Research & Evidence-Based Practice Flashcards
7 cards from real Communication Skills practice questions. Tap to flip, then mark Knew It or Still Learning — missed cards come back until you master them.
Read the first 7 Research & Evidence-Based Practice flashcards as text
When a communication researcher uses grounded theory, the primary goal is to:
Answer: Develop a new theory that emerges from the data itself
Grounded theory is an inductive qualitative method in which theoretical explanations are generated directly from systematically collected and analyzed data.
Replication in communication research serves to:
Answer: Confirm or challenge findings by repeating the study under similar conditions
Replication strengthens scientific knowledge by testing whether findings hold across different samples, contexts, or times, building confidence in their reliability.
A communication researcher reports a Pearson correlation of r = 0.72 between eye contact and perceived credibility. This indicates:
Answer: A strong positive relationship between the two variables
A Pearson r of 0.72 reflects a strong positive correlation, meaning higher eye contact tends to be associated with higher credibility ratings.
Which of the following is the strongest level of evidence for evaluating a communication intervention's effectiveness?
Answer: A systematic review or meta-analysis of multiple RCTs
Systematic reviews and meta-analyses that synthesize findings from multiple RCTs sit at the top of the evidence hierarchy because they reduce bias from any single study.
Which term describes the degree to which a measurement instrument consistently produces the same results under the same conditions?
Answer: Reliability
Reliability refers to the consistency and repeatability of a measurement tool; a reliable instrument yields similar scores when conditions remain the same.
A practitioner reviews evidence and finds that active listening training has strong research support but decides against it because it contradicts her intuition. This violates the core principle of evidence-based practice because:
Answer: Evidence-based practice requires integrating research evidence with practitioner expertise and client values
Evidence-based practice integrates the best available research with practitioner expertise and client preferences — dismissing strong evidence based on intuition alone is not acceptable.
When a researcher generalizes findings from a sample to a broader population, the key factor enabling this generalization is:
Answer: Random and representative sampling from the target population
Random and representative sampling gives every member of the population an equal chance of selection, making statistical generalization to the population defensible.