Unit 1: Background of Research - Practice Quiz

1 What is the main purpose of a research proposal?

2 Which section of a research proposal explains the issue that the study will investigate?

3 What does a research objective describe?

4 Why is a literature review included in a research proposal?

5 Which proposal section describes how data will be collected and analyzed?

6 What is a research paradigm?

7 Which research paradigm commonly emphasizes objective measurement and observable facts?

8 Which paradigm focuses mainly on understanding people's meanings and experiences?

9 Which research approach is most commonly associated with positivism?

10 In research, what does ontology concern?

11 How can research contribute to theory?

12 What is a practical contribution of research?

13 What does evidence-based practice use to guide decisions?

14 A study that identifies an effective teaching method mainly contributes to which area?

15 Why are research findings useful to policymakers?

16 What is informed consent in research?

17 What does confidentiality require a researcher to do?

18 Which action is an example of plagiarism?

19 What is the main role of a research ethics committee?

20 What does the ethical principle of voluntary participation mean?

21 A researcher proposes to examine whether flexible working hours improve employee productivity. Which research objective is the most clearly formulated?

22 A proposal investigates the effect of social media use on university students' academic performance. Which question is the most researchable?

23 During a literature review, a researcher finds many studies on online learning among university students but very few involving vocational trainees. How should this finding shape the proposal?

24 A researcher plans to survey 2,000 residents within two weeks but has access to only one assistant and a small budget. Which proposal revision best improves feasibility?

25 A proposal states, "Training affects performance," but does not define either variable. What is the most appropriate next step?

26 A researcher measures patient satisfaction with a standardized scale and tests whether waiting time predicts satisfaction scores. Which paradigm most closely supports this approach?

27 A researcher conducts in-depth interviews to understand how first-generation students construct the meaning of university success. Which paradigm is most appropriate?

28 A study combines test scores with student interviews because the researcher chooses methods according to their usefulness for answering the research question. Which paradigm does this reflect?

29 A researcher studies how workplace policies reproduce power inequalities and works with employees to recommend institutional change. Which paradigm best fits the study?

30 Two researchers examine the same classroom. One records observable behavior, while the other explores how students interpret classroom rules. What best explains this difference?

31 A study finds that an established motivation theory predicts performance among office workers but not among remote freelancers. What is the clearest theoretical contribution?

32 After evaluating a new teaching method, researchers provide schools with an implementation guide based on the findings. This guide is primarily what type of contribution?

33 A study introduces "digital fatigue" as a new construct and shows that it explains employee disengagement beyond workload. How does this study mainly contribute to theory?

34 A hospital adopts a scheduling system after one small study reports reduced waiting times in a different country. What should decision-makers examine before applying the findings?

35 A study replicates an earlier experiment with a larger and more diverse sample and obtains similar results. What is its main contribution?

36 A lecturer wants to recruit students from a class they currently grade. Which action best reduces the risk of undue influence?

37 Participants consented to interviews about workplace stress, but the researcher later wants to use the recordings to study political opinions. What is the most ethical action?

38 A health survey must retain participant identities temporarily for follow-up contact. Which data-management practice best protects confidentiality?

39 A psychology experiment requires withholding its exact purpose so participants do not change their behavior. Under which condition is this deception most defensible?

40 A researcher discovers that several observations do not support the proposed hypothesis. Which action is consistent with research integrity?

41 A proposal argues that algorithmic monitoring reduces employee autonomy, which then increases turnover intention. The proposed study measures monitoring and turnover intention once, using a cross-sectional survey. Which revision most directly aligns the design with the stated causal mechanism?

42 A researcher proposes evaluating a national policy introduced simultaneously in every region. No untreated region exists, but monthly outcome data are available for eight years before and three years after implementation. Which design is most defensible?

43 A proposal asks whether remote work improves productivity, but defines neither remote work nor productivity and lists interviews, surveys, and administrative records without linking them to specific claims. What is the most important revision?

44 A doctoral proposal contains a broad question about how hospitals implement artificial intelligence, but its sampling plan includes only hospitals already recognized for successful implementation. Which threat is most central?

45 A proposal estimates the effect of a training program by comparing volunteers who enroll with employees who decline. Motivation affects both enrollment and performance, but no credible measure of motivation is available. Which response best addresses the identification problem?

46 Two researchers study the same protest. One seeks a context-independent causal model; the other examines how participants construct the meaning of legitimacy through interaction. Their primary disagreement concerns which paradigmatic dimensions?

47 A critical realist explains a stable statistical association by proposing an unobservable organizational mechanism that operates only under particular institutional conditions. Which claim is most consistent with this paradigm?

48 A mixed-methods researcher chooses experiments for estimating effects and interviews for redesigning implementation, judging each method by its usefulness for the practical problem. Which paradigmatic position is most evident?

49 An interpretive researcher uses member reflection, asking participants to discuss the researcher's emerging account. Participants disagree with one another about its meaning. What is the most paradigm-consistent response?

50 A feminist standpoint study claims that marginalized participants may identify institutional processes obscured from dominant positions. Which interpretation avoids turning standpoint into an automatic guarantee of truth?

51 A study finds that a well-established theory predicts behavior in stable markets but reverses direction under severe resource scarcity. Which theoretical contribution is strongest if the result replicates?

52 An intervention raises average test scores by standard deviations, but implementation costs consume most of a school district's discretionary budget. Which conclusion best integrates scholarly and practical contribution?

53 Researchers adapt a theory developed in large firms to microenterprises by adding informal kinship obligations as a mechanism. The adapted model explains prior anomalies and predicts new outcomes. What type of contribution does this most plausibly represent?

54 A field experiment shows that reminders improve medication adherence only among patients with reliable transport. Which recommendation most responsibly translates the finding into practice?

55 A qualitative study develops a process model from an extreme case in which a public agency recovered rapidly after failure. What would most strengthen its theoretical contribution without claiming statistical representativeness?

56 A researcher conducting covert online observation enters a small, password-protected support group whose members reasonably expect privacy. The researcher records identifiable posts without consent. Which ethical concern is most decisive?

57 In a low-income community, participants are offered compensation equal to three months of typical wages for a two-hour, minimal-risk study. Which assessment is most appropriate?

58 A biobank obtained broad consent for future health research. Years later, investigators plan a stigmatizing study of a small ancestral community using genomic data that can implicate nonparticipants. Which action is most ethically defensible?

59 During an interview study, a participant credibly discloses an immediate plan to seriously harm an identifiable person. The consent form promised confidentiality but noted legally or ethically required exceptions. What should the researcher do first?

60 A randomized study uses deception because revealing the true purpose would invalidate behavior. The intervention poses minimal risk, but debriefing some participants could itself expose sensitive inferences about them. Which approach best satisfies ethical proportionality?