CHAPTER 10: QUANTATATIVE RESEARCH

Which is a population?

A) Four hundred nurses selected from a membership list of the American Nurses'

Association

B) All traumatic brain injury clients hospitalized in intensive care units in California

during 2017

C) Caregivers recruited into a study because they are caring for patients with

Parkinson disease

D) Study participants diagnosed with COPD who currently smoke

B

A nurse researcher identified her accessible population as women with high-risk

pregnancies in the state of New York. Which population might the researcher target?

A) All pregnant women in the state of New York

B) All women with high-risk pregnancies in the United States

C) All women with high-risk pregnancies in the city of Albany, New York

D) All pregnant women in northeast United States

B

A nurse researcher is studying fear of falling in community-dwelling elders. Which

might be a reasonable exclusion criterion?

A) People age 65 years or younger

B) People who live in their own homes

C) People who have periods of dizziness

D) People who are married

A

In the context of a study, what is sampling?

A) Identifying a set of criteria for selecting study participants

B) Determining who is eligible to participate in a study

C) Selecting a subset of the population to represent the entire population

D) Ensuring that every element in the population has an equal chance of being

included in the study

C

What is sampling bias in quantitative studies?

A) Lack of heterogeneity in the population on the attribute of interest

B) Sample selection using nonprobability sampling methods

C) The margin of error in the data obtained from samples

D) Systematic over- or underrepresentation of a key attribute vis-à-vis the population

D

In quantitative studies, what is a key criterion for evaluating sample quality?

A) How representativeness the sample is of the population

B) How easy it is to recruit sample members

C) How convenient it is to the researchers

D) How ethically sound the recruitment strategy is

A

A nurse researcher is studying medication compliance in hypertensive patients. Among

those recruited to participate in the study, 50% of the women and 20% of the men

agreed to participate. This situation is likely to lead to:

A) revised eligibility criteria.

B) a power analysis.

C) revised definition of the target population.

D) sampling bias.

D

Which statement about sampling is true?

A) The most basic units of a population are referred to as strata.

B) Strata are a means of equating the accessible population with the target population.

C) In a population of geriatric patients, those with and without a diagnosis of dementia

would comprise two strata.

D) The use of strata in a sampling strategy can reduce the representativeness of the

sample.

C

A nurse researcher recruits study participants by placing a recruitment poster at the

entrance to a neurology clinic. What type of sampling did the researcher use?

A) Convenience sampling

B) Quota sampling

C) Purposive sampling

D) Consecutive sampling

A

A nurse researcher is studying emergency department visits by parents of children under

age 3 years who were low-birth-weight infants. Every parent who brought a low-birth-

weight child to the emergency department over a 12-month period was invited to

participate in the study. What type of sampling did the researcher use?

A) Convenience sampling

B) Quota sampling

C) Purposive sampling

D) Consecutive sampling

D

Which sampling design would be most likely to yield a representative sample?

A) Consecutive sampling

B) Convenience sampling

C) Purposive sampling

D) Quota sampling

A

Strata are incorporated into the design of which sampling approach?

A) Consecutive

B) Purposive

C) Quota

D) Convenience

C

A researcher is studying the relationship between stress and diet among college students.

The researcher recruits students by sending out an e-mail blast, and then includes in the

sample the first 100 male and 100 female students who volunteer to participate. What

type of sampling did the researcher use?

A) Convenience sampling

B) Quota sampling

C) Purposive sampling

D) Consecutive sampling

B

Which is the weakest form of sampling for quantitative studies?

A) Convenience sampling

B) Quota sampling

C) Purposive sampling

D) Consecutive sampling

A

Which is a probability sampling method?

A) Convenience sampling

B) Systematic sampling

C) Consecutive sampling

D) Quota sampling

B

A researcher was studying nurses' attitudes toward evidence-based practice and sent a

questionnaire to a sample of nurses on a membership roster of a professional

organization, using probability methods to select the members. What type of sampling

did the researcher use?

A) Simple random sampling

B) Stratified random sampling

C) Multistage sampling

D) Systematic sampling

A

A researcher extracted information about hospital readmissions from a population of

9,000 patient records. The researcher sampled every 30th record from the population,

beginning with record number 7. What type of sampling did the researcher use?

A) Simple random sampling

B) Stratified random sampling

C) Multistage sampling

D) Systematic sampling

D

If a target population contains 10,600 elements and the researcher seeks a systematic

random sample of 50. What is the sampling interval?

A) 106

B) 600

C) 212

D) 50

C

A researcher used a systematic sampling plan. The sample size was 200. The sampling

interval was 250. The first element drawn was 196. What is the second element?

A) 396

B) 450

C) 446

D) 646

C

Which term is used for the difference between sample values and population values?

A) Sampling error

B) Sampling interval

C) Sampling bias

D) Sampling frame

A

Which is a consequence of having too small a sample?

A) Lack of control over confounding variables

B) Insufficient power to detect differences in groups being compared

C) Lack of ability to stratify the sample

D) Sampling bias

B

A nurse researcher studied smokers versus nonsmokers in terms of their levels of stress.

Which would be a factor affecting the sample size requirements for this study?

A) The type of sampling used (e.g., convenience, random, etc.)

B) The number of eligible people in the sampling pool

C) The size of the target population

D) How large the group differences on the outcome are in the population

D

What procedure do researchers use to estimate how large a sample they need?

A) Randomization

B) Screening

C) Power analysis

D) Stratification

C

Which data collection method is the most widely used by nurse researchers?

