Exam 15: Practical Issues in Data Collection and Coding

Coding rules should not apply consistently across individuals.

The researcher used exploratory factor analysis. The findings showed that the factor loadings of five questions were .72, -.70, .90, -.80, and .38. The researcher should look more closely and think of removing which of the questions.

The researcher collected data on religious affiliation. The question had four categories of religion. The mean was calculated to be 2.34. How is the best way to interpret the mean?

Factor analysis is used to:

The researcher assigns a "1" to republican, "2" to democrat, and "3" to independent; this is an example of a variable label.

It is desirable to pilot test instruments prior to using them for data collection.

Exploratory factor analysis is used to rate internal consistency.

When data entry has been completed, which of the following should be checked to ensure there have been no errors?

"Mutually exclusive" means that the respondent can logically see that two categories can apply to answer the question.

Raw data does not need to be checked before it is entered into a computer program.

What is the most important reason for reducing the number of measures in a survey?

Cronbach's alpha is used to rate internal validity.

If one assigns a "1" to a person who says they are religious and zero to a person who indicates they are not religious, this is an example of dummy coding.

A value label:

Questions with negative factor loadings should be eliminated from an instrument.

The researcher was interested in looking at religious affiliation. She had five different religions in her study. The mean religion was 2.6. This value has little or no meaning.

Using Table 15.3 in the text what 12.7 percent of the variance could be attributed to items related to:

Factor loadings have values of:

Why is it important to compute basic descriptive statistics?

When is it appropriate to compute an overall alpha?