Deck 7: Sampling: Estimating the Frequency of Behaviors and Beliefs

Question 1

Having a representative sample is most important in which of the following example claims?

A)"Fifty-nine percent of college athletes feel that playing professionally is an attainable goal."
B)"Expressing uncertainty about relationship commitment prior to marriage is associated with greater marital happiness."
C)"Having a boss compliment you at work causes you to work more efficiently."
D)"People who have religious experiences report feeling more comfortable with the idea of death."

Answer 1

"Fifty-nine percent of college athletes feel that playing professionally is an attainable goal."

Question 2

Dr.Jackson is a personality psychologist who is interested in studying the characteristics of people who report being abducted by UFOs.She finds several people in a support group to research and asks them if they can provide the names and contact information of other people who have also been abducted.Upon contacting these new participants,she asks them to refer her to even more people they may know who have been abducted.This is an example of what kind of sampling?

A)Purposive sampling
B)Snowball sampling
C)Convenience sampling
D)Self-selection sampling

Answer 2

Snowball sampling

Question 3

Professor Kramer has decided to measure how happy his students are with his teaching this semester.He is teaching two classes this semester-Psychology and Law and Introduction to Neuroscience.He gives his students a survey.

In the above scenario,43 of 50 Introduction to Neuroscience students and 46 of 48 Psychology and Law students complete the survey.Based on this information,which of the following can Dr.Kramer say?

A)His sample is larger than his population
B)His sample is representative
C)His sample is biased
D)His sample came from his population of interest

Answer 3

His sample came from his population of interest

Question 4

Which of the following is true of probability sampling?

A)It is the best way to obtain a representative sample.
B)It is the same as random assignment.
C)It results in larger samples than nonprobability sampling.
D)It should be used when external validity is not the goal of the study.

Question 5

Online surveys commonly suffer from which of the following?

A)Poor reliability
B)Self-selection
C)Probability sampling
D)Over sampling

Question 6

A sample is always ________ a population.

A)More expensive to measure than
B)Smaller than
C)More interesting than
D)More scientific than

Question 7

A population is to ________ as a sample is to ________.

A)Entire;part
B)Internal;external
C)Census;people
D)Researchers;participants

Question 8

Convenience sampling relies on which of the following?

A)Studying people who are easy to find
B)Studying people who are willing to participate
C)Studying people who are typical
D)Studying people who are colleagues of the researcher

Question 9

Professor Kramer has decided to measure how happy his students are with his teaching this semester.He is teaching two classes this semester-Psychology and Law and Introduction to Neuroscience.He gives his students a survey.

In the above scenario,Dr.Kramer plans to give his survey only to his Psychology and Law students because he sees them on Mondays,Wednesdays,and Fridays and he can spare the class time (unlike in his Introduction to Neuroscience class,which only meets on Tuesdays and Thursdays).Which of the following is true?

A)This will lead to a biased sample because the type of students who take Psychology and Law may be different from the type of students who take Introduction to Neuroscience.
B)This will lead to a biased sample because of self-selection.
C)This will lead to a biased sample because the Psychology and Law students have a lot of time to complete the survey.
D)The will lead to a sample that is representative of both of his classes.

Question 10

If researchers measure every member of a population,they have:

A)Conducted a census
B)Collected a sample
C)Increased internal validity
D)Biased the study

Question 11

Professor Kramer has decided to measure how happy his students are with his teaching this semester.He is teaching two classes this semester-Psychology and Law and Introduction to Neuroscience.He gives his students a survey.

In the above scenario,what is Dr.Kramer's likely population of interest?

A)All students at the university
B)All psychology majors
C)All students he is currently teaching
D)All students in his Psychology and Law course

Question 12

Dr.Oishi is an educational psychologist interested in students' attitudes toward math and the effect of those attitudes on performance on standardized tests.He chooses his local school district to study.There are 15 middle schools,and he randomly chooses five.Then,of the 1,500 students in each of those five schools,he randomly recruits 250 students.This is an example of which of the following sampling techniques?

A)Snowball sample
B)Systematic sample
C)Multistage sample
D)Cluster sample

Question 13

Professor Kramer has decided to measure how happy his students are with his teaching this semester.He is teaching two classes this semester-Psychology and Law and Introduction to Neuroscience.He gives his students a survey.

In the above scenario,Dr.Kramer could reasonably use his sample to say something about which of the following populations of interest EXCEPT?

A)All students at the university
B)All students who are political science majors
C)All students he has ever taught
D)All students taking an Introduction to Neuroscience class

Question 14

Professor Kramer has decided to measure how happy his students are with his teaching this semester.He is teaching two classes this semester-Psychology and Law and Introduction to Neuroscience.He gives his students a survey.

