Question 1

Write a paragraph or two in which you describe two different research designs for studying attitudes about marital infidelity: one using a repeated cross-sections design and one using a panel design.In your answer,identify the key features of each design and briefly discuss the purpose of the study and by extension the types of measures you would use,giving specific examples.

Accepted Answer

The answer of Write a paragraph or two in which...

Question 2

Write one paragraph describing a research project that includes the problem of an ecological fallacy,making sure to include a clear definition of the ecological fallacy and to clearly connect this definition to your example.

Accepted Answer

The answer of Write one paragraph describing a research project...

Question 3

Choose one representation (variable)for each of the following three concepts: (1)area of study in college, (2)religious participation,and (3)time spent studying.Once you have converted each of these concepts into variables,identify which type of variable each of these is,making sure to identify the key characteristics of these variable types and to connect these characteristics to the variables you have chosen.Your answer should be one to two paragraphs.

Accepted Answer

The answer of Choose one representation (variable)for each of the...

Question 4

If a researcher is struggling with the data in a longitudinal study of job satisfaction because the composition of the sample has changed over time,he or she is most likely dealing with a problem of

Accepted Answer

The issue of changing composition in a longitudinal study is known as attrition, which happens when participants drop out or are lost over time. This can present a problem for researchers as it can create bias or affect the generalizability of findings.

Question 5

Felicia is studying religious affiliation and chooses to measure this by asking respondents how often they celebrate religious holidays in the course of a year.Felicia's study is likely to

Accepted Answer

Frequency of celebrating religious holidays may not accurately reflect religious affiliation, but it can consistently measure a specific behavior related to it.

Question 6

Although the problem of losing respondents over time can be a problem with longitudinal studies,they are often preferable to cross-sectional designs because they can help researchers detect causal effects.The reason longitudinal studies are better able to detect causal effects is that they can

Accepted Answer

Longitudinal studies allow researchers to document within-person changes over time, which can help detect causal effects. This is because they can identify changes that occur within individuals and control for individual differences, reducing the likelihood of spurious correlations. Cross-sectional designs, on the other hand, only provide a snapshot of data at a single point in time and cannot distinguish between within-person and between-person effects.

Question 7

Write one paragraph identifying a research question that clearly includes an example of a conceptual definition,an operational definition,and a measurement.In your answer,be clear to distinguish between these three components and state their relative levels of abstractness.

Accepted Answer

The answer of Write one paragraph identifying a research question...

Question 8

Write two paragraphs distinguishing the formation and timing of the operational definition in the research design process for a researcher who wants to study family norms for (1)a quantitative study (such as a survey),and (2)a qualitative study (such as ethnography).

Accepted Answer

The answer of Write two paragraphs distinguishing the formation and...

Question 9

Reliability and validity are both central to the goal of

Accepted Answer

The answer of Reliability and validity are both central to...

Question 10

If a researcher were interested in the general attitude trends of a society over time,he or she would probably use a ________ design.

Accepted Answer

A repeated cross-sections design involves collecting data from different samples over time, allowing researchers to observe changes in societal attitudes.

Question 11

In a study of the educational richness of a preschool,observers count the number of books and educational toys and observe the number of times teachers read the children a book and play with children using educational toys.These observations would be examples of observational measurement of

Accepted Answer

The observations of the number of books and educational toys, as well as the number of times teachers read books and play with educational toys, are all examples of frequency, as they are measuring how often certain activities or items occur in the preschool. Observational measurement of degree would involve rating a specific quality or characteristic on a scale, such as rating the level of engagement during playtime. Ratios involve comparing two quantities, such as the ratio of boys to girls in the preschool. Reliability refers to the consistency and accuracy of measurements over time or across observers, which is not directly relevant to the observations described in the question.

Question 12

If a researcher wanted to see how spouses' marital quality changed over time if and when children were born,he or she would probably use a ________ design.

Accepted Answer

A panel study would allow the researcher to follow the same group of spouses over time and see how their marital quality changes after the birth of children. Cross-sectional studies only look at one point in time, repeated cross-sections look at different groups of people at different points in time, and reliability studies measure the consistency of measures.

Question 13

Consider the concept social norms/rules.In three or four sentences,choose two or three dimensions of this concept that would be able to be represented in variables (you only need to develop this into dimensions,not variables).

Accepted Answer

The answer of Consider the concept social norms/rules.In three or...

Question 14

Mateo has designed a survey study in which he asks about respondents' marital quality.He administers the survey to several different samples over the course of two years and discovers that the respondents do not seem to be answering the marital quality question in very consistent ways.This suggests Mateo's measure of marital quality has a ________ problem.

Accepted Answer

The inconsistent responses suggest that the measure of marital quality lacks reliability, which refers to the degree to which a measure produces consistent results.

Question 15

Start with two concepts whose relationship has been demonstrated in past research: socioeconomic status and health.Write three or four sentences shifting these concepts into operational definitions that can be used as measures.Then write a sentence or two discussing the potential problems with your measure of socioeconomic status in terms of reliability;then write another sentence or two discussing the potential validity issues of your socioeconomic status measure.Finally,write another one to two sentences each about the potential reliability and validity issues that could come up for your measure of health.

Accepted Answer

The answer of Start with two concepts whose relationship has...

Quiz 4: From Concepts to Models: Hypotheses, Operationalization, and Measurement