Deck 10: Data Collection and Preparation

Question 1

To the extent possible, interviewers should be selected to emphasize a higher income class than respondents, since this increases the probability of a successful interview.

Answer 1

False

Question 2

Sampling control helps respondents focus on the specific content of the interview and provide only relevant information.

Answer 2

False

Question 3

All fieldwork involves the selection, training, and supervision of persons who collect data.

Answer 3

True

Question 4

According to the text, the typical interviewer is a single woman aged 18 to 34, with an above-average education and an above-average household income.

Question 5

Field workers who collect data typically have research backgrounds and extensive training.

Question 6

Interviewers should record responses after the interview.

Question 7

Researchers have one choice for collecting their data: hire a data collection agency.

Question 8

The general rule for recording answers to unstructured questions is to record the responses verbatim.

Question 9

The first step in the fieldwork process is the selection of field workers.

Question 10

Validating the interview is recognized as a phase of the interviewing process.

Question 11

An observer counting customers in a particular section of a store is an example of a field worker.

Question 12

A motivational technique used when asking survey questions to induce the respondents to enlarge on, clarify, or explain their answers and to help the respondents focus on the specific content of the interview is called probing.

Question 13

Fieldwork is the fifth step in the marketing research process.

Question 14

Field workers are generally paid an hourly rate or on a per-interview basis.

Question 15

According to the text, fieldwork is the first step in the marketing research process.

Question 16

Supervision of field workers involves coding of questionnaires.

Question 17

All interviewers should use the same format and conventions to record the interviews, but should alter their way of editing completed interviews to ensure variety and coverage.

Question 18

Fieldwork is the step in the research process immediately after developing an approach to the problem.

Question 19

Training ensures that all interviewers administer the questionnaire in the same manner so that the data can be collected uniformly.

Question 20

A researcher should decide what characteristics the field workers should have when selecting field workers.

Question 21

To validate the study, the supervisors call 1 percent to 10 percent of the respondents to inquire whether the field workers actually conducted the interviews.

Question 22

An important aspect of supervision is sampling control, which attempts to ensure that the interviewers are strictly following the sampling plan rather than selecting sampling units based on convenience or accessibility.

Question 23

Data preparation should only begin once all batches of questionnaires are received from the field. In this way, processing uniformity is boosted.

Question 24

The data preparation process begins after the fieldwork is done.

Question 25

According to the text, the data preparation process begins with checking the questionnaires for completeness.

Question 26

Coding of fieldwork means verifying that field workers are submitting authentic interviews.

Question 27

According to the text, interviewer cheating can be minimized through pretesting of the questionnaires.

Question 28

A limited number of operational staff or field workers, as few as two or three, may be assigned to a social media project.

Question 29

The selection, training, supervision, validation, and evaluation of field-workers is much more streamlined in social media fieldwork than in traditional fieldwork.

Question 30

At the editing stage, the researcher makes a preliminary check for consistency.

Question 31

To validate the study, the supervisors call 30 to 40 percent of the respondents to inquire whether the field workers actually conducted the interviews.

Question 32

The supervisor should ask a complex and sensitive survey question when validating an interview with a respondent.

Question 33

To evaluate interviewers on the quality of interviewing, the supervisor must directly observe the interviewing process.

Question 34

The final data analysis plan should never differ from the preliminary plan for data analysis.

Question 35

Data cleaning is the last stage of the data preparation process.

Question 36

Central office control involves tabulating the responses to important demographic characteristics and key questions.

Question 37

For structured questions, frequent occurrence of nonresponse items is an indicator that should be used to evaluate an interviewer on the quality of interviewing.

Question 38

To understand the interviewers' problems, the supervisors should do some interviewing.

Question 39

When evaluating field workers, the interviewer's time should be broken down into actual interviewing, travel, and administration.

Question 40

Research staff collecting and analyzing data from social media are normally part-time employees of the research firm.

Question 41

According to the text, category codes should be collectively exhaustive and mutually exclusive.

Question 42

A book containing coding instructions and the necessary information about variables in the data set is called a codebook.

Question 43

Data cleaning includes consistency checks and treatment of missing responses. The checks at this stage are less extensive than the checks made during editing.

Question 44

According to the text, the symbols used in the assignment of codes to each possible response to each question is usually a number.

Question 45

Only software programs developed for the research industry should be used to enter data, not programs such as Microsoft EXCEL.

Question 46

Coding consists of screening questionnaires to identify illegible, incomplete, inconsistent, or ambiguous responses.

Question 47

When entering respondent data into a spreadsheet, each column contains the data for one respondent.

