Deck 14: Rigour in Research

Question 1

Under what condition should a Kuder-Richardson (KR-20)coefficient be used to establish the internal consistency of an instrument?

A) When questions are open-ended
B) When questions or statements require a yes or no response
C) When the instrument uses a Likert-type response scale
D) When the instrument is designed to measure more than one concept

Answer 1

When questions or statements require a yes or no response

Question 2

A researcher developed an instrument to measure self-esteem and administered it to a group of individuals who were intravenous substance abusers and to a group of people who were not,expecting to see significant differences in scores between the two groups.How should this method of establishing construct validity be categorized?

A) Factor analysis
B) Convergent validity
C) Discriminant validity
D) Contrasted-groups approach

Answer 2

Contrasted-groups approach

Question 3

Which of the following characteristics describes an instrument that is administered repeatedly and obtains the same results?

A) Validity
B) Reliability
C) Consistency
D) Predictability

Answer 3

Reliability

Question 4

Which of the following terms is applied to variability in test scores being attributed to error rather than to actual differences in behaviour?

A) Random error
B) Variance error
C) Persistent error
D) Systematic error

Question 5

The interrater reliability of a new instrument is established as 48%.What is the correct interpretation of this finding?

A) The instrument is not equivalent.
B) The instrument demonstrates homogeneity.
C) The scoring criteria require clarification.
D) The scoring criteria are clear and unambiguous.

Question 6

Under what condition should Cronbach's alpha coefficient be used to establish the internal consistency of an instrument?

A) When questions are open-ended
B) When questions or statements require a yes or no response
C) When the instrument uses a Likert-type response scale
D) When the instrument is designed to measure more than one concept

Question 7

Why should the validity and reliability of study instruments be assessed while critiquing research reports?

A) To determine the utility of the instruments for triangulation
B) To assess the relationships between hypotheses and research questions
C) To determine whether concepts and variables were measured adequately
D) To assess whether the concept under study is being treated as a dependent variable or an independent variable

Question 8

Which of the following types of validity is the most difficult to establish?

A) Content validity
B) Construct validity
C) Predictive validity
D) Concurrent validity

Question 9

The validity of a new instrument developed to measure peripheral neuropathy has been determined to be very high.What does this attribute mean?

A) It is sensitive but not specific.
B) Its use results in minimal random errors.
C) It accurately measures peripheral neuropathy.
D) Determination of interrater reliability is unnecessary.

Question 10

A nurse investigator administers an Alcoholic Health Risk Appraisal instrument to subjects attending an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting and to subjects who belong to a religious sect known for its members' abstinence from alcohol.Which type of validity is this investigator attempting to establish?

A) Expert
B) Predictive
C) Convergent
D) Contrasted-groups

Question 11

What is being established when a researcher submits a few items to each of several concepts on an instrument? For example,a questionnaire on measuring depression has items on emotional and physical abuse.

A) Content validity
B) Construct validity
C) Concurrent validity
D) Criterion-related validity

Question 12

What type of validity is demonstrated in measuring the cognitive knowledge of wound care by (1)administering a test in which all the items relate to wound care and (2)evaluating students' performance in caring for patients with wounds in the clinical setting?

A) Face validity
B) Content validity
C) Construct validity
D) Criterion-related validity

Question 13

A researcher who is developing a new instrument to measure pain has been told by experts and patients that the instrument has face validity.What should be the researcher's next step?

A) Commence use of the instrument in any appropriate study.
B) Use the instrument in a pilot study.
C) Assess the reliability of the instrument.
D) Assess the content validity of the instrument.

Question 14

The dimensions or components of a particular construct are determined by using a statistical technique to assess the degree to which the individual items on a scale truly cluster around one or more dimensions.Which of the following is the term used for this description?

A) Factor analysis
B) Split-half reliability
C) Cronbach's alpha coefficient
D) Kuder-Richardson coefficient

Question 15

A researcher developed a fatigue scale in an attempt to distinguish depression from fatigue in patients receiving radiation therapy for cancer.The researcher administered the new fatigue scale along with established instruments that measure depression.The fatigue scores were found to be negatively related to the indicators of depression.How should this information be interpreted?

A) Divergent validity present; construct validity supported
B) Divergent validity present; construct validity unsupported
C) Convergent validity present; construct validity supported
D) Convergent validity present; construct validity unsupported

Question 16

Testing of a new instrument demonstrates that it has a high degree of internal consistency.What does this mean?

A) The instrument is appropriate to measure a single concept.
B) The instrument has low measurement error and high error variance.
C) More refinement of the instrument is needed before it can be applied.
D) The instrument is valid, but the reliability has yet to be determined.

Question 17

The reliability coefficient of a new instrument designed to measure anxiety is established at 0.86.What is the correct interpretation of this finding?

A) High error variance; high reliability
B) High error variance; low reliability
C) Low error variance; high reliability
D) Low error variance; low reliability

Question 18

What is the method or format of Cronbach's alpha coefficient as a test for reliability?

A) Comparison of each item in the scale simultaneously with each other item
B) Determination of the correlation between the odd-numbered and even-numbered items of an instrument
C) Determination of a correlation based on the consistency of responses to all items of a single-test form
D) Demonstration of a high degree of agreement when the behaviour or change is observed by two or more observers

Question 19

What does concurrent validity refer to?

A) The degree of correlation between the measure of the concept and some future measure of the same concept
B) The degree of correlation between two measures of the same concept administered at the same time
C) The extent to which a test measures a theoretical construct or trait
D) The representativeness of items to measure a specific concept

Question 20

By using the item-to-total correlation in testing an instrument that consisted of 25 items for homogeneity,8 items were found to have a low correlation to the total.How should the researcher use this information?

A) Use the instrument without changes.
B) Only use the instrument with a multitrait-multimethod approach.
C) Retain the 8 items with low correlation and delete the other 17 items.
D) Delete the 8 items with low correlation and retain the other 17 items.