Research Methods for Criminal Justice and Criminology, International Edition 6th Edition by Michael G – Test Bank

Complete Test Bank With Answers

 

 

Sample Questions Posted Below

 

TEST BANK

TRUE/FALSE

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

particular terms.

ANS: T

REF: 123

LO: 1

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

ANS: T

REF: 121

LO: 2

3. Every variable should have two important qualities; their attributes should be exhaustive as

well as mutually exclusive.

ANS: T

REF: 132

LO: 3, 5

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

ANS: T

REF: 133

LO: 6

5. Recidivism is a term to represent a collection of unrelated phenomena that we have either

observed or heard about somewhere.

ANS: F

REF: 128

LO: 1, 2

6. Reliability is measuring what you think you are measuring.

ANS: F

REF: 136

LO: 7

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

ANS: T

REF: 136

LO: 7

1178. Mental images of serious crime may vary among individuals depending on their backgrounds

and experiences.

ANS: T

REF: 121

LO: 1, 2

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

ANS: T

REF: 122

LO: 2

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

ANS: T

REF: 132

LO: 6

MULTIPLE CHOICE

1. 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

ANS: A

REF: 137-138

LO: 7

2. 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

ANS: C

REF: 138-139

LO: 7

1183. 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

ANS: B

REF: 139

LO: 7

4. 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

ANS: D

REF: 139-140

LO: 7

5. 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

ANS: C

REF: 141

LO: 8

6. 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

ANS: A

REF: 140

LO: 8

1197. 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

ANS: D

REF: 123

LO: 2

8. Disorder is a symbol of urban decay that people associate with

a. third world countries

b. income

c. psychology

d. crime

ANS: D

REF: 145

LO: 10

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

a. interval

b. nominal

c. ratio

d. ordinal

ANS: C

REF: 133-134

LO: 6

10. 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

ANS: B

REF: 136

LO: 7

12011. 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

ANS: C

REF: 135

LO: 6

12. Although a person’s observations and experiences are real, his or her concepts are:

a. mental creations

b. subliminal

c. discreet

d. reliable

ANS: A

REF: 125

LO: 1, 2

13. 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

ANS: A

REF: 125

LO: 2

14. 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

ANS: A

REF: 139-140

LO: 7

12115. The process of developing operational definitions is known as:

a. conceptualization

b. proprietary means

c. reification

d. operationalization

ANS: D

REF: 127

LO: 3

16. 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

ANS: C

REF: 129

LO: 2

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

a. nominal

b. ordinal

c. interval

d. ratio

ANS: C

REF: 133

LO: 6

18. 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

ANS: D

REF: 133-134

LO: 6

12219. 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

ANS: A

REF: 132-133

LO: 6

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

a. nominal

b. ordinal

c. interval

d. ratio

ANS: B

REF: 133

LO: 6

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

ANS: B

REF: 124

LO: 3

22. 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

ANS: B

REF: 122

LO: 2

12323. 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

ANS: A

REF: 127-129

LO: 3, 4

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

a. dimension

b. concept

c. construct

d. direct observable

ANS: A

REF: 124

LO: 2

25. 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

ANS: D

REF: 127

LO: 1, 2

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

a. measurement

b. operationalization

c. conceptualization

d. validity

ANS: A

REF: 129

LO: 6

12427. 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

ANS: C

REF: 132

LO: 5

28. Logical sets of attributes are known as:

a. values

b. variables

c. concepts

d. operational definitions

ANS: B

REF: 132

LO: 2

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

ANS: B

REF: 133

LO: 6

30. 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

ANS: C

REF: 132

LO: 5

31. The test-retest method is used to examine:

a. reliability

b. validity

c. generalizability

d. precision

ANS: A

REF: 137

LO: 7

12532. 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

ANS: D

REF: 140-141

LO: 7

33. 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

ANS: A

REF: 133

LO: 6

34. 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

ANS: A

REF: 140

LO: 7

35. 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

ANS: A

REF: 139-140

LO: 7

12636. The key standards for measurement quality are:

a. mutual exclusivity and exhaustibility

b. reliability and validity

c. pattern and repetition

d. duplicity and veracity

ANS: B

REF: 135

LO: 7

37. 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

ANS: D

REF: 139

LO: 7

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

a. often necessary

b. often preferable

c. undesirable

d. unacceptable

ANS: A

REF: 121

LO: 7, 8

39. 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

ANS: A

REF: 136

LO: 7, 8

12740. 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

ANS: B

REF: 141-142

LO: 9

41. Composite measures are frequently used in criminal justice research for all of the following

reasons except:

a. b. in some cases the researcher is unable to develop single indicators of complex concepts