In the above scenario,if all the students in Dr.Kramer's two classes complete the survey,then Dr.Kramer has done which of the following?

A)Decreased the external validity of his study
B)Collected too much data
C)Relied on a census
D)Enhanced sampling bias

Question 15

A biased sample consists of too many ________ cases.

A)Basic
B)Ideal
C)Complicated
D)Unusual

Question 16

Why do studies that use probability samples have excellent external validity?

A)They have good internal validity too.
B)They study every member of the population of interest.
C)They are more complicated to do.
D)All members of the population are equally likely to be represented in the sample.

Question 17

Professor Kramer has decided to measure how happy his students are with his teaching this semester.He is teaching two classes this semester-Psychology and Law and Introduction to Neuroscience.He gives his students a survey.

In the above scenario,Dr.Kramer needs to avoid which of the following if he hopes to avoid having a biased sample?

A)Sampling only those students who come to class frequently
B)Sampling only those students who volunteer to complete the survey
C)Sampling only those students who sign the consent form
D)Sampling only those students who finish the survey

Question 18

Another term for probability sampling is:

A)Purposive sampling
B)Convenience sampling
C)Random sampling
D)Cluster sampling

Question 19

Which of the following is NOT an example of a probability sample?

A)Simple random sample
B)Convenience sample
C)Systematic sample
D)Cluster sample

Question 20

If researchers measure every tenth member of a population,they have:

A)Conducted a census
B)Collected a sample
C)Increased internal validity
D)Biased the study

Question 21

Which of the following does NOT result in a biased sample?

A)Snowball sample
B)Convenience sample
C)Purposive sample
D)Systematic sample

Question 22

Which of the following is true of sample size?

A)It primarily affects external validity.
B)It primarily affects construct validity.
C)It primarily affects internal validity.
D)It primarily affects statistical validity.

Question 23

Why are techniques like cluster sampling and multistage sampling just as externally valid as simple random sampling?

A)They all contain elements of random selection.
B)They all measure every member of the population of interest.
C)They all use lists of all population members.
D)They all rely on large samples.

Question 24

Which of the following statements is true of random assignment and random sampling?

A)Random assignment is necessary for internal validity,whereas random assignment is necessary for external validity.
B)They both are necessary for frequency claims.
C)They both mean the same thing.
D)Random sampling is more important than random assignment.

Question 25

The difference between a cluster sample and a multistage sample is:

A)Cluster samples are probability samples;multistage samples are not
B)Multistage samples sample both clusters and participants;cluster samples just sample clusters
C)Cluster samples rely on clusters of participants;multistage samples collect data from participants at different stages
D)There is no difference between them

Question 26

Dr.Cyril conducts a simple random sample of 500 men who became fathers for the first time in the last year.He finds that 23% of them report being unsure of their ability to be good fathers,plus or minus 4%.If Dr.Cyril increased his sample size to 1,000,which of the following would happen?

A)The true estimate would increase.
B)The margin of error would become smaller.
C)External validity would become less important.
D)Statistical validity would become negatively affected.

Question 27

For his research methods class project,Hiro is studying the effect of pet ownership on stress levels.Although a lot of research has been done on dog and cat owners,not much is known about other pets so Hiro decides to study hamster owners.Which of the following would demonstrate a snowball sampling technique?

A)He is interested in hamster owners and not pet owners in general.
B)He recruits his hamster owners by e-mailing members of the National Hamster Owners Association and asking for participants.
C)His participants are all the people who have purchased hamsters at his local pet store in the past year.
D)He asks hamster owners to give him the names of other hamster owners.

Question 28

External validity is most important for which of the following claims?

A)Frequency claims
B)Association claims
C)Causal claims
D)External validity is equally important for all claims

Question 29

For his research methods class project,Hiro is studying the effect of pet ownership on stress levels.Although a lot of research has been done on dog and cat owners,not much is known about other pets,so Hiro decides to study hamster owners.Which of the following would demonstrate a purposive sampling technique?

A)He is interested in hamster owners and not pet owners in general.
B)He recruits his hamster owners by e-mailing members of the National Hamster Owners Association and asking for participants.
C)His participants are all the people who have purchased hamsters at his local pet store in the past year.
D)He asks hamster owners to give him the names of other hamster owners.

Question 30

Dr.Cyril conducts a simple random sample of 500 men who became fathers for the first time in the last year.He finds that 23% of them report being unsure of their ability to be good fathers,plus or minus 4%.What is another term for the 4% value?

