Chapter 4 Practice Quiz

. In selecting a research topic, the textbook recommends that researchers

guard against letting personal motivations dictate what they study.

base their choice on a preliminary literature search.

focus on a phenomenon of proven historical importance.

choose something of strong personal interest.

. According to the text, good research questions should be

researchable and interesting.

broad and unanswered.

value neutral.

relevant to current social issues.

. To examine whether the unemployment rate is related to rates of welfare and imprisonment, Mark Colvin gathered data from a random sample of 184 urban, industrial counties in the United States. Colvin's unit of analysis is

the United States.

counties.

a random sample.

welfare recipients.

. In which of the following lists does each term denote a variable?

psychology major, sociology major, economics major

gender, class rank, age

female, sociology major, sophomore class

family income, sociology major, student

. It is hypothesized that among first-year students, women attend class more frequently than men. Class attendance is a(n) __________ variable, and class standing (first-year, second-year, etc.) is a(n) __________variable.

independent; dependent

independent; control

dependent; independent

dependent; control

. In a study of the relationship between level of education and support for immigration reform, a person's race or ethnicity is an __________ variable and their occupational status is an __________ variable.

antecedent; antecedent

antecedent; intervening

intervening; antecedent

intervening; intervening

. A nonspurious relationship implies that

the independent and dependent variables are interchangeable.

there is a no statistical association between the variables.

there is a positive association between the variables.

there is a negative association between the variables.

there is a causal link between the variables.

. In a survey of American high schools, it was found that students who attended private schools showed higher academic achievement than students who attended public schools. Which of the following variables could create a spurious relationship between type of school (private versus public) and academic achievement?

parent's income

school attendance

amount of homework assigned

strictness of school discipline

. All of the following approaches may be used to address qualitative research questions except

field research.

in-depth interviews.

experiments.

analysis of existing data.

. In general, quantitative research is to qualitative research as

the deductive logic of inquiry is to the inductive logic of inquiry.

dynamic inquiry is to static inquiry.

understanding process is to identifying cause and effect.

developing theory is to testing hypotheses.