Deck 4: Moving From Notions to Numbers: Psychological Measurement

Question 1

According to Chapter 4,open-ended questions are used frequently in:

A)archival research
B)research with older populations
C)focus groups
D)research with children or adults who cannot read

Answer 1

focus groups

Question 2

Pilot testing most often refers to the use of:

A)a practice study
B)a study specifically designed to address criticisms of a primary study
C)the survey version of an experimental study
D)a specific study format used in a great deal of aviation research

Answer 2

a practice study

Question 3

In a survey study of prosocial attitudes and self-reported helping behavior,Zeke included the survey item,"I am opposed to murder." This item is extremely unlikely to yield useful survey responses.Why?

A)The word "opposed" introduces an unnecessary negation.
B)The item addresses a sensitive legal issue.
C)People's responses to the item will likely show ceiling effects.
D)People's responses to the item will likely be confounded with their criminal status.
E)All of these are true.

Answer 3

People's responses to the item will likely show ceiling effects.

Question 4

Which of the following was NOT mentioned in Chapter 4 as a rule for writing good survey questions?

A)Avoid negations.
B)Keep it simple.
C)Avoid forced-choice items.
D)Don't use questions that avoid variance.

Question 5

Chapter 4 begins with a story about the butterfly ballots that were used in Palm Beach County,Florida in the 2000 Presidential election.The point of this story is that it is surprisingly difficult to:

A)translate psychological constructs into observable events
B)get people to vote in ways that reflect their self-interest
C)change old ways of measurement even when new ways are superior
D)get politicians to accept empirical arguments about voting behavior
E)lose an election in a state in which your brother is the governor

Question 6

Summer was allowed to ask six and only six questions in a large survey study.If Summer wanted to measure both (a)gender and (b)gender role attitudes (attitudes about the proper roles of men and women in society),how should she use her six questions as wisely as possible?

A)Assess gender role attitudes with 3 items and assess gender with 3 items.
B)Assess gender role attitudes with 4 items and assess gender with 2 items.
C)Assess gender role attitudes with 5 items and assess gender with 1 item.
D)Assess gender role attitudes with 6 items and,for now,ignore gender.

Question 7

According to Chapter 4,one common reason why research participants do not answer the question(s)that a researcher intended is:

A)the testing effects
B)the inherently low reliability of many psychological responses
C)that the research participants have a difficult time taking the perspective of the researcher
D)that the researcher has a difficult time taking the perspective of the research participants

Question 8

Response translation refers to the process by which:

A)cross-cultural researchers convert survey questions from one language to another
B)survey participants convert their thoughts or feelings into observable behavior (e.g. ,helping behavior)
C)survey participants convert their thoughts,feelings,or behavior into responses on a categorical or numerical rating scale
D)participants convert their temperaments into desires

Question 9

Although it is generally a good idea to avoid loaded questions in survey research,your textbook pointed out that researchers can sometimes use loaded questions to get participants to:

A)answer questions they would otherwise leave blank
B)admit to engaging in behaviors that many people are reluctant to report
C)use the full range of a scale -- and thus avoid floor effects
D)change their attitudes about controversial issues

Question 10

During the judgment phase of answering a self-report question,participants determine what question is being asked,and then they:

A)decide whether they agree or disagree with a basic proposition
B)form some initial response to the question
C)compare their psychological responses to those of other people
D)convert their psychological response to a numerical answer

Question 11

Imagine that a survey of subscribers to TV Guide asked the following: "Which TV show do you prefer,'Survivor' or 'Jeopardy'?" According to the text,this question is problematic because it:

A)is a forced-choice question
B)assumes that people watch a lot of TV
C)introduces a social desirability bias
D)is a double-barreled question

Question 12

According to the text,a survey item such as "I am a kind and forgiving person." is not an ideal question because it:

A)is a forced-choice question
B)assumes that people honestly report their own personal attributes
C)is a leading question (i.e. ,it only invites positive responses)
D)is a double-barreled question

Question 13

Researchers who develop multiple-item measures of a psychological construct sometimes use negatively worded items,that is,items that must be recoded before scoring.This approach is:

A)a useful technique for avoiding a "yay saying" response bias
B)usually a mistake because people have difficulty processing negations
C)only useful after one has exhausted a pool of positively worded questions
D)virtually never used anymore because it creates statistical artifacts

