Questions
1. Read this description of the meaning of “operationalization of measures” and then define “operationalization” in one sentence.
2. Is this statement TRUE or FALSE? “The goal of the present study was to develop a one-dimensional measure of adolescent friendship structure.”
3. TRUE or FALSE? The authors believe that researchers should focus on only the positive qualities of friendship in their measurements.
4. Was the mean (average) age (symbolized as M) higher in the pilot study sample or in the primary study sample?
5. Pilot study testing for the AFSI was based on how many items?
6. In the pilot study, the authors began their search for an inventory of adolescent friendship structure measures by examining both “surface” and “deep” friendship networks. Give one example of a positive deep friendship structure that was examined.
7. The purpose of the pilot study was to increase the AFSI’s practicality by reducing what?
8. Background. The authors carried out exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses. The purpose of a factor analysis is to take many observed (measured) variables and reduce these to a smaller number of variables that reflect the unobserved variables that are responsible for pattern in thedata. For example, in a classic study from social psychology, a factor analysis of items written to access people’s personal reactions in social situations revealed that our reactions are shaped largely by two factors: our sociabilityand our shyness. The investigators did not measure these two “factors” directly. Rather, they identified, through factor analysis, two patterns of responses in the much larger set of items presented to people. With this knowledge, researchers can represent social reactions with just two variables, one for each factor. We could, for example, average across the “sociability items” to come up with a sociability score for each person and then average across “shyness items” to create a shyness score. This is why factor analysis is often called a “data reduction” procedure. Factor analysis can also find “bad items” that are not a part of any pattern. These can be discarded.
Question: How many factors were identified by the authors in the exploratory factor analysis, described more technically in the article as “maximum likelihood analysis with promax oblique rotation”? Your answer should be a number – the number of identified factors. No other information is being requested.
9. The authors followed up with a Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA). Read about statistics solutions, in which “construct” is used to refer to “factors”. In one sentence, describe the purpose of confirmatory factor analysis.
10.The Cronbach’s alpha (α) for the variables identified in the exploratory factor analysis ranged from .71 to .91. Read about What cronbachs alpha means. Cronbach’s α is a measure of a scale’s reliability based on “internal __________.” (Your answer is one word.)
11.The authors examined criterion-related validity by looking at whether friendships that were “mutual” were of higher quality than “non-mutual” friendships. Did they find support for criterion-related validity? (Answer YES or NO.)
12.Looking at Table 1, the item Can make me laughis an indicator of a factor called _________.
13.A person is completing the AFSI while thinking about a friend who pressures them to do things. This person will probably provide a high rating of that friend on the factor (dimension) labeled __________ __________.
14.You have been asked to complete the AFSI. The focal person for your ratings is the person you think of as your best friend. You believe your best friend is a person with whom you can talk about even your most embarrassing personal problems. You are thus likely to rate your best friend high on the dimension (factor) labeled __________ __________.
15.Looking at Table 2, which of the four dimensions (factors) of the AFSI had the lowest level of internal consistency. (Hint: the answer is the same for both the EFA and CFA results.)
16.Researchers are usually interested in both the average responses on our scales for a sample and the amount they varied (differed) on their scores. We can find average responses by looking at the column in Table 2 labeled M (mean). We can find variance information by looking at the standard deviation column (SD). Which of the four AFSI dimensions had the highest variance?
17.Participants’ friendship satisfaction was most strongly correlated with which AFSI dimension?
18.TRUE of FALSE? Girls reported receiving less emotional support from their friends than did the boys in the study.
19.In the limitations section, the authors wrote that they “need to replicate these findings with other samples, in order the strengthen the ... validity of this new scale.” Does this “validity concern” represent a concern with internal or external validity? Your answer should be one word – internal or external.
20.Did the authors have any conflicts of interest to disclose for this investigation?

Questions 1. Read this description of the meaning of “operationali...