Chapter 9 Test Items

1. Ralphie is conducting a research study investigating how widespread communication apprehension is at Ohio University. What type of survey should Ralphie use?

a. descriptive survey

b. analytical survey

c. explanatory survey

d. exploratory survey

2. Kim is conducting a research study to investigate the effect of binge drinking on college students’ academic success. Kim collects data at Ohio University and hopes to generalize to all college students. The participants in Kim’s study (at Ohio University) may be described as which of the following?

a. population

b. sample

c. trial responses

d. generalized group

3. Stella Pang is translating a scale from English to Cantonese. To help with this process, Stella recruits Cindy and Yuk to translate the English scale to Cantonese separately. Once the two translators finish their individual translations of the scale, Cindy and Yuk then compare their translations and ultimately agree upon a third translation that Stella is able to use in her study. What format for translating scales into other languages has Stella utilized?

a. simple direct translation

b. random probe

c. translation/backtranslation

d. parallel blind technique

4. Which of the following level of question is used the least on a questionnaire in a communication research study?

a. nominal

b. ordinal

c. interval

d. ratio

5. Fallon is conducting a survey, but she only collects data from her participants at one point in time. What type of survey design does Fallon utilize?

a. accelerated longitudinal survey design

b. cross-sectional survey design

c. longitudinal survey design

d. trend design

6. Which of the following is not something Buckingham and Saunders (2004) recommend asking yourself before utilizing a survey?

a. Do you know what you want to ask?

b. Do you really need to collect new data?

c. Do your participants know about your topic?

d. Is a survey the fastest method for research?

7. Which of the following is NOT a guideline to follow when piloting a survey?

a. use actual survey population members

b. anticipate the survey context

c. test the entire survey

d. determine the pilot sample size

8. Fabian is interested in studying newly married couples. He recruits 50 couples who agree to be surveyed every month for 2 years. Which type of longitudinal design has Fabian employed?

a. cross-sectional survey design

b. longitudinal questionnaire design

c. trend design

d. panel design

9. Which type of survey delivery system tends to be the least expensive?

a. face-to-face

b. mass administration

c. telephone

d. self-administered

10. Which key issue of translating surveys is concerned with norms not translating from one culture to another?

a. semantic equivalence

b. conceptual equivalence

c. normative equivalence

d. serial equivalence

11. What is a social scientific method for gathering quantifiable information about a specific group of people by asking the group members questions about their individual attitudes, values, beliefs, behaviors, knowledge, and perceptions?

a. survey

b. content analysis

c. experiment

d. questionnaire

12. Roy is putting together a new research study to examine a number of communication traits in a prison. He has prisoners fill out a communication apprehension measure, a willingness to communicate measure, and a verbal aggression measure. The three measures are combined into a single document containing the three measures. What has Roy put together?

a. questionnaire

b. survey

c. interview schedule

d. exploratory survey

13. What type of question is the following: “How would you describe a typical day at work?”

a. open-ended question

b. interview schedule

c. interval question

d. ordinal question

14. Sarah is conducting a study on family communication over a period of 10 years. She recruits 20 sets of new parents (with children born in the previous 6 months) who agree to be surveyed every 6 months for 10 years. What type of survey is Sarah conducting?

a. panel design

b. accelerated longitudinal design

c. trend design

d. cross-sectional design

15. While looking through a stack of newly collected questionnaires, Danny notices that a few people have missed items. Thankfully, there is no clear pattern of people skipping items. However, the nonresponses worry Danny. What type of nonresponse is Danny dealing with in this example?

a. item nonresponse

b. unit nonresponse

c. nonresponse bias

d. measure nonresponse

16. Heyuun is an undergraduate from China taking a research methods course. She gets permission to collect data over the Internet from her family and friends back in China. However, most of her potential participants do not read English, so she takes the questionnaire her group members are using and translates it into Mandarin. She then has another one of her friends from China take her Chinese translation and translate it back into English to see if the two are equivalent. What type of translation is Heyuun conducting?

a. translation/backtranslation

b. parallel blind technique

c. simple direct translation

d. random probe translation

17. A __________ is designed to find out how common a phenomenon is within a given group of people.

a. descriptive survey

b. analytical or explanatory survey

c. questionnaire

d. interview schedule

18. Charlene is completing a survey related to amount of alcohol consumption and public speaking anxiety. Even though Charlene drank a bit more than usual before giving her latest speech in her public speaking class, she doesn’t admit this on the survey to make herself look better on paper. What has Charlene done?

a. provided factually confusing information

b. intervening variable manipulation

c. screw you effect

d. socially desirable responding

19. Which of the following is NOT a guideline provided when using multiple interval level variables?

a. group items with like anchors together

b. keep like questions together

c. start a study with the most controversial questions

d. place sensitive questions toward the end of a survey

20. A researcher’s ___________ is the percentage of surveys returned compared to the percentage of surveys distributed.

a. data acumen

b. data frequency

c. response penetration

d. response rate

21. In the parallel blind technique method of translation, a researcher recruits a bilingual individual, who takes the original survey and then translates this survey from the primary language to the secondary language.

a. True

b. False

22. Longitudinal survey designs can be used to make causal conclusions about relationships and differences.

a. True

b. False

23. Face-to-face interviewing tends to give researchers a high response rate.

a. True

b. False

24. Unit nonresponse is when an individual participant fails to answer individual or groups of questions on a survey.

a. True

b. False

25. Nonresponse bias refers to the systematic distortion of a statistic as a result of unit and item nonresponse.

a. True

b. False

26. Before conducting survey research, it is important for the researcher to asks whether the participants will be willing to answer questions pertaining to the study.

a. True

b. False

27. Nominal-level questions are not very useful in describing your research sample.

a. True

b. False

28. “What is your biological sex?” is an example of an ordinal-level question.

a. True

b. False

29. The textbook recommends using 10%–15% of your target sample size when piloting questionnaires or interview schedules.

a. True

b. False

Essays:

30. Explain what generalizability is and why it’s important in research.

31. Explain the guidelines for pilot testing a survey.

32. What is the purpose of open-ended questions in survey research?

33. What questions should a researcher ask before conducting survey research?

34. Describe the three basic ways to administer surveys.

35. What are the advantages and disadvantages of self-administered questionnaires?

Matching:

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

a. Survey Monkey/Qualtrics = Online data collection tools

b. Unit Nonresponse = Failure to obtain any survey measurements on a sample unit.

c. Making the Survey Easy to Fill Out = Improves response rate.

d. Mailed Administration = Administering a survey by using the postal service to deliver a survey to an individual.

e. Response Rate = The percentage of surveys returned compared to the percentage of surveys distributed.