Deck 10: Data Collection and Basic Descriptive Statistics

Question 1

Interviewer misunderstanding would be considered:

A) population misrepresentation.
B) unintentional fieldworker error.
C) intentional fieldworker error.
D) unintentional respondent error.
E) intentional respondent error.

Answer 1

B

Question 2

Hiring a reputable data collection company that has excellent training, good supervision, and built-in validation techniques is a good way to reduce what type of error?

A) respondent
B) fieldworker
C) bogus responses
D) misrepresentation
E) nonresponse

Answer 2

B

Question 3

Interviewers deliberately submitting bogus questionnaires may actually be encouraged by a compensation system that:

A) pays interviewers per completed interview.
B) pays interviewers more than the competitive rate.
C) pays interviewers by the hour.
D) pays interviewers the competitive rate.
E) pays interviewers above minimum wage.

Answer 3

A

Question 4

According to your text, refusal rates for telephone surveys are estimated to be as high as:

A) 83%
B) 75%
C) 50%
D) 33%
E) 25%

Question 5

Good question design and adequate pretesting are just a few ways to reduce _____________ errors.

A) unintentional fieldworker
B) intentional fieldworker
C) unintentional respondent
D) intentional respondent
E) all

Question 6

When the concern around multiple submissions and bogus respondents and responses is high, researchers turn to using:

A) traditional paper and pencil surveys.
B) personal interviews.
C) online panels.
D) electronic blocking.
E) third-person techniques.

Question 7

A variety of nonsampling error occurs during data collection. These data collection errors may be divided into:

A) fieldworker errors and respondent errors
B) data-in error; data-out error
C) intentional and fieldworker
D) unintentional and respondent error
E) directional and nondirectional nonsampling errors

Question 8

Nonsampling error includes all of the following except:

A) intentional fieldworker error
B) intentional respondent error
C) unintentional fieldworker error
D) unintentional respondent error
E) low sample size error

Question 9

Requesting an email address as part of the submission process for an online survey will help reduce what type of error?

A) respondent
B) fieldworker
C) item omission
D) bogus responses
E) multiple submissions

Question 10

When respondents log into an online questionnaire and pretend to be someone else responding as this fictitious respondent would; this is called:

A) bogus respondents
B) multiple submissions
C) fieldworkers become fatigued
D) intentional fieldworker error
E) misrepresentation

Question 11

One decision rule used in the research industry relating to how to define a "completed survey" is to define it as one in which all the:

A) primary questions have been answered.
B) primary and secondary questions have been answered.
C) primary, secondary, and tertiary questions have been answered.
D) questions have been answered.
E) classification questions have been answered.

Question 12

As stated in your text, some believe that nonresponse is a problem because:

A) companies now have to increase monetary incentives.
B) it is caused by fears of invasion of privacy, skepticism on the benefits of participating in research, and the use of research as a guise for telemarketing.
C) with it calculating sample size is a complete waste of time.
D) the alternative is to conduct experimentation.
E) actually, response rates are increasing dramatically due to the increase in interviewer skills.

Question 13

A respondent reaches a certain point in the interview, and then decides not to answer any more questions. This is known as:

A) quitting.
B) nonresponse.
C) item omission.
D) a break-off.
E) a failure to communicate.

Question 14

What are the types of nonresponse errors?

A) refusal, break-off, and hang-up
B) hang-up, refusal, and item omission
C) refusal, break-off, and item omission
D) hang-up, attention loss, and call back
E) hang-ups, attention loss, and misunderstanding

Question 15

Which of the following has been labelled the marketing research industry's biggest problem?

A) sampling error
B) respondent error
C) nonresponse error
D) item omissions
E) population misrepresentation

Question 16

Which of the following data collection errors is not unique to online surveys?

A) multiple submission
B) nonresponse
C) bogus respondent
D) bogus response
E) misrepresentation of the population

Question 17

Which of the following is NOT an unintentional respondent error?

A) misunderstanding
B) confused
C) attention loss
D) nonresponse
E) distractions

Question 18

Which of the following is a type of intentional fieldworker error?

