Deck 10: Survey Research

Question 1

The following survey question is flawed. What is the MAJOR weakness of this item? "How old were you the first time you went to a grocery store?" 1. Under 6 months old
2) 6 months to 12 months old
3) 13 months to 24 months old
4) 25 months to 3 years old
5) More than 3 years old

A) It has jargon.
B) It is too long.
C) Issues beyond respondent's ability to recall.
D) It is double-barreled.

Answer 1

C

Question 2

What is your religious affiliation? Christian Jewish
Catholic Muslim
Baptist Other

A) false premise
B) NOT mutually exclusive
C) NOT exhaustive
D) double-barreled

Answer 2

B

Question 3

What is the following type of question? "Do you have an opinion about the recent events in Egypt? [TO INTERVIEWER: IF NO, SKIP TO NEXT QUESTION. IF YES, CONTINUE.] Please tell me if you Agree, Disagree, or Have No Opinion regarding the statement: The Egyptian government should give in to the demands of people staging mass demonstrations in the streets."

A) a quasi-filter question
B) an open-ended question
C) a partially open question
D) a full-filter question

Answer 3

D

Question 4

What is the following type of question called? "Please tell me if you Agree, Disagree, or Have No Opinion regarding the statement: The law should change the age at which a person can legally purchase alcohol, raising it to 25."

A) a partially open question
B) a full-filter question
C) a quasi-filter question
D) an open-ended question

Question 5

Which of the following is a principle of good question writing?

A) Use ambiguity to encourage participants to say what is on their mind.
B) Avoid jargon so that participants understand the question.
C) Incorporate unrelated questions to check for participant honesty.
D) Use emotional language to engage respondents.

Question 6

When is it most appropriate to use an "open-ended" question?

A) when statistical analysis is paramount to your analysis
B) when one wants to limit the number of response categories to a question
C) when doing exploratory research or starting a new research area
D) when there are really only a few simple choices for your questions

Question 7

Survey research and survey results

A) require a random sample, pilot tests, and great care in question writing to yield high quality information.
B) are sometimes misused to advance a point of view or mislead the public.
C) greatly expanded during World War II when the governments wanted to know what citizens thought about the war and plan the economy.
D) all of the above.

Question 8

Dr. Thomas studies racial attitudes. She has two sets of questions on a questionaire. One set asks white people about black people, and the other asks black people about white people. Each set of questions is dependent on one's answer to the question, "What is your race?" Dr. Thomas is using a to determine which set of questions to ask respondents.

A) sign-post question
B) contingency question
C) double-barreled question
D) forced-choice question

Question 9

What is a "probe" in survey research?

A) a sequence of questions starting with general ones and ending with specific ones
B) the name for the middle or neutral choice among the answers to an attitude question
C) a follow-up question asked by an interviewer to have a respondent clarify or elaborate on an answer
D) a question designed to measure the honesty of the respondent

Question 10

You come across an old question in a survey with the following item. What is the MAJOR weakness with this item? "The Soviets cheated on every agreement to freeze nuclear weapons development since 1950. Don't you agree that the United States should give up on establishing a limitations agreement?"
1) Yes
2) Not sure
3) No

A) It is biased or leading.
B) It is double-barreled.
C) It is too long.
D) It is socially desirable.

Question 11

To reduce the misuse of survey research, the American Association for Public Opinion Research and similar organizations suggest that journalists who report on surveys include which of the following?

A) the size of the sample
B) the population which the sample represents
C) the method of sampling
D) all of the above

Question 12

It is a good idea when ordering the questions in a questionnaire to

A) incorporate irrelevant useless questions to make respondents comfortable.
B) put the most difficult questions towards the front of the questionnaire.
C) incorporate sensitive questions only after a warm-up period
D) put the more sensitive questions towards the front of the questionnaire.

Question 13

Survey respondents who are very uncertain of an answer may give the last choice offered to them. This is called

A) recency effects.
B) order effects.
C) wording effects.
D) context effects.

Question 14

Survey respondents are likely to understate their true behavior on sensitive questions. With which topic is understatement most likely to occur?

A) owning a library card
B) voting in a recent election
C) the occurrence of spousal abuse in their household
D) contributing money to a charitable organization

Question 15

What is your marital status? Married Single

A) NOT exhaustive
B) double-barreled
C) NOT mutually exclusive
D) false premise

Question 16

Four of the following survey questions contain glaring errors. Which question avoids any errors in question writing?

A) "Have you ever had angina or cardiac fibrillation?"
B) "In the last two weeks, how many alcoholic beverages have you consumed?"
C) "When did you stop exercising on a regular basis?"
D) "Do you believe in ghosts and God?"

Question 17

Dr. Hightone devised a questionnaire in which she asked, "Do you physically beat your children?" What type of problem might she encounter if she used this question?

A) It is a leading question.
B) It is a double-barreled question.
C) It has social desirability bias.
D) It is threatening.

Question 18

Asking respondents, "Do you have children who attend high school?" after they already told you that they have no children violates which of the following criteria in question construction?