A)Margin of error
B)Sampling bias
C)Probability value
D)Statistical significance

Question 31

The difference between a cluster sample and a stratified random sample is:

A)Cluster samples study all possible clusters;stratified random samples randomly select strata
B)Cluster samples use oversampling;stratified random samples use undersampling
C)Cluster samples use randomly selected clusters;stratified random samples use pre-determined strata
D)There is no difference between them

Question 32

Dr.Cyril conducts a simple random sample of 500 men who became fathers for the first time in the last year.He finds that 23% of them report being unsure of their ability to be good fathers,plus or minus 4%.What does this mean?

A)The true percentage of fathers who feel this way is 23%.
B)If this study was done many times,the estimate of father uncertainty would be 23% about 4% of the time.
C)We can be 4% sure that the estimate of father uncertainty would be 23% of fathers.
D)If the study was done many times,the estimate of father uncertainty would be between 19% and 27%.

Question 33

Which of the following does NOT result in a representative sample?

A)Systematic sample
B)Simple random sample
C)Snowball sample
D)Stratified random sample

Question 34

What is the most common sampling technique in behavioral research?

A)Simple random sampling
B)Purposive sampling
C)Cluster sampling
D)Convenience sampling

Question 35

Oversampling is a variant used in which of the following sampling techniques?

A)Simple random sampling
B)Cluster sampling
C)Convenience sampling
D)Stratified random sampling

Question 36

Which of the following is true of a nonrepresentative sample in a research claim?

A)You should automatically disregard the claim.
B)You should automatically accept the claim.
C)You should ask whether it is relevant to what the researchers are measuring.
D)You should ask whether more participants are necessary.

Question 37

How are quota sampling and stratified random sampling similar?

A)Both identify subgroups that need to studied.
B)Both randomly sample subgroups to be studied.
C)Both result in nonrepresentative samples.
D)Both result in representative samples.

Question 38

In which of the following cases would a large sample especially be needed?

A)A study of college students
B)A study of first-time fathers
C)A study of people who have been in a car accident
D)A study of children whose parents are both serving time in prison

Question 39

When you are interrogating the external validity of a sample,which is the most important question to ask?

A)How many people are in the sample?
B)How was the sample collected?
C)How were the participants measured?
D)How many people are in the population?

Question 40

Which of the following is true regarding interrogating frequency claims?

A)Their accuracy can usually be determined.
B)The chief concern is to evaluate the sampling technique.
C)The most important thing to consider is the size of the sample.
D)Frequency claims cannot be interrogated.

Question 41

Dr.Parrett is a sports psychologist for a large Southern university.The provost and chancellor have asked him to examine the relationship between athletic performance and academic stress at the university.For example,is it the case that the most talented athletes experience the greatest concern over their grades? The provost and chancellor have made it clear to Dr.Parrett that they want a large amount of external validity in the study.He has valid and reliable measures of both athletic performance and academic stress.He knows that he does not have the time or the money to study the entire population of interest.

Describe the three sampling problems that could lead to a biased sample for Dr.Parrett.

Question 42

Explain why bigger samples are not always better samples.

Question 43

Dr.Dowling is a clinical psychologist who is interested in the link between mental illness and criminal activity.She gets IRB permission to study patients at all five inpatient/residential mental health facilities in her state.There are 4,307 patients currently living in these facilities.She asks patients whether they have ever been arrested for a crime and whether they have ever been convicted of a crime.She collects a sample size of 1,369.She finds that 27% (+/- 3%)report having been arrested for a crime but that only 13% (+/- 3%)have been convicted of a crime.

Choose a representative sampling technique and a biased sampling technique.Explain how Dr.Dowling would implement each of these sampling techniques.

Question 44

Explain the two reasons nonrandom samples are sometimes acceptable.

Question 45

A representative sample is most necessary for which type of claim (frequency,association,or causal)? Why?

Question 46

Dr.Dowling is a clinical psychologist who is interested in the link between mental illness and criminal activity.She gets IRB permission to study patients at all five inpatient/residential mental health facilities in her state.There are 4,307 patients currently living in these facilities.She asks patients whether they have ever been arrested for a crime and whether they have ever been convicted of a crime.She collects a sample size of 1,369.She finds that 27% (+/- 3%)report having been arrested for a crime but that only 13% (+/- 3%)have been convicted of a crime.

Dr.Dowling is interviewed by a journalist about the findings of her study.The journalist criticizes the sample size as being too small and says because of that,the findings do not really have any real world meaning.How should Dr.Dowling respond?

