Deck 5: Concepts Operationalization And-Measurement

Question 1

A researcher concerned with whether a particular measurement technique will,after repeated measures,yield the same results is concerned with:

A) accuracy
B) reliability
C) precise measurement
D) validity

Answer 1

B

Question 2

Conceptualization is the process by which we specify precisely what we mean when we use particular terms.

Answer 2

True

Question 3

One good indicator of crime seriousness is harm to the crime victim.

Answer 3

True

Question 4

According to Abraham Kaplan's (1964)discussion; which of the following are not included in the three classes of things that a researcher measures?

A) direct observables
B) indirect observables
C) constructs
D) discreet observables

Question 5

Criterion related validity refers to:

A) a comparison of measures to some external criterion
B) an empirical measure that may or may not agree with our common understanding of a particular concept
C) the degree to which a measure covers the range of meanings included within the concepts
D) the basis of logical relationships among variables

Question 6

Every variable should have two important qualities; their attributes should be exhaustive as well as mutually exclusive.

Question 7

Reliability is threatened every time there is a single observer as the source of data.

Question 8

Ratio measures are the highest level,followed by:

A) interval, nominal and ordinal
B) nominal, interval, ordinal
C) interval, ordinal, and nominal
D) ordinal, nominal, interval

Question 9

An empirical measure that adequately reflects the meaning of the concept under consideration is known as:

A) reliability
B) validity
C) accuracy
D) face validity

Question 10

Ordinal measures are variables whose attributes may be logically rank-ordered.

Question 11

Reliability is measuring what you think you are measuring.

Question 12

Particular empirical measures that may or may not agree with common understandings of our individual mental images about a specific concept are known as:

A) reliability
B) validity
C) accuracy
D) face validity

Question 13

It is always a good idea to make more than one measurement of any subtle or complex social concept,which is known as:

A) test-retest method
B) inter-rater reliability
C) split-half method
D) face validity

Question 14

Recidivism represents a collection of related phenomena either observed or heard about.

Question 15

Sometimes it is necessary to make the same measurement more than once,which is known as:

A) test-retest method
B) inter-rater reliability
C) split-half method
D) face validity

Question 16

Age of an offender is an example of which level of measurement?

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

Question 17

A lower-level measure cannot be converted to a higher-level one.

Question 18

Content validity refers to:

A) a comparison of measures to some external criterion
B) an empirical measure that may or may not agree with our common understanding of a particular concept
C) the degree to which a measure covers the range of meanings included within the concepts
D) the basis of logical relationships among variables

Question 19

Mental images of serious crime may vary among individuals depending on their backgrounds and experiences.

Question 20

Recidivism is a term to represent a collection of unrelated phenomena that we have either observed or heard about somewhere.

Question 21

The penalties that are assigned to different crimes by law are best characterized as a dimension of:

A) public opinion
B) crime seriousness
C) retribution
D) cultural tastes

Question 22

Measures of jail capacity were operationalized as whether or not there were more inmates housed at the end of the year than the original building design called for would be an example of what level of measurement?

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

Question 23

Logical sets of attributes are known as:

A) values
B) variables
C) concepts
D) operational definitions

Question 24

The process of developing operational definitions is known as:

A) conceptualization
B) proprietary means
C) reification
D) operationalization

Question 25

Although a person's observations and experiences are real,his or her concepts are:

A) mental creations
B) subliminal
C) discreet
D) reliable

Question 26

The test-retest method is used to examine:

A) reliability
B) validity
C) generalizability
D) precision

Question 27

The specification of conceptual definitions serves as a specific working definition and also:

A) focuses observational strategy
B) focuses research on the task at hand
C) focuses readers on the core issue
D) focuses on fixing the problem

Question 28

The words or symbols in language used to illustrate subjective thoughts or mental images about things we may encounter in daily life are known as:

A) operations
B) concepts
C) observations
D) measurements

Question 29

The primary difference between the interval and the ratio level of variables is that:

A) interval is rarely used
B) with ratio there is an absolute meaning of zero
C) with interval there is an absolute meaning of zero
D) none of the above

Question 30

Operationalization involves:

A) describing how actual measurements will be made
B) adding up the sum of the parts to determine the whole
C) removing negative correlations from variables
D) making the necessary measurements

Question 31

Ranks in the local police department represent what level of measurement?