A) input error
B) fatigue
C) nonresponse
D) falsifying responses
E) misunderstandings

Question 19

Some tactics have been found to reduce the rate of refusal to participate in the survey. Which of the tactics listed below was NOT discussed in your textbook as such a tactic?

A) offering to call back
B) identifying the research company
C) coercion
D) shortening the length of the interview
E) emphasizing that it is in fact research and not a sales ploy

Question 20

Population misrepresentation is likely to be low when conducting online surveys with which target market?

A) Generation Y
B) Elderly citizens
C) Technophobics
D) People in remote areas
E) Low-income families

Question 21

What is the process of describing a data set by computing a small number of measures that characterize the data set in ways that are meaningful to the client?

A) data description
B) data summarization
C) data demagnification
D) data characterization
E) data analysis

Question 22

Assume a college professor wanted to know if the number of hours studied by her students was related to students' test scores. She would use:

A) descriptive analysis
B) interpolation
C) relationship analysis
D) standard deviation analysis
E) population determination analysis

Question 23

Which of the following identifies the variable names and code numbers associated with each possible response to each question that makes up the data set?

A) data code book
B) data variables identification book
C) survey ID book
D) respondent data book
E) project master file

Question 24

Which of the following would NOT be a part of a completed data worksheet in XL Data Analyst?

A) variables
B) variable labels
C) variable descriptions
D) respondents
E) data set

Question 25

Rachel Marsh was responsible for conducting a survey of her college to determine what extent the students were in favour of a number of changes the college administration was considering. She would need to collect four hundred completed interviews in a five-day period, and the administration had given her a budget of $2,000.00 to collect the information. Rachel put posters up around the campus asking for students who wanted to earn extra cash by interviewing other students on campus. At the meeting of the volunteers, Rachel offers to pay them $8.00 an hour and told them they should complete at least three interviews for each hour they worked. Rachel's decision to pay the interviewers this way will:

A) help ensure there are no misunderstandings among the fieldworkers collecting the information.
B) help ensure that there is a minimum amount of fatigue among the fieldworkers collecting the information.
C) help ensure that her fieldworkers do not falsify their work.
D) help ensure that leading respondents will be held at a minimum because she is giving the fieldworkers ample time to conduct the interviews.
E) help control intentional respondent errors.

Question 26

"The average respondent's age is 44" is an example of which function of data analysis?

A) differentiation
B) communication
C) generalization
D) summarization
E) reflection

Question 27

After the surveys have been finished:

A) data entry follows.
B) questionnaires are scrutinized and completed ones are identified.
C) they should be sent for data entry.
D) they should be shown to the client to verify that they were completed.
E) all respondents should be recalled by a supervisor to ensure that they were actually interviewed.

Question 28

The statistical software that is used with your textbook is called:

A) Websurveyor.
B) MICROStats.
C) SPSS.
D) XL Data Analyst.
E) Excel Data Analyst.

Question 29

Which research objective is being fulfilled by means of a researcher conducting hypotheses tests and/or computing confidence intervals?

A) description
B) generalization
C) determination
D) differences
E) relationships

Question 30

Which one of the following is NOT one of the four functions of data analysis discussed in the textbook?

A) summarizes the data
B) compares for meaningful differences
C) relates underlying patterns
D) generalizes sample findings to the population
E) regresses data into facts

Question 31

Which type of statistical analysis would we use to determine if the College of Business graduates' average starting salary was statistically different from their counterparts in Business University?

A) differences analysis
B) descriptive analysis
C) inferential analysis
D) relationship analysis
E) determination analysis

Question 32

Which of the following best describes data coding?

A) the creation of a computer file that holds the raw data taken from all of the questionnaires deemed suitable for analysis
B) identification of computer code values that pertain to the possible responses for each question on the questionnaire
C) identification of all the variable names and code numbers associated with each possible response to each question making up the dataset
D) raw data arranged in columns representing answers to various questions and in rows representing each respondent or case
E) using codes to represent responses of respondents who have been promised anonymity

Question 33

Which type of statistical analysis is used to summarize the sample data with measures of central tendency and dispersion?

A) averages and trends
B) descriptive analysis
C) inferential analysis
D) differences analysis
E) relationship analysis

Question 34

What are the forms of data analyses that may be used if the research objective were relationships?

