Deck 2: Levels of Measurement and Aggregation

Question 1

A respondent's race would be considered a ______.

A) variable
B) constant
C) unit of analysis

Answer 1

B

Question 2

Political party identification would be an example of what type of variable?

A) categorical
B) continuous
C) quantitative
D) ranked

Answer 2

A

Question 3

Which of the following is an example of a quantitative variable?

A) gender
B) number of crimes committed in the past year
C) religion
D) country of origin

Answer 3

B

Question 4

A rank of first, second, and third from a competition would be an example of which type of variable?

A) nominal
B) ordinal
C) interval
D) ratio

Question 5

On a survey, individuals are asked how fearful of crime they are in their neighborhood. The answer choices are 1 = very fearful; 2 = somewhat fearful; 3 = not very fearful; 4 = not fearful at all. This is an example of which type of variable?

A) nominal
B) ordinal
C) interval
D) ratio

Question 6

The number of crimes one committed in the past 6 months is an example of which type of variable?

A) nominal
B) ordinal
C) interval
D) ratio

Question 7

To be classified as an ______ variable the difference between adjacent values along the measurement scale must be the same at every two points.

A) nominal-level
B) ordinal-level
C) interval-level
D) ratio-level

Question 8

A survey question that asked "Have you gotten arrested at least once in your life?" would be an example of what type of variable?

A) quantitative
B) binary
C) qualitative
D) constant

Question 9

If your hometown had a population of 100,000 and had 10 homicides last year, what would the homicide rate per 1,000 be?

A) 0.01
B) 0.10
C) 0.001
D) 0.0001

Question 10

Given the hypothetical table below, which age group has the highest rate of committing violent crimes? $\begin{array}{|l|l|l|}\hline \text { Age Group } & \begin{array}{l}\text { Number of Violent Crimes } \\\text { Committed (f) }\end{array} & \text { Population Count } \\\hline 12-17 & 2,300 & 545,370 \\\hline 18-24 & 8,900 & 527,410 \\\hline 25-34 & 11,850 & 604,500 \\\hline 35-49 & 10,900 & 684,150 \\\hline 50-64 & 6,300 & 566,990 \\\hline 65 \text { and over } & 1,090 & 112,760 \\\hline\end{array}$

A) 18-24
B) 25-34
C) 35-49
D) 50-64

Question 11

The following equation, $\frac{\text { Number in Subset }}{\text { Total number }} * \text { Constant }(100,000)$ , is the derivation for ______.

A) rate
B) percentage
C) ratio
D) proportion

Question 12

If a researcher was interested in the number of gun homicides in multiple cities across a state, what would the unit of analysis be?

A) guns
B) crime
C) cities
D) people

Question 13

A nominal level variable can also be a dichotomous variable.

Question 14

Outdoor temperature in degrees Fahrenheit would be considered an ordinal variable?

Question 15

Interval and ratio level variables are considered continuous measures.

Question 16

A count is the number of times an even occurs in the data.

Question 17

When surveying individuals about the number of crimes they have committed, the unit of analysis is the individual.

Question 18

The NCVS uses the individual as the unit analysis while the FBI uses the city or state as the unit of analysis.

Question 19

If a researcher was studying the effects of extra policing on geographically targeted areas versus control areas with no extra policing, the unit of analysis would be the police officer?

Question 20

If a researcher was studying neighborhood levels of informal social control across different neighborhoods, the neighborhood would be the unit of analysis?

Question 21

Discuss the different levels of measurement and give an example for each.

Question 22

Calculate the rate of crime per 100,000.

Question 23

Complete the frequencies and percentages for the following table.

Question 24

Why should a researcher use rates, percentages, or proportions over simple counts and frequencies?

Question 25

You are able to gain access to a prison to distribute your survey questionnaire. You ask inmates the number of crimes they committed prior to their sentence. Their responses have been organized into the following frequency distribution table. Fill in the missing frequency and percentages.