Deck 10: Appraising Qualitative Designs and Approaches

Question 1

Sampling may be defined as which of the following?

A) Selection of an accessible population for a study
B) Selection of a subset of a population to represent the entire population
C) Assignment of study participants to treatment groups
D) Technique for ensuring that every element in the population has an equal chance of being included in the study

Answer 1

Selection of a subset of a population to represent the entire population

Question 2

Bias in a sample for a quantitative study refers to which of the following?

A) Lack of heterogeneity in the population on the attribute of interest
B) Sample selection using nonprobability-type sampling methods
C) The margin of error in the data obtained from samples
D) Systematic over- or underrepresentation of a key attribute vis-a-vis the population

Answer 2

Systematic over- or underrepresentation of a key attribute vis-a-vis the population

Question 3

Strata are incorporated into the design of which of the following sampling approaches?

A) Systematic
B) Purposive
C) Quota
D) Consecutive

Answer 3

Quota

Question 4

The sampling design that would be especially likely to yield a representative sample is which of the following?

A) Consecutive
B) Convenience
C) Purposive
D) Quota

Question 5

Which of the following is the most widely used data collection method by nurse researchers?

A) Records
B) Self-reports
C) Observation
D) Biophysiologic measures

Question 6

A major advantage of closed-ended questions is that they do which of the following?

A) Are easy to construct
B) Are analyzed in a straightforward manner
C) Encourage in-depth responses
D) Are not subject to response biases

Question 7

Interviews are usually preferable to questionnaires because of which of the following?

A) They are less expensive
B) They yield data that are easier to analyze
C) The quality of the data tends to be higher
D) They require less training of research personnel

Question 8

Questionnaires have the advantage of which of the following?

A) Offering the possibility of anonymity
B) Having high response rates
C) Reducing the possibility of response set biases
D) Being suitable for all types of study participants

Question 9

On a five-point Likert scale, a person who strongly agreed with a statement would be scored as which of the following?

A) 1
B) 3
C) 5
D) Cannot be determined

Question 10

On a 20-item Likert scale with five response categories, the range of possible scores is which of the following?

A) 0 to 100
B) 20 to 80
C) 20 to 100
D) 0 to 50

Question 11

A self-report method used to measure subjective experiences such as pain and fatigue is which of the following?

A) Observation
B) In vivo measurements
C) Visual analog scales
D) Likert scales

Question 12

The social desirability response set bias is least likely to be a problem on scales incorporated into which of the following?

A) Mailed anonymous questionnaires
B) Face-to-face interviews
C) Telephone interviews
D) All options are equally susceptible

Question 13

A person who marked "strongly agree" to all or most items on a Likert scale would best be described as which of the following?

A) Socially desirable respondent
B) Biased participant
C) Nay-sayer
D) Yea-sayer

Question 14

When an observer is not concealed, the findings may be biased because of which of the following?

A) Reactivity
B) Ethical problems
C) Lack of mobility
D) Acquiescence response set bias

Question 15

Which of the following are advantages of using biophysiologic measures in nursing studies? Select all that apply.

A) They are relatively accurate and precise
B) They effectively measure subjective experiences such as pain and fatigue
C) They are objective, requiring minimal inference
D) They are typically cost effective because they are available for clinical purposes

Question 16

Which of the following statements describes a population?

A) All traumatic brain injury clients hospitalized in an intensive care unit during January 2012
B) Four hundred nurses selected from a membership list of American Nurses' Association (ANA) members
C) Selected members of families of clients undergoing surgery
D) A sample of clients diagnosed with COPD and who currently smoke

Question 17

Which procedure describes a probability sampling method?

A) Identification of community organizations and churches in an urban setting and recruiting participants
B) Identification of individuals demonstrating the variable(s) of interest to the researcher and recruiting participants
C) Identification of the accessible population and selecting study participants based upon the researcher's belief that the participant is representative of the accessible population
D) Identification of a sampling frame for an accessible population, writing element names on paper, placing the written names in a bowl, and drawing a select number of names from the bowl

Question 18

Which statement regarding sampling error and sampling bias is accurate?

A) Sampling bias may be defined as the difference between data obtained from a simple random sample and the data that would be obtained if an entire population were measured.
B) Sampling bias occurs by chance.
C) Sampling error and sampling bias are synonymous.
D) Sampling error may be contained in sample data even when the most careful random sampling procedure has been used to obtain the sample.

Question 19

Which group represents a convenience sample?

A) The patients with a diagnosis of URI seen in the clinic on one afternoon in February
B) One hundred male BSN nurses recruited by the original study subjects who are currently in leadership roles
C) Middle-class Caucasian females chosen as representatives of the accessible population
D) Twenty male subjects and twenty female subjects chosen for a study on gender differences

Question 20

Which sampling method would be most practical and provide the most reliable data to study the medication errors by registered nurses who work in city, county, and federal prisons?

A) Purposive sampling
B) Stratified random sampling
C) Quota sampling
D) Simple random sampling

Question 21

If a target population contains 10,600 elements and the researcher seeks a systematic random sample of 50, the sampling interval would be which of the following?

A) 116
B) 600
C) 212
D) 53

Question 22

When is a small sample size appropriate for a research study?

A) Many uncontrolled variables are present.
B) The population is very homogenous.
C) Large differences are expected in members of the population on the variable of interest.
D) The population must be divided into subgroups.

Question 23

A survey question asks subjects to respond to the following statement: "The overall hospital experience that I received during my hospital stay considered my needs as an individual." They were asked to identify, on a five-point scale, the degree to which they agreed or disagreed with the statement. This is an example of which scale?

A) Social scale
B) Likert scale
C) Visual analog scale
D) Differential scale

Question 24

The nurse researcher is conducting a study on a nonpharmacologic nursing intervention for the treatment of pain. Which data collection instrument would provide the most sensitive measurement of pain?

A) Differential scale
B) Physiologic measures
C) Likert scale
D) Visual analog scale

Question 25

Which of the following is an advantage of observation as a method of data collection in a study?

A) Subjects may be anxious because they are being observed.
B) Respondents can remain anonymous.
C) It is less time consuming than a questionnaire.
D) It directly captures an event and behaviors.

Question 26

Which of the following are advantages to biophysiologic measures?

A) Biophysiologic measurements are subjective and accurate.
B) Patients cannot distort the measurements and have objective measures.
C) Biophysiologic measurements are self-reported.
D) Biophysiologic measurements effectively indicate pain levels.