Deck 9: Agency Records, Content Analysis, and Secondary Data

Question 1

When using agency records in their research, researchers keep in mind two general maxims:

A)"Follow the paper trail" and "expect the expected"
B)"Follow the paper trail" but "expect the unexpected"
C)"Follow the rules" and "expect the expected"
D)"Follow the trail" and "expect the paper"

Answer 1

A

Question 2

Units of communication, such as words, paragraphs, and books, are not the units of analysis in content analysis.

Answer 2

False

Question 3

The advantages and disadvantages of using secondary data are not the same as agency records.

Answer 3

False

Question 4

Which of the following would be an example of the data coming from the Census Bureau that have criminal justice applications?

A)Court records of Children in Custody
B)Self Report Survey data
C)Survey of Inmates in Local Jails
D)Survey of all Criminal Justice Professors

Question 5

Data collected by other researchers is often used to address new research questions.

Question 6

Understanding the details of how agency records are produced is the best guard against reliability and validity problems.

Question 7

Which of the following is not an example of nonpublic agency records?

A)the FBI's publication of the Uniform Crime Reports
B)information from a local police department concerning the number of crimes that happened within the past month
C)a prison's collection of files dealing with inmates currently in their custody
D)a county courthouse's records on defendants tried within the last six months

Question 8

Agency records, secondary data and content analysis do not require direct interaction with research subjects.

Question 9

Nonpublic agency records are often made available to which of the following?

A)any citizen who expresses written interest
B)criminal justice researchers
C)nonpublic agency records are not generally made available to anyone
D)law enforcement personnel

Question 10

Which of the following statements is not accurate concerning the use of published data in aggregate forms?

A)Published data is never used in criminal justice research because it is not readily available.
B)Published data is appropriate for measuring highly aggregated patterns or trends such as drug use over time.
C)Published data can be used for the covariation in two estimates of crime.
D)Published data are easy to obtain.

Question 11

The Sourcebook of Criminal Justice Statistics is the most comprehensive Bureau of Justice Statistics publication.It includes a multitude of data including all of the following except _____.

A)characteristics of criminal justice agencies
B)public opinion answers coming from the Gallup Poll
C)complete crime data from all local police departments
D)specific data on states using capital punishment and their execution statistics

Question 12

Data collected by or for public agencies is readily available and researchers have tight control over the actual data collection process.

Question 13

Agency records and statistics published by agencies or governmental entities are most commonly used for which type of studies?

A)explanatory
B)descriptive
C)experimental
D)qualitative

Question 14

Topics that lend themselves to the use of content analysis tend to focus upon the links between communication and _____.

A)criminal justice policy
B)police behavior
C)perceptions of valid research
D)writing skills

Question 15

Most government organizations routinely collect and publish compilations of data , which we refer to collectively as:

A)statistical and or graphic data
B)electronic data
C)published statistics
D)crime rates

Question 16

Social artifacts such as written documents or articles from newspapers represent which of the following types of data?

A)content analysis
B)secondary analysis
C)agency records
D)surveys

Question 17

Content analysis involves the systematic study of agency records.

Question 18

Data and records produced by formal organizations may be the most common source of data in criminal justice research.

Question 19

Secondary analysis can be cheaper and faster than collecting original data.

Question 20

It is relatively easy and common to have agencies modify their data collection forms in order to get information needed for a specific research project being conducted from someone outside the agency.

Question 21

Which of the following would be an accurate statement concerning the use of content analysis?

A)content analysis involves only a systematic study of messages
B)content analysis involves a systematic study of messages and the meaning that those messages have for citizens
C)content analysis involves only the meaning of speeches given concerning criminal justice issues
D)content analysis methods can only be used with agency reports to determine what they contain

Question 22

Which of the following would be an appropriate target of content analysis?

A)speeches
B)NCVS data
C)crime rates
D)Uniform Crime Records

Question 23

Dr.Jones is having his Introductory to Criminal Justice students analyze cartoons.He instructs them to identify the number of violent acts per show, the type of violent act and the characteristics of the victim.Dr.Jones is having his students use _____.

A)content analysis
B)secondary data
C)new data collected by agency staff
D)nonpublic agency records

Question 24

The publication produced by the Bureau of Justice Statistics that includes information about hundreds of justice agency data sets, characteristics of criminal justice agencies, and perceptions of crime to name just a few, is called _____.

A)the Uniform Crime Reports
B)the National Crime Victimization Survey
C)the Sourcebook of Criminal Justice Statistics
D)Gallup Poll

Question 25

Which of the following statements is inaccurate concerning having agencies collect original research data?

A)cooperation to add research questions is likely to be successful if you are asking for a major additional effort on the part of the agency staff
B)the cooperation of the staff and their organizations are directly proportional to the intrusiveness of the data collection
C)if the research project is likely to save the agency money or improve staff performance the chances of enlisting assistance is greater
D)Researchers have less control over the data collection process when they rely on agency staff

Question 26

It is often said that agency data are not designed for research purposes. Which of the following support that statement?

A)some criminal justice agencies collect data because they want to help researchers
B)often the data collected by criminal justice agencies is for their research use
C)agency records can be easily adapted to research purposes
D)data they do collect often reflect discretionary decisions by numerous individuals.