A) Questions should be relevant to the respondent.
B) ?Avoid biased questions.
C) Avoid double-barreled questions.
D) All of the above are violated.

Question 19

With which behavior is a respondent most likely to overstate in a survey interview?

A) giving to a charitable organization
B) having a grocery store club card
C) the occurrence of spousal abuse in one's family

Question 20

In general, a closed-ended question

A) provides the researcher with quantitative data on respondents that is easy to analyze by using statistics.
B) provides the opportunity to explore many different avenues of a respondent's answer.
C) allows respondents to answer questions in rich detail.
D) can permit an unlimited number of possible answers.

Question 21

List seven ways to increase mail questionnaire response rates.

Question 22

Cognitive interviews are

A) interviews that ask respondents to freely think about any topic that comes to mind. This interview method is very qualitative and builds on the ideas of grounded theory.
B) a social psychological interview technique that probes into the deepest cognitive processes of the individual mind.
C) a technique used to learn about how respondents answer a questionnaire. It allows researchers to make final changes to a questionnaire, while respondents "think out loud" while they answer a questionnaire.
D) a technique, used by mostly journalists, where the interviewer leads the respondent to more sensationalized responses.

Question 23

Which of the following types of surveys permits the longest interview and the most complex questions?

A) face-to-face interviews
B) telephone interviews
C) Web surveys
D) mail questionnaires

Question 24

Compare and contrast mail and Web surveys. What are the advantages/ disadvantages of using an Web survey compared to mail survey?

Question 25

Generally, which type of survey provides the fewest questions for the respondent?

A) face-to-face interviews
B) Web surveys
C) telephone interviews
D) mail questionnaires

Question 26

Which of the following types of surveys has the highest response rate?

A) telephone interviews
B) Web surveys
C) face-to-face interviews
D) mail questionnaires

Question 27

When asking questionnaire items, a survey interviewer should

A) ask all the easy questions first, skipping questions that the respondent is slow to answer and then return to difficult questions later.
B) summarize and reword what respondent says in response to an open-ended question, so that it is a more meaningful answer.
C) react with a verbal response e.g., Yes, Oh no! That's a good answer) after the respondent answers a question to show interest.
D) ask each question for the respondent, even if it seems that the respondent has been asked about the topic already.

Question 28

Distinguish between the following types of questions: sleeper, matrix, filtered, quasi-filtered, and standard questions. Explain when a researcher would use each type.

Question 29

Which of the following types of surveys is the one to choose to determine the quickest results?

A) telephone interviews
B) mail questionnaires
C) Web surveys
D) face-to-face interviews

Question 30

Identify four of the ten principles that one should avoid when writing survey questions. Explain why each principle should be avoided.

Question 31

When using a pilot of survey questions, a researcher should

A) only use open-ended questions, never closed ended ones.
B) not listen to interviewee's tone or how they conduct themselves to avoid bias.
C) use 900 respondents at minimum.
D) get respondents who resemble the target population.

Question 32

Many social topics are considered sensitive or threatening and these topics lead to underreporting. Other topics elicit overreporting due to social desirability bias. Discuss two topics that are considered sensitive and two topics that are considered social desirable. What can researchers do to address underreporting/overreporting?

Question 33

Which of the following kinds of surveys has the lowest response rate?

A) telephone interviews
B) face-to-face interviews
C) mail questionnaires
D) Web surveys

Question 34

Survey questions are generally asked in an open-ended or closed-ended format. What are advantages and disadvantages of open-ended versus closed-ended questions?

Question 35

Five changes occurred in the 1960s and 1970s that dramatically affected survey research. Identify four of the changes, describe them, and discuss the impact upon survey research.

Question 36

List four of the six things about a person one can ask in a survey. Give an example of each that is different from the examples in the textbook or class lecture.

Question 37

When conducting a survey research interview, an interviewer should

A) speak without facial expression or change in tone of voice, like a robot, because otherwise he or she will influence the respondent.
B) allow respondents the opportunity to control the direction of the survey.
C) offer his or her own opinion first to build rapport.
D) maintain a professional but receptive demeanor when interviewing respondents.

Question 38

Which of the following surveys is considered the least inexpensive to administer to a sample?

A) face-to-face interviews
B) telephone interviews
C) mail questionnaires
D) Web surveys

Question 39

Under what conditions are the following techniques best to use: mail questionnaires, telephone interviews, face-to-face interviews, and Web surveys?

Question 40

A basic tenet of survey development is to minimize the discomfort and confusion of answering a questionnaire. How should a researcher organize questions in a questionnaire? Refer to order effects, a funnel sequence, context effects, and the recency effect in your answer.

Question 41

The following survey questions have problems and need to be fixed. Rewrite each question to follow the principles of survey question development, and explain why each question needs to be fixed.
"When was the last time you smoked a blunt?"
"99/100 scientists believe that global warming is a major issue facing our country. Do you believe that global warming will have an impact on the U.S.?"
"Do you agree with individuals who do not believe in UFOs?" "When was the last time you masturbated?
"How many times did you cheat in high school?"