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Survey Research & Design in Psychology

Semester 1, 2007

Practice Mid-semester Exam

(with answers)

INSTRUCTIONS

1. This practice exam has 50 multiple choice items;

each is worth mark. The actual mid-semester exam
will have 60 multiple choice items.
2. The mid-semester exam will be worth 30% of your
final mark for this unit.
3. There is a time limit of 90 minutes for the mid-
semester exam to meet this pace, these practice
items should be done in 75 minutes.
4. For each item select the best answer.
5. Some questions in this practice exam require
matching or an exact answer.
6. You are permitted to use a non-programmable
calculator.

NAME:

ID:

Date:

1 of 13 pages
1. Gender is usually operationalised as:
*a. nominal/categorical data
b. ordinal data
c. interval data
d. ratio data

2. Placings in a horse race is an example of:

a. nominal/categorical data
*b. ordinal data
c. interval data
d. ratio data

3. Class ranking on a test is:

a. nominal/categorical data
*b. ordinal data
c. interval data
d. ratio data

4. Someone's annual income (in dollars) would be usually be coded

as:
a. nominal/categorical data
b. ordinal data
c. interval data
*d. ratio data

5. Political party affiliation(Labour, Liberal etc.) would be

recorded as:
*a. nominal/categorical data
b. ordinal data
c. interval data
d. ratio data

6. Which of the following statements is true?

*a. Ratio data is continuous
b. Interval data is continuous
c. Ordinal data is continuous
d. Categorical data is continuous

7. The most appropriate statistic for indicating central tendency

in nominal/categorical data would be:
* a. Frequency / Mode
b. Median
c. Mean
d. range

8. If the mean was smaller than the median, the skewness would be:
a. Positive
*b. Negative
c. Zero
d. Irrelevant

9. A normal distribution can be described by ___ statistical

parameters or moments.
a. 2
b. 3
*c. 4
d. 5

10. Classify the most likely purpose of this research question:

"What is the likelihood of a case of bird flu being detected in
Australia in the next 12 months?"

2 of 13 pages
a. exploratory
b. descriptive
c. explanatory
*d. predictive

11. In a study of university student satisfaction, which of the

following is most likely to be a dependent variable?
a. Students' age
b. Type of university course
*c. Satisfaction with university rating
d. Students residential status

12. A semantic differential response format typically involves what

kind of stimuli?
*a. Ratings made in response to adjectives with opposite meanings
b. A true/false format
c. Selecting a graphic representation of affective state
d. Shopping list type items for memory recall

13. Results obtained from a sample population:

* a. Are generalised to the target population
b. Are identical to those in the target population
c. Are usually non-representative
d. Are only obtained in quasi-experiments

14. Which of the following is not one of Tuftes guidelines for

preparing graphs:
a. Present many numbers in a small space
b. Show the data
c. Reveal data at several levels
*d. Keep it simple

15. Cannell makes which of the following comments about this survey
question: Did you eat breakfast yesterday?
*a. The definition of breakfast varies widely.
b. It is a leading question.
c. The question is not specific enough.
d. A better question would be What did you eat for breakfast
yesterday?

16. The most appropriate statistic for indicating central tendency

in normally distributed ratio data would be:
a. Standard deviation
b. Variance
*c. Mean
d. Standard error

17. The variance is calculated based on:

a. positive skewness
b. leptokurtosis
*c. the sum of squared deviation scores
d. the mode

18. In creating a plot to show the relationship between the rate of

skin cancer and exposure to UV light, which variable should be shown
on the X axis?
*a. exposure to UV light
b. rate of skin cancer
c. the Y axis
d. all of the above

3 of 13 pages
19. Which of the following best describes the standard deviation:
*a. The average amount to which scores in a distribution differ from
the mean
b. the average of the scores in a distribution
c. The variance multiplied by the range
d. the mean of the standardised scores

20. The standard deviation is:

*a. the square root of the variance
b. the variance squared
c. also known as the standard error of the mean
d. the variance divided by N

21. Correlation is:

*a. the covariance of standardised scores
b. the mean of the population standard deviations
c. a way of testing cause and effect
d. for comparing mean differences

22. The appropriate statistic(s) for examining the relationship

between ordinal variables is/are:
*a. spearmans rho / kendalls tau
b. phi / Cramers V
c. point-biserial
d. product-moment correlation

23. Product-moment correlations are used for examining

____________.
a. univariate descriptives
b. bivariate differences
*c. bivariate relations
d. multivariate relations

24. The degrees of freedom for Pearsons r is equal to:

a. N
b. N 1
*c. N 2
d. N + 7

25. A curvilinear relationship is often described as being:

a. straight line
b. broken line
*c. U- or J-shaped
d. A big mistake

26. A point biserial coefficient is for estimating the linear

relationship between:
a. two dichotomous variables
*b. one dichotomous variable and one continuous variable
c. two ordinal variables
d. one ordinal variable and one continuous variable

27. Non-parametric statistics are most likely to be used for:

a. string variables
*b. Non-normally distributed ratio data
c. Normally distributed interval data
d. Normally distributed ratio data

28. From a practical data analysis point of view, an interval scale

can be generally be treated as continuous data when there are _____
or more intervals.

