Ch.8 Test Bank Answers - The Nature Of Quantitative Research

Chapter 08 - The nature of quantitative research

Test Bank

Type: true-false

Title: Chapter 08 Question 01

01) Quantitative research is the dominant methodological approach in business research.

a. True

b. False

Type: true-false

Title: Chapter 08 Question 02

02) Quantitative research is most closely aligned with a constructionist philosophy of science.

a. True

b. False

Type: true-false

Title: Chapter 08 Question 03

03) Quantitative research is mainly deductive in approach

a. True

b. False

Type: true-false

Title: Chapter 08 Question 04

04) Concepts are the building blocks of theory and represent the points around which business research is conducted.

a. True

b. False

Type: multiple response question

Title: Chapter 08 Question 05

05) Why should we measure in quantitative research? Please select all that apply.

Measurement gives us a consistent device or yardstick for making such distinctions. A measurement device provides a consistent instrument for gauging differences. This consistency relates to two things: our ability to be consistent over time and our ability to be consistent with other researchers. In other words, a measure should be something that is influenced neither by the timing of its administration nor by the person who administers it. Obviously, saying that the measure is not influenced by timing is not meant to indicate that measurement readings do not change: they are bound to be influenced by the process of social change. What it means is that the measure should generate consistent results, other than those that occur as a result of natural changes. Whether a measure actually possesses this quality has to do with the issue of reliability, which was introduced in Chapter 3 and which will be examined again below.

Measurement provides the basis for more precise estimates of the degree of relationship between concepts (for example, through correlation analysis, which will be examined in Chapter 15). Thus, if we measure both job satisfaction and the things with which it might be related, such as stress-related illness, we will be able to produce more precise estimates of how closely they are related than if we had not proceeded in this way.

a. Measurement allows us to delineate fine differences between people in terms of the characteristics in question.

b. Measurement gives us a consistent device or yardstick for marking such distinctions.

c. Measurement is a superior approach to qualitative analysis

d. Measurement provides the basis for more precise estimates of the degree of relationship between concepts.

Type: true-false

Title: Chapter 08 Question 06

06) Content analysis can be used for the analysis of mass media content.

a. True

b. False

Type: true-false

Title: Chapter 08 Question 07

07) The use of multiple-indicator measures reflects the fact that some phenomena are unidimensional.

a. True

b. False

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 08 Question 08

08) Which of the following is not a meaning for the term ‘reliability’?

a. Stability

b. External reliability

c. Internal reliability

d. Inter-rater reliability

Type: true-false

Title: Chapter 08 Question 09

09) Face validity is when the measure apparently reflects the content of the concept in question.

a. True

b. False

Type: true-false

Title: Chapter 08 Question 10

10) Concurrent validity is where the researcher employs a criteria on which cases are known to be the same and relevant to the concept in question.

a. True

b. False

Type: true-false

Title: Chapter 08 Question 11

11) Predictive validity is where the researcher uses a future criterion measure, rather than a contemporary one, as in the case of concurrent validity

a. True

b. False

Type: true-false

Title: Chapter 08 Question 12

12) For convergent validity, measurement ought to be gauged by comparing it to measures of the same concept developed through other methods.

a. True

b. False

Type: true-false

Title: Chapter 08 Question 13

13) Discriminant validity ensures that when a measure is used for one construct (Construct A) it is the same in terms of its content from a measure used to measure another construct (Construct B).

a. True

b. False

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 08 Question 14

14) There is a strong concern with what in quantitative research:

a. Thematic explanation

b. Meta-analysis

c. Causal explanation

d. Descriptive explanation

Type: true-false

Title: Chapter 08 Question 15

15) The results of a piece of quantitative research should typically be unaffected by the researcher’s special characteristics or expectations.

a. True

b. False

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 08 Question 16

16) Which of the following is not a critique of quantitative research?

1. Quantitative researchers fail to distinguish people and social institutions from ‘the world of nature’. The phrase ‘the world of nature’ is from the writings of Schutz (the passage from which it has been taken is quoted in Chapter 2 of this volume). Schutz and other phenomenologists charge social scientists who employ a natural science model with treating the social world as if it were no different from the natural order. In so doing, they draw attention to one of positivism’s central tenets—namely, that the principles of the scientific method can and should be applied to all phenomena that are the focus of investigation. As Schutz argues, this tactic essentially means turning a blind eye to the differences between the social and natural world. More particularly, as was observed in Chapter 2, it therefore means ignoring and riding roughshod over the fact that people interpret the world around them, whereas this capacity for self- reflection cannot be found among the objects of the natural sciences (‘molecules, atoms, and electrons’, as Schutz put it).
2. The measurement process possesses an artificial and spurious sense of precision and accuracy. There are a number of aspects to this criticism. For one thing, it has been argued that the connection between the measures developed by social scientists and the concepts they are supposed to be revealing is assumed rather than real; hence, Cicourel’s (1964) notion of ‘measurement by fiat’. Testing for validity in the manner described in the previous section cannot really address this problem, because the very tests themselves entail measurement by fiat. A further way in which the measurement process is regarded by writers like Cicourel as flawed is that it presumes that when, for example, members of a sample respond to a question on a questionnaire (which itself is taken to be an indicator of a concept), they interpret the key terms in the question similarly. For many writers, respondents simply do not interpret such terms similarly. An often-used reaction to this problem is to use questions with fixed-choice answers, but this approach merely provides ‘a solution to the problem of meaning by simply ignoring it’ (Cicourel 1964: 108).
3. The reliance on instruments and procedures hinders the connection between research and everyday life. This issue relates to the question of ecological validity that was raised in Chapter 3. Many methods of quantitative research rely heavily on administering research instruments to subjects (such as structured interviews and self-completion questionnaires) or on controlling situations to determine their effects (such as in experiments). However, as Cicourel (1982) asks, how do we know if survey respondents have the requisite knowledge to answer a question or if they are similar in their sense of the topic being important to them in their everyday lives? Thus, if respondents answer a set of questions designed to measure motivation to work, can we be sure that they are equally aware of what it is and its manifestations, and can we be sure that it is of equal concern to them in the ways in which it connects with their every- day working life? One can go even further and ask how well their answers relate to their everyday lives. People may answer a question designed to measure their motivation to work, but respondents’ actual behaviour may be at variance with their answers (LaPiere 1934).
4. The analysis of relationships between variables creates a static view of social life that is independent of people’s lives. Blumer argued that studies that aim to bring out the relationships between variables omit ‘the process of interpretation or definition that goes on in human groups’ (1956: 685). This means that we do not know how what appears to be a relationship between two or more variables has been produced by the people to whom it applies. This criticism incorporates the first and third criticisms that have been referred to—that the meaning of events to individuals is ignored and that we do not know how such findings connect to everyday contexts—but adds a further element—namely, that it creates a sense of a static social world that is separate from the individuals who make up that world. In other words, quantitative research is seen as carrying an objectivist ontology that reifies the social world.

a. It fails to distinguish between people and social institutions from ‘the nature of the world’

b. The measurement process possesses an artificial and spurious sense of precision and accuracy

c. The reliance on instruments and procedures hinders the connection between research and

d. It is based on numbers which are invariably unreliable and imprecise.