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

Question 32

Which of the following sequences illustrates the progression of measurement steps?

A) conceptual definition, conceptualization, operational definition and real-world measurement
B) operational definition, conceptualization, conceptual definition and real-world measurement
C) operational definition, conceptual definition, conceptualization and real-world measurement
D) conceptualization, conceptual definition, operational definition and real-world measurement

Question 33

The production report generated at the city police department contains the number of arrests made by each officer on a monthly basis.What level of measurement would number of arrests be?

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

Question 34

Which of the following is representative of the dimension "victim harm"?

A) economic gain
B) gender of victim
C) physical injury
D) location of injury

Question 35

What two qualities should every variable possess?

A) meaning and value
B) exhaustive and thorough
C) exhaustive and mutually exclusive
D) operational definition and meaning

Question 36

Researchers must be able to classify every observation in terms of one and only one attribute.Which of the following terms best describes this concept?

A) reliability
B) validity
C) mutual exclusiveness
D) exhaustiveness

Question 37

Professor Smith is studying attitudes toward gun control and plans to assess support for firearms registration by determining whether or not her research subjects say they would travel to countries where the possession of unlicensed guns is legal.Her critics argue that this measure lacks:

A) face validity
B) construct validity
C) convergent validity
D) criterion-related validity

Question 38

The assignment of grades by the professor to major research papers is an example of:

A) measurement
B) operationalization
C) conceptualization
D) validity

Question 39

A specifiable aspect of a given concept is referred to as a:

A) dimension
B) concept
C) construct
D) direct observable

Question 40

The number of counts on an indictment is what level of measurement?

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

Question 41

When a supervisor for a survey contacts a subset of the respondents to verify certain information,it is an example of:

A) lack of generalizability
B) interrater reliability
C) split-half method
D) construct validity

Question 42

The study of food-buying habits where researchers were interested in learning whether people who drank wine ate healthier foods than people who drank beer-is a good example of:

A) research exhaustiveness
B) face validity
C) interrater reliability
D) split-half method

Question 43

In general,whenever researchers are concerned that measures obtained through coding may not be classified reliably,they should:

A) have each measure independently coded by different people
B) not obtain measures through coding
C) perform split-half method test
D) perform an interrater reliability test

Question 44

An example of direct observables are:

A) individual values
B) are mandatory sentences fair
C) the words in a crime report
D) all of the above

Question 45

What is the main distinction between measurement and operationalization?

A) measurement involves actually making observations and assigning scores to those observations
B) operationalization involves actually making observations and assigning scores to those observations
C) the operationalization process starts much earlier, usually with conceptualization
D) there is not a difference between the terms

Question 46

When the actual distance that separates the attributes composing some variables does have meaning,the variables are described as:

A) interval
B) nominal
C) ordinal
D) none of the above

Question 47

What type of variable allows you to arrange attributes from greater than to less than,but does not allow you to tell how much greater or how much less than one attribute is from another?

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

Question 48

Numerous studies have shown that measures of crime based on police records often suffer from:

A) reliability problems
B) validity problems
C) accounting problems
D) typology problems

Question 49

Validating an individual measure to compare it with alternative measures of the same concept is known as:

A) content validity
B) multiple measures
C) construct validity
D) criterion-related validity

Question 50

Which of the following best represents the abstract "reliability"?

A) a measure adequately reflects the meaning of the concept
B) a measure does not adequately reflect the underling concept
C) the measure is stable
D) the measure is unstable

Question 51

The key standards for measurement quality are:

A) mutual exclusivity and exhaustibility
B) reliability and validity
C) pattern and repetition
D) duplicity and veracity

Question 52

A definition that spells out exactly how we plan to measure a variable is known as:

A) operational definition
B) measurement
C) concept
D) conceptualization

Question 53

Professor Jenkins is interested in attitudes toward the trying juveniles as adults and plans to assess support for this hypothesis by asking whether or not subjects say they would travel to countries that allow juveniles to stand trial as an adult.Critics would say this measure lacks:

A) face validity
B) criterion-related validity
C) content validity
D) construct validity

Question 54

Because low marital adjustment should lead to divorce,Professor Quinn checked his measure of marital adjustment by examining whether couples with low martial adjustment scores later obtained divorces.This illustrates the use of:

A) criterion-related validity
B) face validity
C) content validity
D) construct validity

Question 55

Validity that is related to the logical relationships between variables is known as:

A) criterion-related validity
B) face validity
C) convergent validity
D) construct validity

Question 56

Composite measures are frequently used in criminal justice research for all of the following reasons except:

A) in some cases the researcher is unable to develop single indicators of complex concepts
B) the researcher may desire to use a rather refined ordinal measure of a variable, arranging cases in several ordinal categories from very low to very high on a variable
C) indexes and scales are efficient devices for data analysis
D) the researcher is seeking a method for measuring disorder and composite measures are the only allowable measure

Question 57

A questionnaire contained the item "social class" with responses of lower class,lower middle class,middle class,upper middle class,upper class.The researcher asks respondents to check the one that describes them.The researcher is using this question to measure:

A) direct observables
B) indirect observables
C) constructs
D) nominal variables

Question 58

Which of the following variables allows for attributes to be placed on a continuum with equal distance between points?

A) nominal and ordinal
B) ordinal and interval
C) interval and ratio
D) all of the above

Question 59

Many criminal justice measures are imprecise,so reporting approximate values is:

A) often necessary
B) often preferable
C) undesirable
D) unacceptable

Question 60

A person's height as a measure of a person's IQ would be seen as having what problem?

A) precision
B) reliability
C) accuracy
D) validity

Question 61

Reliability does not ensure any more than precision ensures it.

Question 62

The method lays the groundwork for a check on reliability in regards to making multiple measures of the same complex concept.

Question 63

Words are symbols in language that we use to represent mental images are known as .

Question 64

Which of the following statements is not correct?

A) a measure is valid if it truly measures the underlying concept
B) a measure is reliable if it is observable over time
C) a measure is reliable if it is constant
D) both validity and reliability are important in a measure

Question 65

If we consider the theft of $20 from a poor person to be more serious than the theft of $2,000 from a wealthy oil company CEO,victim wealth,in this case,could be considered a(n):

A) influencing attribute
B) mitigating circumstance
C) dimension
D) indicator

Question 66

The process of regarding as real things that are not is called .

Question 67

The design and execution of criminal justice research requires eliminating the confusion over concepts and reality.To accomplish this,scientists have found it useful to distinguish three kinds of definitions: real,conceptual,and:

A) apparent
B) operational
C) congruent
D) altruistic

Question 68

Variables whose attributes have only the characteristics of exhaustiveness and mutual exclusiveness are
____________________ measures.

Question 69

Which of the following represents problems for reliability?

A) any time you have a single observer as the source of data
B) use of different interviewers during the course of a research project
C) there are different coders used to evaluate the data
D) all of the above

Question 70

Which of the following is an attribute of the variable "employment status"?

A) unemployed
B) minimum wage
C) number of employees
D) all the above

Question 71

Specifying the different of a concept often paves the way for a more sophisticated understanding of what we are studying.

Question 72

is the process by which we specify precisely what we mean when we use a particular term.

Question 73

is a matter of whether a particular measurement technique,applied repeatedly to the same object,will yield the same result each time.

Question 74

With respect to levels of measurement which of the following is not correct?

A) a variable measured at the ratio level can also be measured at the ordinal level
B) a variable measured at the interval level can also be measured at the nominal level
C) a variable measured at the ordinal level can also be measured at the interval level
D) a variable measured at the ordinal level can also be measured at the nominal level

Question 75

The conceptualization and operationalization processes can be seen as the specification of variables and the
____________________ composing them.

Question 76

A definition that spells out precisely how the concept will be measured is known as .

Question 77

A researcher has measured fear of crime by asking the subjects whether or not they were afraid of crime and by asking them to rate from 1 - 10 their own fear of crime.Which is the highest level of measurement that is illustrated by this example?

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

Question 78

In research,the process of regarding something as real (such as crime seriousness)when it is not is called:

A) reification
B) validity
C) typology
D) reliability

Question 79

Measurement is difficult and ,therefore researchers try to describe the measurement process explicitly.

Question 80

If a researcher is concerned with combining variables to result in a different composite measure,the researcher is using what technique?

A) typology
B) validity
C) operationalization
D) reliability