4 of 13 pages
a. 1
b. 2
c. 3
*d. 5

29. Which of the following checks are not relevant to deciding

whether the Pearson product-moment correlation is an appropriate
indication of the degree of linear association between two variables?
a. Check the scatterplot for outliers
b. Each variable is normally distributed
*c. The data represent a sample, not a population
d. Check the scatterplot for linearity

30. The square of the correlation coefficient or r2; is called the

*a. coefficient of determination
b. variance
c. covariance
d. coefficient of discontent

31. Cronbachs alpha is a measure of:

a. test-retest reliability
b. external validity
*c. internal reliability
d. internal validity

32. The eigen values in a factor analysis add up to 120. Two

factors explain 20% of the variance. What is the total of the eigen
values for factors 3 to 120 (inclusive)?
*a. 96
b. 100
c. 117
d. 97

33. Match the 4 factor analysis terms with their best partner.
1. Principal Components
2. Oblimin
3. Varimax
4. Principal Axis Factoring

a. Theoretical
b. Practical
c. Pattern Matrix
d. Rotated Factor Matrix
**1b,2c,3d,4a

34. These two tables are based on the same dataset. Which of the
following statements (may be more than one) are correct according to
the tables?

5 of 13 pages
*a. A one factor model could be viable
*b. A two factor model could be viable
*c. A three factor model be viable
d. A varimax solution is better than an oblimin solution
*e. An oblimin solution is better than a varimax solution
*f. PAF was used
g. PC was used

6 of 13 pages
35. This data has a simple factor structure with factors which
could be meaningfully named Product Quality (factor 1), Product
Familiarity (factor 2), and Product Accessibility (factor 3).

a. True
*b. False

36. Which of the following 3 items do you think should be

eliminated? (may be more than 1)

a. 1
*b. 2
c. 3
d. 4
*e. 5
f. 6

7 of 13 pages
g. 7
h. 8
i. 9
j. 10
*k. 11
l. 12
m. 13
n. 14
o. 15

37. Match the following values of Cronbach's Alpha with the

interpretations.
1. .40
2. .60
3. .70
4. .80
5. .90
6. 1.00

a. Poor
b. OK
c. Moderate
d. Strong
e. Very strong
f. Too high; redundant
**1a,2b,3c,4d,5e,6f

38. Internal reliability refers to the extent to which a measure is

consistent within itself.
*a. True
b. False

39. Validity is the degree to which a measure accurately reflects

the underlying concept. (The degree to which a measure actually
measures what it is supposed to.)
*a. True
b. False

40. Measured value =

a. True value of concept
b. True value of concept + random error
c. True value of concept + non-random error
*d. True value of concept + non-random error + random error

41. Test-retest reliability is a measure of internal reliability.

a. True
*b. False

42. Which of the following would not be an appropriate method for

creating a unit-weighted composite score:
a. Adding all the items together and dividing by the number of items
b. Adding all the items together and dividing by any number
*c. Multiplying the scores on each item by a weight and adding the
products together
d. Multiplying the scores on each item by the same weight and adding
the products together

43. Which are the two most closely correlated university student
motivational factors according to the following tables? (may be more
than 1)

8 of 13 pages
9 of 13 pages
*a. Altruism
b. Reject alternatives
c. Qualifications & careers
d. Social pressure
e. Social enjoyment
*f. Self exploration

44. What percentage of variance did the following factor analysis

explain when 6 factors were extracted? (report to 3 decimal places)

10 of 13 pages
 Correct Answer:
58.276%

45. Match the following pictures with the appropriate combination

of reliability and validity. The bullseye represents a target
construct, the darts represent measurement items.
Bulleye #1:

Bullseye#2:

Bullseye#3:

1. Bullseye#1
2. Bullseye#3
3. Bullseye#2

a. Reliable & Valid

b. Reliable but not Valid
c. Not Reliable not Valid
d. Valid but not Reliable
**1a,2c,3b

46. Which components in the following linear equation are

"weights"?
Y = a1X1 + a2X2 + a3X2 + a4X4 + e
a. Y
*b. a1, a2, a3, a4
c. X1, X2, X3, X4
d. e

47. Cronbach's Alpha is an indicator of the extent to which a

measure yields similar results among its different parts as it
measures a single phenomenon.
*a. True
b. False

48. Reliability is the degree to which a measure of the same object

would produce the same value on repeated measurements.
*a. True
b. False

49. An instrument that is not reliable may be valid.

a. True
*b. False

50. Based on the following tables, which items do you think belong
in the factor examined in the reliability analysis?

11 of 13 pages
12 of 13 pages
a. 2, 8, 20, 26, 29
*b. 2, 8, 20, 26
c. 8, 20, 26
d. 2, 8, 26, 29

13 of 13 pages