AICP Research and Assessment Methods 4

Question 1

Which approach to community engagement in planning research is MOST consistent with Participatory Action Research (PAR)?

Accepted Answer

Community members are co-researchers who help define questions, collect data, and act on findings

Answer

PAR involves communities as active partners throughout the research process, from problem definition to data collection and action.

Question 2

A planner uses a five-point Likert scale to measure resident satisfaction. This type of data is BEST classified as:

Accepted Answer

Ordinal

Answer

Likert scale responses represent ranked categories with no true equal intervals between points, making them ordinal data.

Question 3

When evaluating an affordable housing program, a planner wants to establish a counterfactual. The BEST approach would be to:

Accepted Answer

Compare outcomes for program participants against a matched comparison group that did not participate

Answer

A matched comparison group approximates the counterfactual—what would have happened to participants without the program—enabling causal inference.

Question 4

In a multivariate regression model predicting median home values, a planner finds that R² = 0.82. This means:

Accepted Answer

82% of the variance in home values is explained by the independent variables in the model

Answer

R² represents the proportion of variance in the dependent variable explained by all independent variables in the regression model.

Question 5

A planner conducts a focus group about park amenities with eight participants. The MAIN advantage of this method over individual interviews is:

Accepted Answer

Group interaction can surface shared perspectives and spark ideas not captured individually

Answer

Focus groups leverage group dynamics and interaction, allowing participants to build on each other's ideas and reveal collective perspectives.

AICP - American Institute of Certified Planners Practice Test