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. d. indexes and scales are efficient devices for data analysis

the researcher is seeking a method for measuring disorder and composite measures are

the only allowable measure

ANS: D

REF: 145

LO: 10

42. 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

ANS: B

REF: 133

LO: 6

43. 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

ANS: C

REF: 133

LO: 6

12844. 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

ANS: C

REF: 123

LO: 1, 2

45. 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

ANS: A

REF: 127

LO: 2

46. 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

ANS: A

REF: 127-129

LO: 3

47. 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

ANS: B

REF: 138

LO: 7, 8

12948. 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

ANS: B

REF: 139-140

LO: 7

49. 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

ANS: A

REF: 138

LO: 7

50. 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

ANS: B

REF: 123

LO: 2

51. 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

ANS: C

REF: 136

LO: 7, 8

13052. 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

ANS: D

REF: 136

LO: 7,8

53. 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

ANS: C

REF: 124

LO: 2

54. 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

ANS: B

REF: 136-139

LO: 5

55. 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

ANS: B

REF: 125

LO: 2

13156. 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

ANS: A

REF: 144

LO: 10

57. 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

ANS: B

REF: 133

LO: 6

58. 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

ANS: C

REF: 133

LO: 6

59. 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

ANS: A

REF: 132

LO: 3

13260. 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

ANS: A

REF: 125

LO: 2

COMPLETION

1. Measurement is difficult and ________________, therefore researchers try to describe the

measurement process explicitly.

ANS: imprecise

REF: 121

LO: 8

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

____________.

ANS: concepts

REF: 121

LO: 2

3. _________________is the process by which we specify precisely what we mean when we use

a particular term.

ANS: Conceptualization

REF: 123

LO: 1, 2

4. Specifying the different ____________ of a concept often paves the way for a more

sophisticated understanding of what we are studying.

ANS: dimensions

REF: 124

LO: 2

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

ANS: reification

REF: 125

LO: 2

1336. A definition that spells out precisely how the concept will be measured is known as

_______________.

ANS: operational definition

REF: 127

LO: 2

7. The conceptualization and operationalization processes can be seen as the specification of

variables and the _____________ composing them.

ANS: attributes

REF: 127-129

LO: 3

8. Variables whose attributes have only the characteristics of exhaustiveness and mutual

exclusiveness are _______________________ measures.

ANS: nominal

REF: 132

LO: 5

9. _________________________is a matter of whether a particular measurement technique,

applied repeatedly to the same object, will yield the same result each time.

ANS: Reliability

REF: 136

LO: 7

10. Reliability does not ensure ______________ any more than precision ensures it.

ANS: accuracy

REF: 136

LO: 7, 9

11. The ________________ method lays the groundwork for a check on reliability in regards to

making multiple measures of the same complex concept.

ANS: split half

REF: 138-139

LO: 7

12. ________________ validity refers to particular empirical measures that may or may not

accurately reflect the common agreements on concepts.

ANS: Face

REF: 139-140

LO: 7

13413. Content validity refers to the degree to which a measure covers the range of meanings

included within the _____________.

ANS: concept

REF: 141

LO: 7

14. Combining ___________________ measures often produces more valid and reliable

indicators.

ANS: individual

REF: 135

LO: 10

15. Researchers combine _________________ in different ways to produce different composite

measures.

ANS: variables

REF: 142

LO: 10

ESSAY QUESTIONS

1. Identify the four levels of measurement and give examples of each.

2. For each of the following variables, give its level of measurement and whether the variable is

discrete or continuous.

a.________________ ________________ verdict at trial

b.________________ ________________ gender of victim

c.________________ ________________ age of offender

d.________________ ________________ violent offender

e.________________ ________________ ranks in a police department

3. Discuss the threat to validity. Cover the following threats: face, content, criterion-related, and

construct.

4. Discuss the measures used to insure reliability: test-retest method, inter-rater, and split-half

method.

5. Use an example from criminal justice and create an index.

135