Question 48

Coding unstructured questions is relatively simple, since the response options are predetermined.

Question 49

Unsatisfactory responses from collected data may be discarded when the proportion of unsatisfactory respondents is 20 percent to 30 percent.

Question 50

A part of the data cleaning process that identifies data that are out of range or logically inconsistent, or that have extreme values, is called consistency checks.

Question 51

The thorough and extensive check for consistency and treatment of missing responses is called validating.

Question 52

A review of the questionnaires with the objective of increasing accuracy and precision is called editing.

Question 53

According to the text, categories are mutually exclusive if every response fits into one and only one of the assigned category codes.

Question 54

Transcribing data involves transferring the coded data from the questionnaires or coding sheets onto disks or directly into computers by key punching or other means.

Question 55

Data should be coded in a lean way in order to avoid retaining much detail.

Question 56

Deleting the question from the survey is an alternative for the treatment of unsatisfactory responses.

Question 57

The assignment of a symbol to represent a specific response to a specific question, along with the data record and column position that symbol will occupy, is called coding.

Question 58

Categories are collectively exhaustive if each response fits into one of the assigned category codes.

Question 59

Optical scanning involves direct machine reading of the codes and simultaneous transcription.

Question 60

If possible, standard codes should be used for missing data.

Question 61

Casewise deletion is an option available for the treatment of missing responses.

Question 62

A motivational technique used when asking survey questions to induce the respondents to enlarge on, clarify, or explain their answers and to help the respondents focus on the specific content of the interview is called ________.

A)probing
B)sampling
C)factoring
D)recording
E)selecting

Question 63

A researcher should implement all of the following steps when selecting field workers EXCEPT ________.

A)develop job specification for the project
B)decide what characteristics the field workers should have
C)recruit appropriate individuals
D)All of the mentioned steps should be followed when selecting field workers.
E)None of these are steps to follow when selecting field workers.

Question 64

A method for handling missing responses in which respondents with any missing responses are discarded from the analysis is called pairwise deletion.

Question 65

According to the text, the typical interviewer is a ________, with an above-average education and an above-average household income.

A)single woman aged 18 to 34
B)single woman aged 35 to 54
C)married woman aged 18 to 34
D)married woman aged 35 to 54
E)senior woman aged 55 to 65

Question 66

Which of the following individuals is NOT recognized as a field worker?

A)an interviewer intercepting shoppers in a mall
B)a project director conducting a check on the data analysis
C)a telephone interviewer calling from a central location
D)an observer counting customers in a particular section of a store
E)a worker mailing questionnaires from an office

Question 67

Casewise deletion is a method of handling missing values in which for each calculation or analysis, only the respondents with complete responses are considered.

Question 68

A good rule of thumb about the discarding of respondents is that such decisions should be made before conducting any analysis.

Question 69

Which of the following is NOT recognized as a phase of the interviewing process?

A)validating the interview
B)making the initial contact
C)asking the questions
D)recording the answers
E)probing

Question 70

The data preparation process for social media is exactly similar to that for data collected by traditional means.

Question 71

Treatment of missing responses poses problems, particularly if the proportion of missing responses is between 5 percent and 10 percent.

Question 72

To the extent possible, interviewers should be selected ________ since this increases the probability of a successful interview.

A)to emphasize a higher income class than respondents
B)to match respondents' characteristics
C)to emphasize a lower income class than respondents
D)based primarily on their availability
E)based on height and weight tables

Question 73

According to the text, fieldwork is the ________ in the marketing research process.

A)first step
B)second step
C)third step
D)fourth step
E)fifth step

Question 74

The first step in the fieldwork process is the ________.

A)selection of field workers
B)training of field workers
C)supervision of field workers
D)evaluation of field workers
E)validation of fieldwork

Question 75

________ helps respondents focus on the specific content of the interview and provide only relevant information.

A)Sampling
B)Factoring
C)Probing
D)Recording
E)Selecting

Question 76

Considering the known characteristics of the data is a stage in selecting a data analysis strategy.

Question 77

Pairwise deletion may be appropriate when the sample size is large.

Question 78

All of the following are mentioned in the text as elements related to the fieldwork process EXCEPT the ________.

A)selection of field workers
B)validation of fieldwork
C)evaluation of field workers
D)training and supervision of field workers
E)All of the mentioned elements are related to the fieldwork process.

Question 79

Unlike traditional data collection, in social media respondents do not merely respond to questions or stimuli. Rather, they generate the data and edit it by their communal participation.

Question 80

Missing responses represent values of a variable that are unknown, either because respondents provided ambiguous answers or their answers were not properly recorded.