A) Records

B) Self-reports

C) Observation

D) Biophysiologic measures

B

Data from self-reports are sometimes called:

A) interviews.

B) questionnaires.

C) observations.

D) patient-reported outcomes.

D

Which is a major advantage of closed-ended questions?

A) They are easy to construct.

B) They are relatively easy to analyze.

C) They encourage in-depth responses.

D) They are not subject to response biases.

B

Which is an example of an open-ended question?

A) Are you male or female?

B) Do you take a daily multivitamin?

C) What types of support did you feel you needed after your surgery?

D) How many cups of coffee do you drink each day?

C

Why are interviews usually preferable to questionnaires for collecting research data?

A) They are less expensive.

B) They yield data that are easier to analyze.

C) Response rates are usually higher.

D) They offer the possibility of anonymity.

C

Which statement about interviews and questionnaires is true?

A) Questionnaires are feasible with most people.

B) Questionnaires offer the possibility of anonymity.

C) Questionnaires are more costly to administer than interviews.

D) Interviews can more readily be used to gather data from geographically dispersed

samples.

B

A questionnaire included "During my hospital stay, staff were respectful of my needs as

an individual." Participants were asked to indicate, on a 5-point scale, the degree to

which they agreed or disagreed with the statement. This question represents:

A) a forced choice question.

B) a rank order question.

C) a visual analog scale.

D) an item on a Likert scale.

D

On a 20-item Likert scale with five response alternatives, the range of possible scores is:

A) 0 to 100.

B) 20 to 80.

C) 20 to 100.

D) 1 to 20.

C

What is the name of a self-report method used to measure subjective experiences such

as pain and fatigue?

A) Composite scales

B) Dichotomous questions

C) Visual analog scales

D) Likert scales

C

The social desirability response set bias is least likely to be a problem on scales

incorporated into which?

A) Anonymous questionnaires

B) Face-to-face interviews

C) Telephone interviews

D) All options are equally susceptible.

A

Structured self-reports are susceptible to several types of response bias. What is the

name of the bias that results when people agree with items, regardless of content?

A) Social desirability

B) Extreme response

C) Naysayers

D) Acquiescence

D

Structured self-reports are susceptible to several types of response bias. What is the

name of the bias that results when people consistently select the "strongly agree" or

"strongly disagree" response alternatives?

A) Social desirability

B) Extreme response

C) Nay-sayers

D) Acquiescence

B

When an observer is not concealed, the observational data may be biased because of:

A) reactivity.

B) ethical problems.

C) lack of mobility.

D) acquiescence bias.

A

When structured observation is used to collect data, researchers often use a category

system to construct:

A) a rating scale.

B) an exhaustive system.

C) a nonexhaustive system.

D) a checklist.

D

A researcher studying interactions among nursing home residents schedules 5-minute

observations, with six periods of observation per hour. What sampling strategy is the

researcher using?

A) Event sampling

B) Quota sampling

C) Time sampling

D) Consecutive sampling

C

Which is an advantage of observation as a method of data collection in a study?

A) Participants enjoy being observed.

B) Participants can remain anonymous.

C) Observation is less costly than distributing questionnaires.

D) Observation directly captures people's behaviours.

D

Which statement about biophysiologic measures is true?

A) In vivo measurements are performed outside a participant's body.

B) Biophysiologic instruments are more likely to provide valid measures of the target

variables than self-reports.

C) Biophysiologic measures are less accurate and precise than composite scales.

D) Oxygen saturation is an example of an in vitro measurement.

B

Which statement is true?

A) Measurement involves assigning numbers to represent the amount of an attribute

according to rules.

B) When researchers develop a new measure, they must learn what measurement rules

apply to it.

C) Most measures of attributes of interest to nurse researchers are free from

measurement error.

D) Evaluation of a new measure involves an assessment of 10 distinct measurement

properties.

A

What is the discipline concerned with the theory and methods of measuring

psychosocial constructs?

A) Bibliometrics

B) Sociometrics

C) Psychometrics

D) Econometrics

C

Which measurement property concerns the extent to which scores for an attribute are

free from measurement error?

A) Validity

B) Psychometrics

C) Replication

D) Reliability

C

Which occurs in an assessment of test-retest reliability?

A) Two different raters simultaneously use the same instrument to measure people.

B) A measure is administered once to a sample of people.

C) A measure is administered to the same people on two occasions.

D) Alternative versions of an instrument are administered to the same people.

C

A nurse researcher developed a new 10-item scale to measure resilience. The researchers

evaluated whether all 10 items were measuring the same trait. Which was being

assessed?

A) Interrater reliability

B) Internal consistency

C) Test-retest reliability

D) Content reliability

B

A nurse researcher develops a new scale to measure preparedness for caregiving among

family members of palliative care patients. A panel of experts is convened to assess

whether the items on the draft scale adequately reflect the construct. What type of

validity is being assessed?

A) Content validity

B) Face validity

C) Criterion validity

D) Construct validity

A

A nurse researcher developed a new scale to measure cigarette dependence and

calculates the correlation between scale scores and a gold standard, salivary cotinine

levels. What type of validity is being assessed?

A) Content validity

B) Face validity

C) Criterion validity

D) Construct validity

C

A nurse researcher developed a new scale to measure the self-care behaviours of adults

with type 2 diabetes. The validation effort included a test of the hypothesis that people

with high levels of HbA1c have significantly lower scores on the self-care scale than

those with lower levels of HbA1c. What type of validity is being assessed?

A) Content validity

B) Face validity

C) Criterion validity

D) Construct validity

D