Ninth Edition CoverGraziano & Raulin
Research Methods (9th edition)

Chapter 4 Multiple-Choice Questions
Data and the Nature of Measurement

Test yourself on these multiple-choice questions. Clicking on the letter of your choice will give you immediate feedback on whether you are correct. Even when you are incorrect, you will receive feedback that will help you learn the material better so that you do well on the exam.

  1. Which of the following variables would be most difficult to operationally define?
    (a) anxiety
    (b) intelligence
    (c) theory
    (d) athletic ability

  2. If an experimenter is interested in investigating the causal relationship between two variables, what would be the best strategy?
    (a) Operationally define both measures, and carefully measure each.
    (b) Define which of the variables is to be the organismic variable.
    (c) Use a nonmanipulated independent variable in a differential research design.
    (d) Operationally define one of the variables as a manipulated independent variable in an experimental design.

  3. What characteristics or mathematical properties would the variable "gender of the participant" possess?
    (a) identity only
    (b) identity and magnitude
    (c) magnitude only
    (d) identity, magnitude, equal interval, and a true zero

  4. Which of the following operational definitions of variables would have the properties of identity, magnitude, equal intervals, and a true zero?
    (a) IQ as measured by a standard IQ test.
    (b) Driving speed measured in miles per hour.
    (c) Political affiliation (classified as Democrat, Republican, or other).
    (d) A person's body temperature measured on a Celsius scale.

  5. What scale of measurement has the properties of identity and magnitude only?
    (a) interval
    (b) nominal
    (c) ratio
    (d) ordinal

  6. What can we legitimately say about the relationship between the scores of two participants on class ranking where person A is ranked fifth and person B is ranked fifteenth?
    (a) Person A and person B are different on class rank.
    (b) Person B is ranked higher than person A.
    (c) Person A is ranked three times higher than person B.
    (d) all of the above

  7. What type of data will be produced if the variable measured is "golf ability"?
    (a) ordered data
    (b) nominal data
    (c) score data
    (d) It would depend on how the variable is operationally defined.

  8. If the capacity of short-term memory is operationally defined as the number of single digits that can be remembered by a participant, the type of data produced will be
    (a) ordered data.
    (b) nominal data.
    (c) score data.
    (d) none of the above

  9. Measurement error
    (a) will distort the scores.
    (b) can affect both the reliability and the validity of the measures.
    (c) may result from a social-desirability response set.
    (d) all of the above

  10. Which of the following errors will reduce the validity of a measure of the weight of a person without reducing the reliability of the measure?
    (a) The scale is not properly adjusted so that it always gives a reading that is six pounds too low.
    (b) participants are weighed wearing whatever clothes they happen to be wearing when they walk into the laboratory.
    (c) Two different scales, each properly calibrated to give accurate readings, are used.
    (d) all of the above

  11. Carefully defined operational definitions
    (a) will assure that the measure is both valid and reliable.
    (b) will assure that the measure is valid, but not necessarily reliable.
    (c) will assure that the measure is reliable, but not necessarily valid.
    (d) none of the above

  12. Which of the following would be a good operational definition for the manipulated independent variable of "level of anxiety"?
    (a) A person's score on a well validated measure of anxiety.
    (b) A person's self-report of how anxious he or she was in a given situation.
    (c) The characteristics of the situation each person was placed in as part of the study (e.g., a performance task where the researcher has rigged the task so that some participants almost always succeed and others almost always fail, regardless of their actual performance).
    (d) The performance of participants on the task described in (c) above.

  13. Which of the following operational definitions of a variable would suffer from an effective range problem?
    (a) A standard IQ test administered to high school seniors in a study of the relationship of intelligence to dating patterns.
    (b) A very difficult mathematics reasoning test given to a group of college mathematics majors in a study to determine the effects of high anxiety on test performance.
    (c) A standard bathroom scale to measure the weight of chickens in a study to determine how chicken size affects pecking order.
    (d) A wristwatch with a second hand to measure the time it takes students to solve 10 anagram problems in a study of the effects of noise on problem-solving speed.

  14. What is the relationship between the reliability and the validity of a measure?
    (a) A valid measure must have reliability.
    (b) A reliable measure must have validity.
    (c) There is no relationship between the reliability of a measure and the validity of the measure.
    (d) Reliability and validity are different ways of looking at the same concept.

  15. Which type of reliability would provide an index of the stability of a variable?
    (a) interrater reliability
    (b) test-retest reliability
    (c) intersubject stability
    (d) internal consistency reliability