Deck 4: Concepts, Operationalization, and Measurement

Question 1

NIBRS reports each crime incident rather than the total number of certain crimes.

Answer 1

True

Question 2

Sometimes it is necessary to make the same measurement more than once.This is known as _____.

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

Answer 2

A

Question 3

If a researcher is concerned with whether a particular measurement technique will, after repeated measures, yield the same results, they are concerned with _____.

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

Answer 3

B

Question 4

The age of an offender is an example of which level of measurement?

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

Question 5

Reliability is measuring what you think you are measuring.

Question 6

Validity refers to the degree to which a measure covers a single range of meanings included within the concept.

Question 7

The UCR accounts for all types of crime, even those crimes that are not observed.

Question 8

Construct 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 9

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

Question 10

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

Question 11

An indicator of the dimension "victim harm" is _____.

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

Question 12

Particular empirical measures may or may not agree with common understandings of our individual mental images about a specific concept. This is known as _____.

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

Question 13

Crimes must at a minimum have an offender, because without an offender there is no crime.

Question 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

Question 15

Concepts are ______.

A)empirical measurements
B)variables
C)mental images
D)hypotheses

Question 16

Delinquency, victimless crimes, and crimes rarely observed may be measured by self-report studies.

Question 17

A single incident cannot include multiple offenses, but may have one offense and multiple offenders.

Question 18

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 19

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 20

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

Question 21

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

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

Question 22

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

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

Question 23

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 24

Logical sets of attributes are known as _____.

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

Question 25

Which of the following is accounted for by the NCVS?

A)victimless crimes
B)crimes that have businesses as the victim
C)crimes that have commercial establishments as victims
D)national sample of households

Question 26

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)ratio level is on a true zero point, while interval level is not

Question 27

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 28

The most effective method of accounting for certain crimes, such as delinquency and victimless crimes, are _____.

A)anonymous surveys
B)self-report surveys
C)observation surveys
D)uniform crime reports

Question 29

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 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

Question 31

What are the two important things achieved by the specification of conceptual definitions?

A)it serves as a specific working definition a researcher presents so that readers will understand exactly what is meant by a concept;it focuses our observational strategy
B)it focuses our observational strategy;it directly produces observations
C)it serves as a specific working definition a researcher presents so that readers will understand exactly what is meant by a concept;it provides a statement of the essential nature of some entity
D)it focuses our observational strategy;it provides a statement of the essential nature of some entity

Question 32

When a supervisor for a survey telephones 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 33

The NVCS is based on a nationally representative sample of _____.

A)arrests
B)offenders
C)households
D)types of crime

Question 34

The test-retest method is used to examine _____.

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

Question 35

When including an item on a questionnaire that asks about marijuana use in the following way: never used, used 1 - 5 times, used 6 - 10 times, used more than ten times, this would be an example of what type of variable?

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

Question 36

Which of the following are referred to as a summary based measure of crime?

A)UCR
B)NCVS
C)NIBRS
D)ADAM

Question 37

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

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

Question 38

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 39

A _____ asks people whether or not they have been the victim of a crime.

A)self-reported survey
B)victim survey
C)computer-based survey
D)random survey

Question 40

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 41

____________________ surveys are best at measuring crimes that do not have readily identifiable victims and those that are less observed by police.

Question 42

Ask students to identify the four levels of measurement and give examples of each.

Question 43

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

Question 44

Compare and contrast UCR and NCVS with respect to the type of crime data they collect and how they collect it.Identify the strengths and weaknesses of each.

Question 45

Discuss the measures used to ensure reliability: test-retest method and interrater reliability.

Question 46

Discuss the threat to validity.Ask students to identify and discuss face, content, criterion-related, and construct.

Question 47

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

Question 48

_______________ validity refers to particular empirical measures that may or may not accurately reflect the common agreements on concepts.

Question 49

There are no nationwide efforts to ________________ collect self-report measures to all types of crimes.

Question 50

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

Question 51

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

Question 52

Using the progression of measurement steps how would you proceed in measuring "serious crime."

Question 53

____________________ is an effort to convert the UCR to a more comprehensive crime report.

Question 54

Variables whose attributes have only the characteristics of exhaustiveness and mutual exclusiveness are __________

Question 55

A definition that says exactly how a concept will be measured is ___________.