Study Aid for COMM 3023 Exam 1
Exam 1 will cover materials from Chapters 1-4, and 6.
Chapter 1 - Introduction to Research Methods
1. What are the three “methods of knowing” besides research?
 Method of tenacity: we know something is true because it has always been believed
to be true.
 Method of authority: we know something b/c an expert told us so
 Method of intuition: it just makes sense
2. What distinguishes research from the other “methods of knowing”?
 research looks at or implies scientific or systematic procedures
 Others don’t imply scientific procedures and are not systematic
3. What is the difference between focusing on message effects vs. message design?
 Message design is construct
 Message effects is outcomes
4. What are the three major components of the scientific method?
 Theory
 Data
 Analysis
5. What is the main goal of researchers who use the scientific method?
 Uncover regularities among aggregates
6. What is the key difference between scholarly and proprietary research?
 Scholarly: Research for the purpose of answering an empirical question. Nobody is
set to own the research.
 Proprietary: research that is for the company’s eyes only. Usually private funding is
involved.
 The difference has to do with ownership of the data
7. What are the two research goals mainly pursued by people in the communication discipline?
 Predict behavior
 Explain behavior
8. What types of questions are examined in research? Which is focused on in communication?
 Questions of Fact-provide definitions
 Questions of variable relations- examine if, how and to what degree phenomena are
related
 Questions of value- ask for subjective evaluations
 Questions of policy-recommend a course of action

9. What is the definition of a theory?
 Set of concepts, definitions, and propositions that presents a systematic view of the
phenomena
10. What is the Law of the Hammer and how can we avoid this problem?
 P13
 Phenomenon that describes when research method students believe that a particular
method can answer any question
 We can avoid it by thinking of the method as a tool and recognize that there are
appropriate tools for different purposes
Chapter 2 – The Research Process
11. What are the 2 key differences between taking an inductive vs. deductive approach?
 Deductive: quantitative, general to specific, goal is theory testing
 Inductive: qualitative, specific to general, goal is theory devleopment
12. How does the role of theory differ in an inductive vs. deductive model of research?
 Deductive starts with theory and tests it
 Inductive develops the theory
13. What are the different general purposes of research?
 Exploration, description, explanation
14. What are the different specific purposes of research?
 Replication, triangulation of methods, extension, and conflict resolution
15. What is the difference between a causal and functional explanation?
 Causal- why something occured
 Functional-finding out how a behavior works, quantitative
16. What is the difference between primary and secondary sources?
 Primary-direct source
 Secondary- a source that quotes another source
17. What does the practice of “backtracking” involve?
 References from other articles
18. What are three main functions that theory serves for social scientists?
 Helps prevent us being taken in by flukes
 Helps make sense of observed patterns
 Helps shape and direct research efforts
19. What is the relationship between theory & the three general purposes of research?
 Role of theory plays differs based on general purpose of research
 For exploratory and descriptive studies, end of research process
 For explanatory studies, beginning of research process
Chapter 3 – Introduction to Quantitative Research
20. What is the definition of a construct?
 conceptualization process. Define it so it can be measurable.
 Theoretical definition of a concept; must be observable or measurable
21. What is the difference between conceptualization and operationalization?
 Conceptualization: Process of specifying what we mean when we use particular
terms, defining variables in your study
 Operationalization: Specifically how the variable is observed or measured, once we
have defined the terms, this specifies procedures or how we are observing variables
22. What is a hypothesis?
 Educated guess or presumption based on literature.
23. What is a hypothesis of difference? What is a hypothesis of association?
 Difference: differences between groups.
 Association (co-variation): examine how often certain events co-occurr, specifies
relationship or assoc. between two or more variables
24. What are the differences between a directional, non-directional, and a null hypothesis?
 Directional: states a hypothesis of more, less, etc.
 Non-directions: simply states there is a difference or that there is some sort of
relation
 Null: states there is no difference, they are the same
25. What is the difference between an independent and dependent variable?
 Independent: presumed cause (what the researcher manipulates)
 Dependent: effect, outcome
26. What is the difference between a moderator and mediator variable?
 Mediating-bridges the gap between two variables
 Moderating-alters the relationship
27. What is the difference between a categorical and continuous variable?
 Continuous: varies along continuum
 Categorical: assessed on a nominal scare
28. What is the major problem associated with confounding variables?
 white noise, interfering with you being able to find the cause and effect
29. What is the difference between validity and reliability?
 Reliability: consistency in procedures and in reactions of participants
 Validity: truth--Does it measure what it intended to measure?
