Exam 1 Study Guide CCJ4700 Why is research important CJ professionals are both consumers and producers of research Ordinary human inquiry Looking for reality o All of us try to understand and predict the social world Scientific inquires and social research in particular are designed to avoid the common pitfalls of ordinary human inquiry Science offers an approach to understanding reality o Criteria for acceptance of reality Common errors in human inquiry agree with actual observations Must have logical and empirical support it must make sense and o Inaccurate observations not remembering or remembering something diff o Overgeneralizations o Selective observation o Illogical reasoning o Ideology and Politics What is Research The scientific investigation into or of a specifically identified phenomenon and is applicable to recognizable and undiscovered phenomena The research process o Identifying the research problem What needs to be studied o Designing the study o Collecting the data Raw data meat of the research o Analyzing and interpreting the results of the data Limitations weird findings did the data match the hypothesis o Publishing or sharing the findings Basic vs Applied research Types of Research Descriptive counting documenting Exploratory first understanding what actually needs to be studied research for the sake of exploring the topic Explanatory why did something happen Applied recognize the results of the research and apply them to real problems o Evaluation o Policy analysis The Scientific Method Theory Formulated to help researcher understand Conceptual framework that explains existing facts and predicts new ones Hypothesis more variables Idea or guess of what the researcher thinks will happen general statement or prediction about the relationship between two or o Requirements Must be well constructed and plausible Has to be grounded in theory Has to be empirically testable Step 1 Defining the Problem o Important to state as clearly as possible what it is we want to investigate o Narrow down key words ideas and definitions we are interested in studying o Conceptualization fuzzy and imprecise notions are made more specific and precise Beginning point for all research endeavors Go from the abstract to the concrete before research can actually Step 2 Literature Review occur examination o Read and describe other scholarly studies relevant to the topic under o Provides an in depth understanding of the topic o Alerts us to methodological problems that have been encountered by prior researchers o Library Website Step 3 Formulating a Hypothesis o Hypothesis A specified testable expectation about the nature of things o Direction of the hypothesis determine which variables are dependent and derived from a theory which are independent Independent variable causes or influences another variable Dependent variable caused or influenced by the independent variable Step 4 Collecting and Analyzing Data o Select sample o Select research method to collect data from the sample Surveys Field work Experiments Secondary Data o Analyze the results Step 5 Developing a Conclusion o Did the data support the hypotheses o Are there questions that remain unanswered o Are there any possible flaws or shortcomings o Recommendations for future research on that topic Step 6 Sharing the Results o Publish in a scholarly journal or book o Presenting your findings at a professional meeting and or to an agency Ethics in Criminology Research Research Ethics doing what is morally and legally right when conducting research o The outcome of the research must outweigh any negatives that might occur Criminology research is ripe with ethical questions and dilemmas Ethical issues o Neutral and impartial research without personal moral judgments o Human subjects o Honesty in research reporting No Harm to Participants General rule social research should never injure the people being studied o Physical o Psychological o Feel uncomfortable Choose study design with this concern in mind Sensitivity to the issue and experience Voluntary Participation Should an individual be a subject in a research project without his or her knowledge o Will that change their behavior answers Coercing people to participate o What is coercion for one might not be for another Informed consent consent given by an individual who has been provided with adequate information regarding the nature of the research and who has the ability to decline without prejudice Withholding the true nature of research o Sliding scale Generalizability of findings Anonymity and Confidentiality The right to privacy Anonymity o Researcher cannot associate a given piece of information with a particular Confidentiality for longitudinal studies o Researcher can link information to a given person s identity but promises not person to Analysis and Reporting Researchers have a duty to present their findings in a fair and accurate manner o They have to be objective and value free Report weaknesses and problems Report mistakes that could affect the results o Null findings no difference between the two groups file drawer problem Report negative findings Who funded the project Always read research with a critical eye Institutional Review Boards FSU s Human Subjects Committee IRB Informed Consent Protected Populations additional forms to fill out prisoner children medical o Negative hoop jumping for researchers time consuming o Benefits double check that researchers go by the ethical obligations patient Pros and cons of the IRB Stanford Prison Experiment o Zombardo study Differing Avenues for Inquiry Idiographic inquiry General Issues in Research Design o Approach to explanation in which we Seek to exhaust all causes of a particular phenomenon Usually used in field studies when studying 1 particular phenomenon Works best with qualitative data Nomothetic inquiry o Seek to identify a few causal factors that generally impact many More generalized Works best with quantitative data Inductive reasoning o Moves from Specific to general Trying to generalize a pattern o Often used in Ex Exploratory research Deductive reasoning o From General to specific o Theory hypotheses observations confirm or deny hypotheses Quantitative data o Numeric Qualitative data o Non numeric field observations interviews with people Common Research Terms Hypothesis an expectation about the nature of things derived from a theory o Just because you have a hypothesis doesn t mean it s actually testable
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