Chapter 1: The Selection of a Research Approach
Test Bank
Note: An asterisk indicates questions which also appear in the online student quizzes.
Multiple Choice
1. Research aligned with this worldview focuses on asymmetrical power relationships and inequities, while linking political and social action to confront social oppression at all levels.
a. postpositivism
b. constructivism
c. transformative
d. pragmatism
Ans: C
Cognitive Domain: Comprehension
Answer Location: The Transformative Worldview
Difficulty Level: Medium
2. Which of the following is true of a pragmatic research approach?
a. Researchers look for complexity of views related to how individuals construct meaning.
b. The focus is on answering philosophical questions.
c. Sensitivity to individual power structures is paramount.
d. Truth is what works at the time and all available approaches to understand the problem can be used.
Ans: C
Cognitive Domain: Knowledge
Answer Location: The Pragmatic Worldview
Difficulty Level: Easy
*3. Which of the following is the main focus of constructivism?
a. participant’s views of a situation
b. determining proper research methods
c. finding the truth
d. cause and effect
Ans: A
Cognitive Domain: Knowledge
Answer Location: The Constructivist Worldview
Difficulty Level: Easy
4. Which of the following is not a characteristic of post-positivist research?
a. reductionism
b. a set of logically related steps
c. belief in multiple perspectives
d. focus on objective meanings
Ans: D
Cognitive Domain: Knowledge
Answer Location: The Postpositivist Worldview
Difficulty Level: Easy
*5. Which of the following represents a quantitative research design?
a. narrative research
b. survey research
c. ethnography
d. phenomenological research
Ans: B
Cognitive Domain: Knowledge
Answer Location: Quantitative Designs
Difficulty Level: Easy
True/False
*1. A researcher’s background, ideas, and experiences become central to the research process in both qualitative and quantitative research.
Ans: F
Cognitive Domain: Comprehension
Answer Location: Qualitative Designs
Difficulty Level: Medium
*2. Qualitative research develops theory, while quantitative research tests theory.
Ans: T
Cognitive Domain: Comprehension
Answer Location: The Three Approaches to Research
Difficulty Level: Medium
3. The experience of homelessness would be a great topic to study using a phenomenological research design.
Ans: T
Cognitive Domain: Comprehension
Answer Location: Qualitative Designs
Difficulty Level: Medium
4. Exploratory sequential mixed methods uses broad quantitative data in the initial phase to then explore the views of the participants in the second phase.
Ans: F
Cognitive Domain: Comprehension
Answer Location: Mixed Methods Designs
Difficulty Level: Medium
*5. Postpositive research is also known as the scientific method.
Ans: T
Cognitive Domain: Knowledge
Answer Location: The Postpositivist Worldview
Difficulty Level: Easy
Essay
1. Creswell (2017) advances 3 research approaches. Identify the 3 approaches and briefly explain how to distinguish them from each other.
Ans: Qualitative, quantitative, and mixed method. Qualitative research is an approach focused on gaining understanding and exploring the meaning that individuals or groups ascribe to an experience. Qualitative research’s goal is to build theory inductively from the research data. Quantitative research is an approach focused on testing theory deductively and to determine relationship among different variables. Quantitative research is known for using closed ended questions that results in numerical data. Mixed methods is an approach that involves using both qualitative and quantitative data and integrating the two forms of data to yield insights deeper than what could be achieved through one approach alone.
Cognitive Domain: Analysis
Answer Location: The Three Approaches to Research
Difficulty Level: Medium
2. Identify the three components do researchers need to think about in planning a study and provide an example of each component.
Ans: Researchers need to think about the philosophical worldview that they bring to the study, the research design that is related to the worldview, and the specific methods or procedures of research.
Worldview options – postpositivism, social constructivism, transformative, pragmatism
Design options – qualitative, quantitative, mixed method
Methods options – interview data, observation data, census data, statistical analysis, instrument based questions, performance data, pretest/posttest, text and image analysis.
Cognitive Domain: Comprehension
Answer Location: Three Components Involved in an Approach
Difficulty Level: Easy
3. A worldview is “a basic set of beliefs that guide action” (Guba, 1990, p.17). According to Creswell, each researcher brings a worldview to a study. How do individuals develop their worldviews and how might these worldviews affect research design?
Ans: Researches develop their worldviews based on their personal background and histories, through disciplinary orientations and research communities, advisors and mentors, and past research experiences. The worldview might affect the types of research design we choose. For example, as a social scientists, I value people’s experience and stories. Thus, I might embrace more of a qualitative research design that utilizes one-on-one interviews.
Cognitive Domain: Knowledge
Answer Location: Philosophical Worldviews
Difficulty Level: Easy
4. Under which conditions might a qualitative research approach be more useful than a quantitative approach?
Ans: A qualitative research design might be best when we know little about the topic to be explored, the topic has not been explored within a certain population of individuals, or existing theories do not apply to the group under study.
Cognitive Domain: Application
Answer Location: The Research Problem and Questions
Difficulty Level: Easy
5. Choosing one of the 4 worldviews that Creswell outlines, describe a possible research study that aligns with the worldview that includes a topic, a research design, and appropriate research methods. Be sure to explain how your topic aligns with the chosen worldview.
Ans: Answers will vary based upon which worldview students choose.
Cognitive Domain: Analysis
Answer Location: Research Approaches as Worldviews, Designs, and Methods
Difficulty Level: Hard