Chapter 4 – Introduction to Qualitative Research
30. What is the primary focus of qualitative research?
 To describe the multiple factors of what influences communication phenomena and
what it says and how they impact each other
31. What needs to be secured prior to entering the field setting when doing qualitative research?
 credibility
32. What does the process of member validation involve?
 Taking research findings back to individuals who provided data
33. What are the three types of triangulation that can help boost credibility of qualitative data?
 Data triangulation, investigator triangulation, interdisciplinary triangulation
34. Which method for interpreting meaning of qualitative data is least objective? Most objective?
 Subjective valuing is the most objective
 researcher construction is the least subjective
35. What are the selection and reactivity biases that threaten credibility of qualitative data?
 Selection bias- hear what you want to hear
 Reactivity bias-occurs when you are being watched
Chapter 6 – Conceptualization and Measurement
36. What are the two steps involved in establishing the conceptual order?
 Only when you do both nominal definition and the operational definition can you be
successful in identifying the conceptual order.
37. What are the differences between nominal, ordinal, ratio, and interval levels of measurement?
 Nominal: variables w/ attributes that only allows you to categorize individuals
 Ordinal: variables w/ attributes that allow you to categorize and rank individuals
 Ratio: variables w/ attributes that have equal distances between them and are based
on a “true zero” point
 Interval: variables w/ attributes that have equal distances between them
38. Which level of measurement has a true or absolute zero point?
 Ratio
39. What key issues do reliability and validity address?
 Reliability refers to precision of a measure.
 Validity refers to the accuracy of a measure.
40. What is considered an “acceptable” level of reliability?
 Above .70
41. Describe the four methods for checking the reliability of a measure.

Test-retest method
o Calculates relationship or correlation
 Split-half method
o Expression of internal consistency between two separate but equal versions of the
same test or questionarre
 Item-total method
o
 Inter-coder method
42. What is the difference between the split-half and item-total method?
 Item total takes correlations and reliability from more than one variable while splithalf takes it from 2
43. Describe the three major types of validity that researchers need to be concerned about.
 Content-degree to which the measurement items are representative of all the potential
items available for measuring the construct of interest
 Criteria-determination of whether one measurement can be linked to some other
external measurement; achieved through two procedures-predictive validity and
concurrent validity
 Construct-extent to which measuring device measures the core concept that was
intended to be measured and not something else; researchers use a different, but
theoretically related, measure of the same or a similar phenomenon to est. construct
reliability
44. What are the different subsets for each of the major types of validity?
•Content validity
▫Face validity
▫Expert panel validity
•Criterion validity
▫Concurrent validity
▫Predictive validity
•Construct validity
▫Convergent validity
▫Divergent validity
45. What are the three possible relationships that exist between validity and reliability?
—A measure is reliable and valid
—A measure is reliable but not valid
—A measure is not reliable and not valid
46. What is the difference between internal and external validity?
47. What is the difference between diachronic and synchronic reliability?
 Diachronic: stability of observations over time
 Synchronic: stability of observations within the same time frame
48. What are the 2 threats to external validity?
 Lack of experimental realism
 Selection biases
49. Know the different types of researcher-related threats to validity.
 Experimenter effect: experimenter influences results obtained
 Observer bias: experimenters knowledge of study biases observations
 Research attribute effect: characteristic of researcher effects results (attractiveness)
50. Know the different types of procedure-related threats to validity.
 History effect: historical event influences results
 Instrumentation effect: something wrong with instruments
 Statistical regression: natural tendencies to regress toward middle
51. Know the different types of participant-related threats to validity.
 Hawthorne Effect: know being watched
 Testing effect: participant taken test before
 Maturation effect: responses influenced by changes through the experiment (over
time)
 Experimenter mortality: drop out of experiment
 Self selection effect: responses influenced from hidden agenda/motivation
 Inter-subject bias:
 Compensatory rivalry: responses influenced b/c they feel neglected by researcher