Question 1

Stopping people to answer your questionnaire as they pass you in a mall is an example of what type of sampling strategy?&#10;A) Convenience sample&#10;B) Snowball sample&#10;C) Simple random sample&#10;D) Cluster sample&#10;E) Systematic sample

Accepted Answer

Convenience sampling involves selecting participants who are readily available without any attempt to make the sample representative of a larger population. Stopping people in a mall as they pass by is a classic example of this approach, as it relies on the ease of access to participants rather than a structured sampling method.

Question 2

If you were to select a sample of college students at your university by surveying the students enrolled in your classes this semester, you would have a:&#10;A) random sample&#10;B) non-random sample

Accepted Answer

Surveying students enrolled in your classes would result in a non-random sample because it does not give every student at the university an equal chance of being selected.

Question 3

Drawing a sample of neighborhoods in a city, and selecting from this group a sample of city blocks, and then selecting every 5^th house on a block, is an example of what type of sampling strategy? A) Convenience sample B) Snowball sample C) Simple random sample D) Cluster sample E) Systematic sample

Accepted Answer

This is an example of cluster sampling, where the population is divided into clusters (neighborhoods, then blocks) and a sample is selected from these clusters.

Question 4

In your study of college students' exam-related stress you select a random sample of 400 students at your college to participate, but only 180 students respond to your internet survey. If these respondents seem motivated to respond to your survey because they experience high stress and this is a topic that is important to them, you have a problem with:

A) statistical weighting
B) response bias
C) margin of error
D) cohort effects
E) attrition

Accepted Answer

The problem described is response bias, which occurs when the individuals who choose to respond to a survey do so because of some specific characteristics, in this case, high stress levels. This can lead to unrepresentative results because the views of the respondents may not accurately reflect the views of the entire population being studied.

Question 5

In a study assessing the effects of violent films on children's empathy, the independent variable is:&#10;A) Level of film violence&#10;B) Level of empathy following the film

Accepted Answer

The independent variable is the one that is manipulated or changed by the researcher to observe its effects on another variable. In this case, the level of film violence is manipulated to assess its effects on children's empathy, making it the independent variable.

Question 6

'Finding Nemo' (an animated children's film) and a Harry Potter movie are both showing at the same time at the local theatre. You decide to conduct a study in which you measure children's levels of empathy as they leave the theatre. Which of the following best describes this research?

A) naturalistic observation
B) quasi-experimental research
C) experimental research

Accepted Answer

Quasi-experimental research is the best description because the study involves observing differences in behavior (levels of empathy) between groups (children watching different movies) without manipulating variables. Unlike true experiments, the researcher does not randomly assign participants to conditions.

Question 7

You are interested in what predicts whether adolescents will engage in illegal drug use. You select a sample of 8^th grade students and follow these same students through high school, collecting data each year. This is an example of a/n:

A) cross-sectional design
B) longitudinal design
C) one-shot design
D) repeated independent-samples design
E) naturalistic design

Accepted Answer

This study is an example of a longitudinal design because it involves following the same group of individuals (in this case, 8th grade students) over a period of time and collecting data from them at multiple points throughout that period.

Deck 2: The Who, How, and Why of Research