Chapter 6 Test Items

1. Which of the following is an example of a concrete variable?

a. biological sex

b. communication satisfaction

c. self-disclosure

d. age

2. Roseanne is conducting a research study that examines conflict strategies in marriage.

Which type of unit of analysis is Roseanne using in her research study?

a. individual

b. dyad

c. group

d. organization

3. Beatty (1988) found that as an individual’s level of public speaking anxiety increased, his or her level of conspicuousness also increased. What type of relationship did Beatty find?

a. curvilinear relationship

b. nondirectional relationship

c. positive relationship

d. negative relationship

4. Consider the following research hypothesis:

As the amount of television an individual watches increases, self-reports of health decrease.

Which variable is the independent variable in this research hypothesis?

a. health

b. amount of television watched

c. self-reports

d. type of television show watched

5. “Political affiliation” may be considered which level of variable?

a. nominal

b. ordinal

c. interval

d. ratio

6. A Likert scale may be used to measure which level of variable?

a. nominal

b. ordinal

c. interval

d. ratio

7. One’s fear or anxiety associated with either real or anticipated communication with another person or persons is:

a. a trait

b. a personality disorder

c. communication apprehension

d. ethnocentrism

8. Sara wants to see if male and female scores on the Religious Communication Apprehension Scale are not the same. This would be an example of which kind of test?

a. Directive

b. Relationship

c. Reality

d. Difference

9. The following scale is what type of interval measure: I feel the class’s content is:

Bad 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Good

Valuable 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Worthless

a. semantic differential

b. Likert

c. scalogram

d. Thurstone

10. Darla is working on a study examining physician–patient interactions. One of her questions asks, “How much time do you spend talking with your physician compared to an average patient?” She then gives participants the following possible choices: less than average, average, more than average. This question represents what variable level?

a. nominal

b. ordinal

c. interval

d. ratio

11. What is an entity that can take on an assortment of different values?

a. variable

b. descriptive statistic

c. inferential statistic

d. unit of analysis

12. Pete and Jeremy work in two different divisions of a large corporation. Pete works in marketing, while Jeremy works in accounts payable. The two individuals represent what type of difference?

a. difference in kind

b. difference of degree

c. difference of statistics

d. categorical difference

13. Danny is examining participant perceptions of credibility when exposed to either a short person or a tall person in an experiment. In this study, what would Danny’s independent variable be?

a. height (tall vs. short)

b. credibility

c. difference of degree

d. Danny

14. Samantha creates the following scale to measure people’s perceptions of the attractiveness of a new website:

_____1. I find the website very colorful.

_____2. The website was not aesthetically pleasing.

_____3. I found the website ugly.

_____4. I found the website pleasing to the eye.

What type of variable does her newly designed website attractive scale represent?

a. interval

b. nominal

c. ordinal

d. ratio

15. Which of the following variables is an ordinal variable?

a. year in school

b. biological sex

c. communication apprehension

d. age

16. In her study on family communication patterns, Rose asks about her participants’ birth order. Birth order would be considered what type of variable?

a. abstract

b. concrete

c. intervening

d. dependent

17. Bill is in the process of studying how accountants interact with one another in large firms. What is Bill’s unit of analysis?

a. individuals

b. dyads

c. groups

d. organizations

18. Gregg is conducting a study using socioeconomic status (SES) as a variable. He categories SES into three groups: lower, middle, and upper. When entering his data, lower SES is entered as 1, middle SES as two, and upper SES as 3. What do the numbers 1, 2, & 3 represent?

a. variable attributes

b. variable aspects

c. variable essentialism

d. variable values

19. Gregg is conducting a study using socioeconomic status (SES) as a variable. He categories SES into three groups: lower, middle, and upper. What type of variable is SES?

a. nominal

b. ordinal

c. interval

d. ratio

20. A researcher conducting an interview asks for her participants’ ages. What type of variable is age?

a. nominal

b. ordinal

c. interval

d. ratio

21. The interval level of measurement is contingent upon an absolute zero.

a. True

b. False

22. When researchers assume that because a participant is a member of a specific group (such as a culture) he or she possesses all the same communication characteristics as the group, they have made a hasty generalization.

a. True

b. False

23. A negative relationship occurs when increases or decreases in an individual’s scores on one variable correspond to increases or decreases in an individual’s scores on a second variable.

a. True

b. False

24. An abstract variable changes or differs over time or across situations or contexts.

a. True

b. False

25. Dependent variables are included in research studies to determine if the effects of change in an independent variable can cause change in an intervening variable.

a. True

b. False

26. A personality trait will exhibit itself in almost any situation responded to by the individual.

a. True

b. False

27. The PRCA-24 includes only three dimensions including public speaking, small group, and interpersonal communication.

a. True

b. False

Essays:

28. Explain and provide an example of the two types of differences in research.

29. Explain dependent variable and independent variable. Provide an example in your explanation.

30. Differentiate between the four variable levels, and provide an example for each.

31. What is the difference between antecedent variables and intervening variables?

32. Hollander (1976) noted that there are two basic dimensions of personality. Explain these two dimensions and how they influence communication research.

Matching:

33. Match each of the following terms with the correct statement.

a. Unit of Analysis = Individuals, Dyads, Groups, and Organizations.

b. Variable Value = Numerical designation assigned to each variable.

c. Negative Relationship = When a decrease in one variable corresponds to an increase in another variable.

d. Abstract Variable = Communication Satisfaction or Self-Disclosure.

e. Variable Attribute = Specific Categories of a variable.