Deck 5: Secondary Data Analysis

Question 1

Secondary data are usually based on ______.

A) content analysis
B) interviews
C) existing statistics
D) survey research

Answer 1

survey research

Question 2

Secondary data analysis is considered research because ______.

A) you analyze the data
B) it is statistical
C) you summarize the original researcher's findings
D) you do a literature review before you start your study

Answer 2

you analyze the data

Question 3

Raw data are data that ______.

A) don't yet have any variables that have been collapsed
B) haven't been cleaned
C) Haven't been statistically calculated yet
D) didn't come from a data repository
Answer Location: Introduction

Answer 3

Haven't been statistically calculated yet

Question 4

Why is secondary data analysis good for testing theories of middle range?

A) It offers good alternatives if the hypotheses are disproven.
B) It allows you to work inductively and build theory.
C) It can be used to understand people's experiences in a deep way.
D) It usually uses large samples that are generalizable.

Question 5

Research questions for secondary data analysis are most likely to be ______.

A) descriptive
B) explanatory
C) applied
D) interpretive

Question 6

You should write your hypotheses for secondary data analysis ______.

A) before choosing a data set
B) concurrently with data analysis
C) after choosing a data set
D) when you decide how to collapse the variables

Question 7

You are interested in measuring parents' experiences with children who have mental illness. The GSS, which has data on people's attitudes generally about mental illness, is the closest data set you have found on the topic. You should ______.

A) use the GSS data
B) conduct your own survey
C) change your topic
D) use some data from the GSS and combine it with another set of data

Question 8

Which of the following questions is most appropriate for secondary data research?

A) What nonverbal behavior do people engage in while flirting?
B) How do siblings of people with cancer perceive family dynamics to have changed after the cancer diagnosis?
C) What are students' attitudes about gun control?
D) How does the domestic violence rate in your county compare to those at a national level?

Question 9

Which of the following is a problem with this research question: How much job satisfaction do workers in the service industry report having?

A) It asks about an experience that is too complex to study with surveys.
B) You are unlikely to find relevant variables in available data sets.
C) It is more appropriate for existing statistics.
D) It is a descriptive question.

Question 10

Which of the following is a problem with this research question: How do clients in Chicago homeless shelters evaluate the services provided by those shelters?

A) It asks about an experience that is too complex to study with surveys.
B) You are unlikely to find relevant variables in available data sets.
C) It is more appropriate for existing statistics.
D) It is a descriptive question.

Question 11

Which of the following is a problem with this research question: How does race affect the likelihood of having medical insurance?

A) The question is too narrow.
B) You are unlikely to find relevant variables in available data sets.
C) It is more appropriate for existing statistics.
D) It is a descriptive question.

Question 12

How do economic downturns affect rates of suicide? Which of the following is a problem with this research question?

A) The question is too narrow.
B) You are unlikely to find relevant variables in available data sets.
C) It is more appropriate for existing statistics.
D) It is a descriptive question.

Question 13

You are using a secondary data set from the Pew Center to understand people's attitudes about abortion. Which of the following is true about your approval from the IRB?

A) You need approval for secondary data analysis research because you will be getting the raw data.
B) You do not need to get IRB approval because the original researchers already did that.
C) You will need to get informed consent again from everyone who participated to use their data.
D) Your IRB application will take extra long because you will need approval from both the IRB used by the original researchers and the one at your university.

Question 14

You are using a secondary data set about addiction. Your primary responsibility to protect the research participants is to ______.

A) have them sign informed consent statements
B) report only in the aggregate
C) delete their names from the files
D) find out their names and e-mail addresses to make sure the data originally collected were correct

Question 15

If you wish to do applied research, you should ______.

A) conduct your own survey
B) find a data set that has most or all of your variables
C) recode variables to make the data you choose work better for your research
D) analyze the data using crosstabs rather than frequencies

Question 16

You want to study voting behaviors among millennials. Specifically, you are interested in how the 2016 presidential election affected the likelihood that they will vote in future elections. Which of the following is a necessary criterion for choosing to use this data set?

A) The sample contains voters born between the 1940s and early 2000s.
B) It contains variables including candidate voted for in 2016 national election, reaction to 2016 national election results, and belief that their vote matters.
C) The variables on race, political ideology, education, and age have already been collapsed for you.
D) The data repository contains multiple surveys that each have different variables you can use.

Question 17

You would like to study how demographic characteristics affect likelihood of owning a home. You find data sets at both nationwide data and community data. You should ______.

A) use both sets to get the exact information you are looking for
B) conduct your own survey
C) change your topic
D) choose only one of the data sets to use

Question 18

You are interested in doing a study regarding views on immigration. Specifically, you would like to know how a person's income level affects the likelihood that they support open immigration into the United States. Which of the following is a necessary criterion for choosing a data set?

A) The sample is of people in the upper and upper-middle class.
B) It contains variables including support for a range of different immigration laws.
C) The variables race, social class, education, and age have already been collapsed for you.
D) The data repository contains multiple surveys that each have different variables you can use.

Question 19

Recoding a variable is part of the process of ______ in secondary data analysis.

A) sampling
B) operationalizing
C) increasing reliability
D) data collection

Question 20

Which of the following is an example of collapsing a variable?

A) reassigning an answer to a different response category by hand
B) you decide to put those who said their race was "the human race" as missing values
C) you put someone who says they are "Polish" into the "White" category
D) you collapse six categories of race into two: Whites and people of color

Question 21

You can recode a variable to change it from the ______ to the ______ level of measurement.

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

Question 22

For secondary data analysis, your research should be judged primarily on ______.

A) how well the variables in your hypotheses fit the variables that were actually measured
B) how well you critique the data collection of the original researchers
C) whether your chosen data set has tests of reliability for the survey items
D) how much you agreed with the original sampling

Question 23

For secondary data analysis, you have some control over its ______ but not over its ______.

A) reliability; validity
B) dependability; validity
C) reliability; generalizability
D) validity; reliability

Question 24

What are the advantages and disadvantages of doing secondary data analysis over survey research?

Question 25

Write a research question appropriate for secondary data analysis related to teen pregnancy.

Question 26

Based on your research question, describe a variable you would be looking for in choosing a secondary data set, and describe how it would ideally be operationalized.

Question 27

Where would you search data sets to use for this research?

Question 28

Write a research question appropriate for secondary data analysis related to attitudes toward military spending.

Question 29

Based on your research question, describe a variable you would be looking for in choosing a secondary data set, and describe how it would ideally be operationalized.

Question 30

Where would you search data sets to use for this research?

Question 31

Write a research question appropriate for secondary data analysis related to job satisfaction.

Question 32

Based on your research question, describe a variable you would be looking for in choosing a secondary data set, and describe how it would ideally be operationalized.

Question 33

Where would you search data sets to use for this research?

Question 34

Write a research question appropriate for secondary data analysis about attitudes toward social media.

Question 35

Based on your research question, describe a variable you would be looking for in choosing a secondary data set, and describe how it would ideally be operationalized.

Question 36

Where would you search data sets to use for this research?

Question 37

What do you have to do to protect your research participants if you are using secondary data?

Question 38

Explain when you should use secondary data and when you should conduct your own survey.

Question 39

What does it mean to recode a variable? What are the three ways you might do that?

Question 40

Why will you likely have to recode in secondary data analysis?

Question 41

Give your own example of how you might recode a variable for secondary data analysis.

Question 42

What is the difference between collapsing variables and reassigning an answer to a different response category?

Question 43

Why is it important to make sure that the same participants answered the survey items for each of the variables in a hypothesis?