Question 27

FBI statistics and annual reports from the Federal Bureau of Prisons are examples of _____.

A)nonpublic agency records
B)new data collected by agency staff
C)published statistics
D)content analysis

Question 28

In Widom's research purpose on the relationship between early child abuse and later delinquency or adult criminal behavior was ___________:

A)Valid and reliable
B)critical and valid
C)explanatory
D)exploratory

Question 29

Which of the following would not impact the validity and reliability of a study using agency records?

A)discretion of prosecutors in who to charge and what counts to add
B)decisions that are made by police officers to arrest versus give a warning
C)recognition on the part of the researcher that criminal justice data is a composite of criminal behavior, ability to detect that behavior and decisions about system response to that behavior
D)decisions made by probation officers to revoke on new crimes and not technical violations

Question 30

Record-keeping systems used in most cities today are still designed more to track individual cases for individual departments than to produce data for management or research purposes.Individual agencies maintain silo databases.Silo databases refer to __________________________________________.

A)stacks of data that are isolated from each other
B)record-keeping procedures
C)agency-produced data
D)computerized criminal history

Question 31

Which of the following is true about longitudinal research?

A)Data are useless
B)changes in the operational definitions the agencies use to specify key terms does not change overtime
C)the procedures the agency uses to collect the data over time remain the same
D)as the time interval under investigation increases, so does the potential for change in measurement.

Question 32

Clinic workers in a major Northwest city have been asked to track the incidence and patterns of STDs in their patients as part of a research project dealing with public health.They ask a number of specific questions upon intake but do not ask about their clients' sexual partners.The only way to examine patterns in the spread of the STDs is to add a question to the intake form about the identity of their sexual partners.The data that was gathered illustrates _____.

A)nonpublic agency records
B)published statistics
C)new data collected by agency staff
D)content analysis

Question 33

Which of the following is not an advantage of using secondary data?

A)reduction in validity threats
B)it is cheaper than collecting original data
C)it is faster than collecting original data
D)the researcher may benefit from the work of others established in their fields

Question 34

Which of the following is not accurate concerning validity and reliability of agency records?

A)the shorter the time intervals under study the greater the concern about procedure changes
B)longitudinal researchers must be concerned about changes in operational definitions over time
C)longitudinal researchers must be concerned about changes in procedures over time
D)the longer the time interval under study the greater the concern about procedure changes

Question 35

The visible, objective context of a communication is known as _____.

A)latent content
B)manifest content
C)concept
D)validity

Question 36

Which of the following situations would not have an impact upon error in agency records?

A)computers have the capacity to magnify clerical error
B)a single crime could be recorded by two agencies, thus making that event over-represented
C)having very little data to input
D)even rare events can be recorded improperly

Question 37

Content analysis is well-suited for which of the following situations?

A)to determine unemployment rates
B)to find out public relations with police
C)to answer the classic questions of communications research
D)court records

Question 38

Published statistics and agency records are often used in _____.

A)survey research
B)descriptive studies
C)experimental studies
D)qualitative research

Question 39

Which of the following would be an example of content analysis in criminal justice research?

A)counting the stories devoted to the coverage of crime in your local newspaper
B)counting the number of robberies that happen in your city
C)measuring the average length of time from arrest to disposition in your city
D)determining the average number of inmates housed in your city's jail on a daily basis

Question 40

Which of the following is important to remember when using agency records?

A)to ask permission before you study any agency data
B)to examine the data through some form of content analysis
C)the financial considerations of obtaining complete agency records are typically substantial
D)the discretionary actions by criminal justice officials and others affect the production of virtually all agency records

Question 41

It may be possible to use a(n)________________ source of data in which criminal justice agency staff collect information for specific research purposes that they typically would not have collected.

Question 42

When using agency records as a data source, the researcher must always keep changes in operational definitions and changes in _______________ in mind because of their potential impact upon validity and reliability.

Question 43

Identify three different types of agencies where records would be important in the criminal justice system.Discuss the types of published statistics each agency would produce.What are the specific reliability and validity problems with each?

Question 44

Generally speaking, secondary data are least useful when the purpose of research is ______________.

Question 45

Information that is collected by other people often as a part of their day-to-day work in a justice agency, but used by someone else for research purposes is referred to as ________________________ of existing data.

Question 46

Suggest a content analysis project that could be completed by the class. Discuss the units of analysis and the sampling for this project.Further, discuss the coding that you would use if you were required to complete this project.

Question 47

The potential for ________________ increases as the number of clerical entries increases.

Question 48

Manifest and latent content can be distinguished by the degree of _________ required in measurement.

Question 49

Using agency records (published statistics, nonpublic agency records and new data collected by agency staff);content analysis and secondary analysis give an example of an applied research project that would use each of the identified methods.

Question 50

The main disadvantage of using secondary data concerns how variables were initially operationalized and whether the secondary data provide _______ measures of the variables you want to analyze.

Question 51

Content analysis is really a(n)__________ operation that represents the measurement process.

Question 52

In content analysis, one may code the underlying meaning of a communication which is often referred to as the ________________ content.

Question 53

Discuss the advantages and disadvantages of secondary data and give an example of each.

Question 54

In content analysis one may code the visible, surface content known as the ___________.