Deck 4: Section 2: Concepts, Operationalization, and Measurement

Question 1

The U.S. Census Bureau has conducted the National Crime Victimization Survey NCVS) since 1972, the longest continuous crime survey in the world.

Answer 1

True
Explanation:
This is true because the National Crime Victimization Survey NCVS) since 1972, the longest continuous crime survey in the world. There is no other survey in the survey in the world that has collected data on victims for this long.

Question 2

Generally measurement is the most important and difficult phase of criminal justice research. It is difficult, in part, because many basic concepts in criminal justice are difficult to define specifically. Without being able to agree on a conceptual definition, operationalizing and measuring concepts is _____.

A) monotonous
B) tedious
C) routine
D) challenging

Answer 2

D
Explanation:
A. This is an incorrect answer because measurement is the most important and difficult phase of criminal justice research because many basic concepts in criminal justice are difficult to define specifically. Without specific conceptual definition, operationalizing and measuring concepts is challenging not monotonous.
B. This is an incorrect answer because measurement is the most important and difficult phase of criminal justice research because many basic concepts in criminal justice are difficult to define specifically. Without specific conceptual definition, operationalizing and measuring concepts is challenging not tedious.
C. This is an incorrect answer because measurement is the most important and difficult phase of criminal justice research because many basic concepts in criminal justice are difficult to define specifically. Without specific conceptual definition, operationalizing and measuring concepts is challenging not routine.
D. The correct answer is "D" because measurement is the most important and difficult phase of criminal justice research because many basic concepts in criminal justice are difficult to define specifically. Without specific conceptual definition, operationalizing and measuring concepts is challenging.

Question 3

Measurements can be made with varying degrees of precision, which refers to the fineness of the distinctions made between the attributes that compose a variable. The key standards for measurement quality are _____.

A) reliability and accuracy.
B) validity and timeliness.
C) reliability and consistency.
D) reliability and validity.

Answer 3

D

Question 4

Variables represent different levels of measurement: nominal, ordinal, interval, and ratio. Levels of measurement tell us what sorts of information we can gain from the scores assigned to the _____.

A) values of a variable
B) categories of the level of measurement
C) attributes of a concept
D) conceptual measures of research

Question 5

The design and execution of criminal justice research require that the confusion over concepts and reality is removed. The logicians and scientists have found it useful to distinguish three kinds of definitions: real, conceptual________________________.

A) essential
B) creative
C) operational
D) specific

Question 6

Every variable should have an important attribute of being exhaustive. For the variable to be useful in research, researchers must be able to classify every observation in terms of one of the attributes composing the variable. Being exhaustive means that the researcher should be able to classify _____.

A) each and every possible observation
B) each and every desirable observation.
C) each and every needed observation.
D) each and every certified observation.

Question 7

Variables attributes that have only the characteristics of exhaustiveness and mutual exclusiveness are _____. These measures can not be logically ordered. The distance between one and the other values of the variables can not be precisely measured.

A) Ordinal Measures
B) Nominal Measures
C) Interval and Ratio measures
D) Independent variables

Question 8

Day-to-day communication is made possible through general but often vague and unspoken agreements about the use of terms. This leads to imprecision and misunderstandings. ______ is the process by which we specify precisely what we mean when we use particular terms.

A) Conceptions
B) Concepts
C) The Ecological Fallacy
D) Conceptualization

Question 9

The words or symbols in language that we use to represent these mental images are called concepts. The concepts are used to communicate with one another, to share our mental images. Although a common language enables us to communicate, it is important to recognize that the words and phrases we use represent abstractions. Concepts are abstract because they are _____.

A) dependent on the labels we assign to them.
B) independent of the labels we assign to them.
C) neither dependent nor independent of the labels we assign to them.
D) origins of the labels we assign to them.

Question 10

Variables' attributes that have the characteristics of exhaustiveness and mutual exclusiveness, can be logically ordered and the distance between one and the other values of the variables can be precisely measured are _____.

A) Ordinal Measures
B) Nominal Measures
C) Interval and Ratio measures
D) Independent variables

Question 11

In a legal sense, victimless crimes do not exist because crimes are acts that injure society, organizations, or individuals.

Question 12

Specifications make up the operational definition of the concept-a definition that spells out precisely how the concept will be measured. In essence, an operational definition is a description of the operations undertaken in ______ a concept.

A) defining
B) creating
C) measuring
D) designing

Question 13

Every variable must have the attribute of being mutually exclusive. Researchers must be able to classify every observation in terms of one and only one attribute. Being mutually exclusive means that each and every observation must fit in _____.

A) every possible category.
B) every desirable category.
C) one and only one category.
D) every certified category.

Question 14

The most widely used measures of crime are not based on police records.

Question 15

Crimes involve four elements that are often easier to recognize in the abstract than they are to actually measure: offender, victim, offense, and incident. The most basic of these elements is the _____.

A) Offender
B) Victim
C) Offense
D) incident

Question 16

The end product of the conceptualization process is the _____ of what we have in mind, indicating the presence or absence of the concept we are studying.

A) specification of a set of indicators
B) specification of a set of concepts
C) specification of a set of observations
D) specification of a set of questions

Question 17

UCR summary data represent groups as units of analysis. Crime reports are available for cities or counties, and these may be aggregated upward to measure crime for states or regions of the United States.

Question 18

The specification of concepts in scientific inquiry depends instead on conceptual and operational definitions. A conceptual definition is a working definition specifically assigned to a term. When there is disagreement and confusion over what a term really means, the scientist specifies a working definition for the purposes of the inquiry. This definition is called _____.

A) Specific definition
B) Real definition
C) Operational definition
D) Conceptual definition

Question 19

Reliability refers to the fact whether a particular measurement technique, applied repeatedly to the same thing, will yield the same result each time. In other words, measurement reliability is roughly the same as measurement _____.

A) validity or stability.
B) consistency or stability.
C) precision or stability.
D) accuracy or stability.