A) correlation, confidence intervals, and regression
B) cross-tabulation, correlation, and regression
C) hypothesis tests and confidence intervals
D) confidence intervals, cross-tabulation, and correlation
E) cross-tabulation, correlation, and recession

Question 35

Which term refers to any statistical measure used that somehow reflects a typical or frequent response?

A) averages and trends
B) frequency distribution
C) central variation
D) central tendency
E) typical matrix

Question 36

Which of the following is the term used to refer to the creation of a computer file that holds the raw data taken from all of the completed questionnaires?

A) data entry
B) data coding
C) data analysis
D) data changes
E) data code book

Question 37

If two values are tied for the value that occurs most often in a data set, the distribution is said to be:

A) deuced
B) modal
C) bimodal
D) normal
E) trimodal

Question 38

Which of the following best describes a data set?

A) the creation of a computer file that holds the raw data taken from all of the questionnaires deemed suitable for analysis
B) identification of codes that pertain to the possible responses for each question on the questionnaire
C) identification of all the variable names and code numbers associated with each possible response to each question making up the dataset
D) matrix of numbers and other codes that includes all the relevant answers for all respondents in a survey
E) data arranged such that variables are entered horizontally and each respondent's response is on the diagonal

Question 39

In the following data set, what is the mode? ( 12, 0, 0, 1, 1, 1, 6, 10, 11 )

A) 4.66
B) 1
C) 42
D) 6
E) 1 and 0

Question 40

Which of the following best describes data entry?

A) identification of codes that pertain to the possible responses for each question on the questionnaire
B) identification of all the variable names and code numbers associated with each possible response to each question making up the dataset
C) raw data arranged in columns representing answers to various questions and in rows representing each respondent or case
D) the creation of a computer file that holds the raw data taken from all of the completed questionnaires
E) a process of importing data from other stat packages that are Intel-compatible into XL Data Analyst

Question 41

In the following data set, what is the mean? ( 12, 0, 0, 1, 1, 1, 6, 10, 11 )

A) 4.66
B) 1
C) 42
D) 6
E) 1 and 0

Question 42

For purposes of comparison, we can convert the frequency distribution by dividing the frequency of each value by the total number of observations, which results in a:

A) comparative distribution
B) variable distribution
C) count distribution
D) percentage distribution
E) standard distribution

Question 43

Nonsampling errors stem from either fieldworker errors or respondent errors.

Question 44

Respondents can misunderstand, guess, lose attention, suffer distractions, and suffer respondent fatigue. These are all examples of unintentional respondent error and they all contribute to nonsampling error.

Question 45

Which is the best description of a frequency distribution?

A) the number of times a respondent answers each survey question
B) depiction of the accumulative variance in a dataset
C) the number of frequencies that normal distributions appear in a dataset
D) the summary of the number of times each and every category appears for the entire sample
E) depiction of the analysis that shows the value that occurs most often

Question 46

Supervision and validation are ways the marketing research industry controls fieldworker errors.

Question 47

One of the advantages of the standard deviation is that it is a measure of variation that is also:

A) Measure of variability that uses a normal or bell-shaped curve interpretation
B) calculated as part of the frequency distribution
C) included in the range
D) applicable when calculating the mode and median
E) easily calculated when preparing a percentage frequency distribution

Question 48

If the concern around multiple submissions error and bogus response error is great, researchers turn to electronic blocking.

Question 49

Laura Strubel is reviewing some data from a marketing research report she obtained that shows the age of persons who frequently purchase her company's product, Strubel's Gourmet Seafood frozen dinners. Laura is considering buying radio time for a new ad campaign, and knowing the age of the target market would be very helpful to her in selecting which stations should run the ads. Laura sees that the mean age of frequent buyers is 45 with a standard deviation of 12. She correctly interprets this to mean that 68 percent of her target market fall between the ages of:

A) 39 to 51
B) 45 to 68
C) 33 to 57
D) 33 to 56
E) 45 to 57

Question 50

To ensure that their client managers understand the analysis terminology, ethical research companies use all of the following except:

A) handbooks or glossaries defining marketing research terms
B) appendices in reports that illustrate analysis concepts
C) definitions of analysis terms embedded in reports
D) footnotes or annotations with tables and figures that explain the analysis concepts used
E) substitution of terms with those used by the client so that they feel comfortable with the level of language used

Question 51

We can predetermine the level of sampling error, and we can predetermine the amount of nonsampling error we will have.

