NO DROPOUTS HERE: TEST #1
Brought to you by
Gary Lichtenstein, CSSI
January 2004

• Complete this exam on your own. You may use your notes and any other resources (except another NDH researcher).
• Each questions is worth 5 points. The completed exam should be emailed to Gary (gary@coloradokids.org) by Wednesday, January 21.
• Some of the questions might look hard, but if you try, you’ll do fine.

1. Why is a research question important?

A research question is important because it guides the whole project, meaning if you don’t have it then when you are researching you will be searching for everything and you will get all sorts of different things and it will be too open. When you do have a research question you will be searching directly at what you want to find, but that is not always a good thing because you can look for something and it will give you a bunch of stuff that you really don’t want. So that is why the research question is like the middle of everything, because it gives all of the direction.

2. Write below what you would say to someone you wanted to interview for NDH (Phase 1). Be sure to include in your request the research question and the Human Subjects requirements.

Hi. I’m doing a research project called NDH (No Dropouts Here). I was wondering if I could ask you a few questions.
Ask about a tape recorder.

3. What is a research study design? Why is it important?

It is getting the quantitative view like the numbers the statistics and it’s doing everything by numbers and facts. For example, say we were doing this same project but we went and saw how many students dropped out per year. Then we went and got all of the numbers called them and then looked at what the percentage was of each one. That would be the quantitative view of a research design. The qualitative view is more like the thorough one more colorful. For example, if we were doing the same project we would do just how we are, getting dropouts that we know and that our school knows and when we interview we will pull out themes that we see repeating themselves. Like a lot of people might say that they did have someone who knew them and then we will most likely get our results from that. So that would be the qualitative view of the design.

4. What is the NDH study question?

We are doing the qualitative side because we are collecting the data and pulling out the themes. We are not using numbers.

5. Define “random sample.”

A random sample is where you choose numbers of the dropouts at random. For example, say you put all the numbers in a barrel and mixed it as much as possible and then picked them then it would be random sample.

6. Why is sampling theory important?

The sampling theory is important because if you are looking for something on purpose then you can and if you aren’t and you want to get all of the points of view then you can do a random sample. If you are looking for all points of view and you do a purposeful sample then it’s only going to have a couple of different views and it won’t be as wide as possible.

7. Below is a table of samples picked from a hat with 1000 marbles in it. Each researcher picked 30 marbles. Which of the four researchers most likely picked a non-random sample and why?

I think it was Amber because hers is different from everyone else’s.

8. Explain the NDH Phase 1 interview sample. How were the participants chosen? To what extent was it random sample, a purposeful sample, a skewed sample, and/or stratified sample?

Mine was a purposeful sample because I kind of just knew what everyone was going to tell me.

Click here for No Drop Outs Here final exam

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