Tell causal stories
-Explain variation |
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| True or false? Hypotheses are predictions of what will happen if a theory is correct. |
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| Sources for theories include: |
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Definition
-Grand social theories
-Exploratory and qualitative research
-Induction and Deduction |
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| A _______ is a graphical or mathematical representation that helps to articulate and communicate a theory. |
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| A _____________ relationship refers to how change in one variable produces or leads to change in another. |
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| True or false? Intervening variables represent steps in the causal process leading from the independent to the dependent variable. |
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| A __________ relationship means that the independent and dependent variable move in the same direction, such that if one goes up or down, so does the other. |
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| Unit of analysis refers to: |
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| The objects or things being described by the variables in a model |
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| ______________ are the financial, human, and material resources required by a program, while ___________ are the immediate products of these activities. |
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| In qualitative research, data are often spoken or written, or involve images with symbolic content. This makes __________ an important part of qualitative data analysis. |
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| True or false? Intersubjectivity is the ability to understand the world from someone else’s perspective. |
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| Qualitative research often involves: |
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Definition
-Purposive or theoretical sampling
-A small n (# of cases/participants)
-Choosing people or cases for a specific purpose or to generate a theory |
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| __________ is an important tradition in qualitative research that come from anthropology and involves extended participant observation in a setting. |
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| _____________ is a form of qualitative research that focuses on one or more generally large or complex cases, such as organizations or communities. |
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| True or false? Qualitative research allows us to better understand cultures or subcultures, whose communication modes may be expressed in different languages and other forms of symbolic systems. |
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| An advantage of qualitative research is: |
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Definition
-Generating exploratory studies of new or vaguely understood behaviors
-Better understanding the nature o group dynamics
-Analyzing historical or archival texts |
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| ______________ are one of the most widely used methods of qualitative research, consisting of a small group of individuals who are gathered together and asked questions about a topic by a moderator: |
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| True or false? Unstructured interviews have no predetermined set of questions, and may seem like an ordinary conversation even though they are different. |
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| The level of participation-observation in a qualitative study includes: |
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Definition
-Participant as observer
-Observer as participant
-Complete observer |
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| ______ refers to the process of systematically observing some feature or characteristic of the world and then recording it as a number or category. |
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| True or false? Measurement begins with a construct (trait), or the concept or thing that we are looking to measure. |
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| ______ refers to clarifying what you want to measure through the measurement process, by defining it carefully and precisely. |
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| __________ deals with the measurement of latent traits or constructs by using composite measures made up of multiple items. |
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| _____________ refers to the specific procedure a researcher carries out in making and recording a measurement. |
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| How well the measure actually represents the true construct of the thing being measured |
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| ______________ validity asks whether the measure includes all the important dimensions of the construct. |
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| _________ refers to the consistency of a measure and is directly related to the concept of random error. |
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| ___________ is the ability to project the results of one study to a much larger reality. |
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| A ______ is based upon randomly choosing participants from a population for study. |
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| _____________ refers to repeating a study with a different sample in a different place, time, or context using a different study design. |
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| True or false? A sampling frame is an operational representation of the population from which the sample can be selected. |
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| _______ occurs when a sample gives systematically different results, because of shortcomings in the sampling process, from what would be obtained by studying the whole population. |
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| ______________ sampling starts by dividing the population into groups, such as male or female. |
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Quota
-Also called stratification |
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| True or false? Random sampling uses chance to select people from a population. |
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| _________ refers to the typical error in the results of a sample when compared to the population |
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| A _______ is a statement of statistical sampling precision. |
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| Stratified sampling can be used to oversample selected strata and examine subgroups separately. |
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| _________ was developed for some of the first major government and social surveys where interviewers went door to door to seek responses from participants. |
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| Statisticians in the 1960s developed a method of sampling that gives both listed and unlisted telephone numbers an equal chance of being selected. This is known as: |
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| The term ______ refers to data at its most basic level of observation. |
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| ___________ data combines different levels, and is also known as hierarchical data. |
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| ______ data are collected over time, and may compare findings from point to point for individuals or events. |
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| __________ data contain measurements taken at a single point in time, such as student test scores from one school year. |
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| _____________ refers to “data about data,” as a way of organizing and searching archives. |
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| True or false? Remote databases are composed of various tables of information that are linked and work together. These are common in maintaining administrative records. |
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| True or false? An example of protecting privacy and ensuring that information / data are nonidentifiable is the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). |
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| A ______________ helps researchers to understand how data were collected, coded, weighted, and so forth. |
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| True or false? Online data analysis tools allow users to directly analyze data on the web, and have become an increasingly popular way for government agencies and other organizations to make their data publicly available. |
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| An example of a data archive would be: |
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Definition
-Survey Documentation and Analysis (SDA)
-Council of European Social Science Data Archives (CESSDA)
-Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR) |
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| Secondary data may not always provide an effective way to answer a research question. Researchers may find that they must collect their own primary data because: |
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Definition
-Public sources do not provide enough data for small area studies such as neighborhoods or cities
-Existing data may not have the right combination of variables
-Existing data may be outdated |
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| When considering whether to do a survey, researchers should consider: |
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Definition
-Whether enough is known about the topic to ask specific, structured questions
-Whether the information already exists in another source
-Whether respondents will provide truthful answers |
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| A necessary step in the survey research process involves: |
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Definition
-Collecting data
-Identifying the population and sampling strategy
-Developing a questionnaire and survey procedures |
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| ______ represent a mode of survey research where the interviewer stops people in public places to ask them questions. |
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Definition
| Intercept interview surveys |
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| __________ refers to respondents providing socially acceptable answers, often due to the physical presence of an interviewer. |
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Definition
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| _____________ guides the interviewer in asking questions and allows direct entry of the responses into an electronic database during a telephone interview. |
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Definition
| Computer-assisted telephone interviewing |
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| True or false? Mail self-administered surveys are a mainstay of government statistical agencies, including the U.S. Census. |
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| The ______ emphasizes the importance of all components of the mail survey, and stresses the need to adapt the approach to each situation. |
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| ______________ are large e-mail lists of respondents who opt in to participate in online surveys on various topics. |
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| True or false? Establishment surveys measure the traits of individuals mainly through in-person interviews in their homes. |
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| Surveys where the same respondents are tracked and repeatedly surveyed over time are known as: |
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| A survey approach which uses more than one type of data collection method is referred to as: |
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| In preparing an effective questionnaire, a researcher should: |
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-Start with the survey purpose and constructs
-Prepare mock tables and charts of the results
-Make sure to hook respondents with the first few questions |
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| When wording the questions of a survey, researchers should make sure to: |
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Definition
-Avoid a level of specificity that exceeds the respondent’s potential for having an accurate, ready-made answer
-Avoid bias from unequal comparisons
-Choose question wordings that allow essential comparisons to be made with previously collected data |
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