Question 52

Nonsampling error is defined as all errors in a survey except those attributable to the sample size.

Question 53

Measures of variability are concerned with:

A) central tendency.
B) the degree to which respondents are "typical."
C) depicting "typical" frequencies among the values in a set.
D) depicting the similarities between one data set and another.
E) the degree to which respondents are "atypical."

Question 54

If a categorical question was being summarized, which analyses would be appropriate?

A) mode and mean
B) mode and range
C) mean and frequency distribution
D) mean and standard deviation
E) mode and frequency or percentage distribution

Question 55

The ________ identifies the distance between the lowest value (minimum) and the highest value (maximum) in an ordered set of values.

A) deviation
B) mode
C) frequency
D) distribution
E) range

Question 56

False answers and nonresponse are two unintentional respondent errors.

Question 57

In the formula for calculating the standard deviation, the differences between each observation and the mean is squared. If we did not square these differences, the standard deviation would:

A) be too small to be of any usefulness
B) close to zero
C) not be normally distributed
D) not be interpreted by z values
E) statistically insignificant

Question 58

When we square the standard deviation, the result is known as the:

A) square of the standard deviation
B) root of the standard deviation
C) variance
D) frequency distribution
E) standard squared deviation

Question 59

Assuring anonymity is one way to minimize intentional respondent error on surveys.

Question 60

According to your textbook, what would the next step be as outlined by the Six-Step Approach to Data Analysis once the questionnaire question that is involved in the analysis is selected?

A) Ask "what is the research objective?"
B) Ask "how do you interpret the findings?"
C) Ask "how do you write/present these findings?"
D) Ask "what is the appropriate analysis?"
E) Ask "how do you run it?"

Question 61

The book that contains a list of all the variable names and the code numbers associated with each possible response to each question is called the "data set."

Question 62

Research must adopt a decision rule for determining how many and which item omissions invalidate a survey or a particular question.

Question 63

Refusal to participate may be due to something as simple as the potential respondent is too busy.

Question 64

"A total of 74% of the respondents used a credit card in the past month," can be described as a descriptive measure of central tendency for metric data.

Question 65

In the case of web-based surveys, the code book is vital as it is the researcher's only map to decipher the numbers found in the data file and to match them to the answers to the questions on the questionnaire.

Question 66

A good definition for a completed interview is one that has all primary questions were answered.

Question 67

A research study determined that a company's expenditure in training was related to sales force performance. This is an example of relationship analysis.

Question 68

Nonresponse is composed of refusal and item omission; break-offs are a separate issue.

Question 69

Data entry refers to the creation of a computer file that holds the raw data taken from all the completed questionnaires.

Question 70

When a researcher identifies a categorical variable and compares the groups represented by that variable by analyzing their differences with the second variable, it is referred to as bimodal analysis.

Question 71

An item omission refers to the failure to include an important question on a survey questionnaire which may seriously threaten the achievement of the research objectives.

Question 72

Data entry requires the researcher to first undertake an operation called data coding.

Question 73

Regression analysis is the most complex and provides the greatest value to the client.

Question 74

The complementary processes of data coding and data entry result in data analysis.

Question 75

The level of measurement dictates the proper data analysis.

Question 76

A completed interview is always defined as an interview in which 100 percent of the questions have been answered.

Question 77

Nonresponse has been labeled the marketing research industry's biggest problem.

Question 78

In most data analysis situations with in XL Data Analyst, the code book information will be input to the data file so that analysis program can access it and apply it to whatever analysis is being performed.

Question 79

Multiple submissions is the only data collection error that is not unique to online surveys.

Question 80

Some industry observers believe that nonresponse is caused by fears of invasion of privacy, skepticism of consumers regarding the benefits of participating in research, and the use of research as a guise for telemarketing.