Question 14

A focus group is:

A)a clinical tool for obtaining information about pathology
B)a clinical measurement of the relative success of psychotherapy
C)a specific kind of pilot study often used by marketing researchers
D)an unusual group of people who provide predictable responses on a new structured self-report survey question

Question 15

Floor effects and ceiling effects are each examples of:

A)questions that are not relevant to some of the participants in a study
B)asking questions in a poorly chosen order
C)regression toward the midpoint
D)restriction of range

Question 16

Providing participants with instructions and using practice questions:

A)are crucial components of pilot studies
B)allow researchers to reduce the number of items in a multi-item survey
C)are more crucial in research with children than in research with adults
D)establish a judgmental context in survey research

Question 17

Which of these is NOT a drawback to using open-ended questions?

A)coding requires highly trained raters
B)people are forced to use a specific response scale
C)participants may not provide information on important concepts
D)coding can be very time-intensive

Question 18

Most researchers prefer structured self-report questions over open-ended questions.This is because open-ended questions often yield responses that:

A)fail to mention a construct in which the researcher is interested
B)can only be converted to nominal scales
C)can only be coded by licensed psychotherapists
D)do not allow an assessment of their reliability

Question 19

According to the text,which of the following is a good way to develop good structured self-report questions for a survey?

A)reading the research literature to look for established surveys
B)making use of focus groups
C)conducting pilot tests
D)all of these

Question 20

Lisa is administering her questionnaire to a large group of very diverse college students.What steps should she take when writing her questions?

A)Use unbiased language.
B)Avoid loaded questions.
C)Ease into sensitive questions.
D)All of the above.

Question 21

According to work by Charles Osgood and his colleagues,when the average person says that fact G is "extremely interesting," this is likely to mean that fact G is subjectively abo___ times as interesting as something that is merely "interesting."

A)1.55
B)two
C)three
D)four

Question 22

Jonathan is ready to write his first questionnaire.What is the first step he should take?

A)Write 50 different questions.
B)Think about exactly what he wants to measure.
C)Conduct a factor analysis to correlate his questions.
D)Conduct a pilot study.

Question 23

When is it acceptable to have more than 3-10 response options on a scale?

A)when the scale in question is a bipolar scale
B)never
C)when the survey participants are 14-year old children
D)when using an EGWA scale

Question 24

Some psychological scales contain a series of ordered items arranged so that each item implies a stronger opinion than the item that preceded it.Researchers who use such scales do not average participants' responses to all of the items.Instead,they merely identify the strongest specific item each participant is willing to endorse.Which of the scales listed below has this property?

A)a Dimensional Rating Scale
B)a Smithson Scale
C)a Guttman Scale
D)an Ordinal Hierarchy Scale

Question 25

EGWA stands for:

A)easily grouped,well-adapted
B)effective,global,well-adjusted
C)empirically grounded,well-anchored
D)easily grasped,well-articulated

Question 26

Factor analysis is a tool that helps researchers decide:

A)whether a psychological measure correlates well with a specific behavior
B)how many items it takes to assess a specific construct
C)whether self-report measures or behavioral measures represent a construct better
D)which items in a multiple-item measure tend to measure the same thing

Question 27

Zeppo created a new rating scale designed to measure people's liking for plums.On this scale,the psychological distance implied by a single-unit difference on the rating scale remains constant across the entire range of the rating scale.This means,for example,that the difference in subjective liking between a 3 and a 4 on Zeppo's scale is the same as the difference in subjective liking between a 6 and a 7.Zeppo's scale makes use of:

A)a Likert format
B)a Thurstone gradient
C)equal appearing intervals
D)all of these

Question 28

Nico and Tina assessed cigarette smoking by asking people to report the number of cigarettes they had smoked in the past week.According to the text,this is an example of:

A)an absolute scale
B)a relative numeric scale
C)a true numeric scale
D)a time x frequency scale

Question 29

Napoleon wanted to survey people about their use of marijuana.In an effort to get people to respond as honestly as possible,Napoleon embedded his questions about marijuana use in a list of questions about many other drugs (e.g. ,caffeine,crack cocaine,heroin,speed).Was this a good idea?

A)yes
B)no
C)it depends on whether his sample contains a lot of heavy drug users