Question 47

Dr.Parrett is a sports psychologist for a large Southern university.The provost and chancellor have asked him to examine the relationship between athletic performance and academic stress at the university.For example,is it the case that the most talented athletes experience the greatest concern over their grades? The provost and chancellor have made it clear to Dr.Parrett that they want a large amount of external validity in the study.He has valid and reliable measures of both athletic performance and academic stress.He knows that he does not have the time or the money to study the entire population of interest.

What is the difference between a cluster technique and a multistage technique? Explain why Dr.Parrett would be advised to use a cluster or a multistage technique rather than a simple random sample.

Question 48

Dr.Dowling is a clinical psychologist who is interested in the link between mental illness and criminal activity.She gets IRB permission to study patients at all five inpatient/residential mental health facilities in her state.There are 4,307 patients currently living in these facilities.She asks patients whether they have ever been arrested for a crime and whether they have ever been convicted of a crime.She collects a sample size of 1,369.She finds that 27% (+/- 3%)report having been arrested for a crime but that only 13% (+/- 3%)have been convicted of a crime.

Indicate Dr.Dowling's population size,sample size,and population estimate for the two variables along with their margins of error

Question 49

Dr.Parrett is a sports psychologist for a large Southern university.The provost and chancellor have asked him to examine the relationship between athletic performance and academic stress at the university.For example,is it the case that the most talented athletes experience the greatest concern over their grades? The provost and chancellor have made it clear to Dr.Parrett that they want a large amount of external validity in the study.He has valid and reliable measures of both athletic performance and academic stress.He knows that he does not have the time or the money to study the entire population of interest.

What is the population of interest in Dr.Parrett's study? Will he be collecting a sample or conducting a census? Why does he need to be concerned with external validity/representativeness?

Question 50

Explain why a researcher may wish to choose snowballing sampling over a representative sampling technique.

Question 51

Dr.Parrett is a sports psychologist for a large Southern university.The provost and chancellor have asked him to examine the relationship between athletic performance and academic stress at the university.For example,is it the case that the most talented athletes experience the greatest concern over their grades? The provost and chancellor have made it clear to Dr.Parrett that they want a large amount of external validity in the study.He has valid and reliable measures of both athletic performance and academic stress.He knows that he does not have the time or the money to study the entire population of interest.

Imagine that Dr.Parrett wants to use a nonrepresentative sampling technique.Name the three types of nonprobability sampling and explain how each one could be used by Dr.Parrett.

Question 52

Dr.Dowling is a clinical psychologist who is interested in the link between mental illness and criminal activity.She gets IRB permission to study patients at all five inpatient/residential mental health facilities in her state.There are 4,307 patients currently living in these facilities.She asks patients whether they have ever been arrested for a crime and whether they have ever been convicted of a crime.She collects a sample size of 1,369.She finds that 27% (+/- 3%)report having been arrested for a crime but that only 13% (+/- 3%)have been convicted of a crime.

Dr.Dowling is interviewed by a journalist about the findings of her study.The journalist asks her to explain what it means that "27% of the sample (+/- 3%)report having been arrested for a crime."

Question 53

Dr.Dowling is a clinical psychologist who is interested in the link between mental illness and criminal activity.She gets IRB permission to study patients at all five inpatient/residential mental health facilities in her state.There are 4,307 patients currently living in these facilities.She asks patients whether they have ever been arrested for a crime and whether they have ever been convicted of a crime.She collects a sample size of 1,369.She finds that 27% (+/- 3%)report having been arrested for a crime but that only 13% (+/- 3%)have been convicted of a crime.

Dr.Dowling is interviewed by a journalist about the findings of her study.The journalist asks Dr.Dowling how many people live in all five,hospitals and Dr.Dowling answers.The journalist replies that given that there are only about 4,000 people,it seems reasonable that Dr.Dowling should have studied the entire population rather than just drawing a sample for her study to really tell us something about people suffering from mental illness.How should Dr.Dowling respond?

Question 54

What is the difference between random sampling and random assignment?

Question 55

Dr.Dowling is a clinical psychologist who is interested in the link between mental illness and criminal activity.She gets IRB permission to study patients at all five inpatient/residential mental health facilities in her state.There are 4,307 patients currently living in these facilities.She asks patients whether they have ever been arrested for a crime and whether they have ever been convicted of a crime.She collects a sample size of 1,369.She finds that 27% (+/- 3%)report having been arrested for a crime but that only 13% (+/- 3%)have been convicted of a crime.

Name two populations of interest that Dr.Dowling could reasonably generalize her findings to.State which of these two populations her findings would be more generalizable to and explain why that is the case.