Unit 4: Types of Data in Research - Practice Quiz

1 What is primary data?

2 Which method is commonly used to collect primary data?

3 Which of the following is a source of primary data?

4 What is secondary data?

5 Which of the following is a common source of secondary data?

6 What is one common advantage of using secondary data?

7 What does qualitative research mainly seek to understand?

8 Which type of information is most commonly produced by qualitative research?

9 Which activity is most closely associated with qualitative research?

10 What does quantitative research primarily use?

11 Which is a common aim of quantitative research?

12 Which question is most suitable for quantitative research?

13 Which is an example of qualitative data?

14 Which source is especially useful for collecting detailed qualitative data?

15 In qualitative analysis, what is a theme?

16 What is a variable in quantitative research?

17 Which of the following is a quantitative variable?

18 In an experiment, what is the dependent variable?

19 Why are participant quotations often included in a qualitative research report?

20 How are qualitative findings commonly organized in a research report?

21 A researcher wants to understand how first-year students experience online orientation. Which source would provide primary data?

22 A marketing researcher distributes a questionnaire to 500 current customers to measure satisfaction with a recently launched product. What is the main advantage of this data source?

23 A researcher observes customer behavior in a supermarket without asking customers questions. This activity is best classified as:

24 Before using census statistics collected by a government agency, a researcher should first determine whether the statistics:

25 Which situation best illustrates the use of secondary data?

26 A study uses an old company database to examine employee turnover. Which limitation of secondary data is most relevant?

27 A researcher studies how patients describe trust in doctors by conducting open-ended interviews and identifying recurring meanings. Which feature of qualitative research is most evident?

28 During fieldwork, a researcher changes some interview questions after noticing an unexpected theme. This reflects which characteristic of qualitative research?

29 A qualitative researcher spends six months in a community to understand local work practices in their social context. Why is prolonged engagement useful?

30 A researcher measures sleep duration and test scores for 300 students and examines whether the two variables are associated. This study is primarily:

31 A researcher randomly assigns employees to two training programs and compares their post-training performance scores. What makes this approach quantitative?

32 A survey uses the same five response categories for every participant and analyzes the results with averages and percentages. Which principle is illustrated?

33 A researcher examines interview transcripts and labels passages as "fear of judgment," "peer support," and "career uncertainty." These labels are best described as:

34 In a study of workplace identity, participants' stories, gestures, and field notes are analyzed together. What does this illustrate about qualitative data?

35 A qualitative study identifies "access to technology" as a theme, but participants describe it differently depending on location and income. How should the researcher treat this theme?

36 In a study predicting exam performance from study hours, which variable is the dependent variable?

37 A researcher records a participant's blood type as A, B, AB, or O. What type of quantitative variable is blood type?

38 A questionnaire asks respondents to rate service quality from 1 = very poor to 5 = excellent. How should this measure generally be classified?

39 When writing a qualitative findings section, which practice best supports the credibility of an interpretation?

40 A qualitative report explains how the researcher's background may have influenced interviews and interpretation. This practice is known as:

41 A researcher analyzes audio diaries that participants recorded specifically for her study, but the diaries describe events that occurred six months earlier. How should these data be classified?

42 A team plans to estimate illegal dumping by asking residents to report incidents and by installing motion-triggered cameras at selected sites. Which design feature most directly helps assess source-specific measurement error?

43 During interviews about workplace harassment, managers require employees to participate and remain nearby. Which threat is most specifically introduced into the primary data?

44 Two administrative databases use the label "unemployed". One includes only benefit claimants; the other includes all people seeking work. What must be established before combining their records?

45 A published dataset shows a sharp fall in hospital infections after 2021, when reporting changed from mandatory weekly submissions to voluntary monthly submissions. What is the strongest initial interpretation?

46 A researcher reanalyzes public survey microdata to answer a question not considered by the original investigators. Which limitation is least likely to be corrected by sophisticated statistical modeling?

47 A qualitative study begins with sensitizing concepts from stigma theory but revises its categories after unexpected participant accounts. Which characterization is most accurate?

48 An ethnographer observes that participants describe a policy differently in public meetings and private conversations. What is the most defensible analytic response?

49 In a multi-site case study, one case sharply contradicts the emerging explanation. Which action best strengthens analytic generalization?

50 A randomized trial has perfect random assignment but substantial treatment noncompliance. Which estimate most directly preserves the causal effect of assignment?

51 In a very large observational study, the association between screen time and anxiety is statistically significant but has . Which conclusion is best supported?

52 A scale yields nearly identical scores when administered twice, yet experts agree that it omits a central dimension of the construct. Which assessment is correct?

53 Interview transcripts are coded as "resistance," "compliance," and "ambivalence." Why should these codes not automatically be treated as a nominal variable for statistical testing?

54 A researcher claims thematic saturation after later interviews produce no new top-level themes, although they continue to reveal new relationships among themes. What is the key problem with the claim?

55 In discourse analysis, repeated use of passive constructions is coded across official reports. What is the most appropriate unit of interpretation?

56 Household income is recorded in ordered bands: "below 20,000," "20,000-39,999," "40,000-59,999," and "60,000 or above." Which property is defensible without further assumptions?

57 In the causal structure $X
ightarrow M
ightarrow Y$, researchers want the total effect of $X$ on $Y$. Assuming no other relevant paths, what happens if they control for $M$?

58 A regression includes treatment , baseline risk , and the interaction . The interaction coefficient is significant. Which interpretation is most accurate?

59 A report presents polished themes and illustrative quotations but does not explain how cases were selected, codes changed, or contradictory accounts were handled. Which quality criterion is most directly weakened?

60 A participant's distinctive wording is analytically essential, but quoting it verbatim could reveal the participant's identity. What is the most defensible reporting strategy?