IRM 1501: Introduction to research methodology for law and criminal justice

1. What is empirical knowledge: based on what we experience and observe

2. What are the 4 ways of "knowing"? Which is the most influential?: Authority, Tradition, Personal experience, and Scientific Approach(Empirical Research)

3. What is authority? What are its pros and cons?: Knowledge from someone with "expertise" Pros: Quick and easy Cons: Overstated expertise

4. What is tradition? What are its cons?: Tradition is the Authority of the past, the cons are: History can change, often not true in the first place, can result to spreading misinformation

5. What are the downsides and potential pitfalls of personal experience?

Be able to define each and give an example of each.: Overgeneralization and selective observation, premature closure, halo effect

6. What is social science? Who or what do we investigate in social science (as opposed to natural science)?: The use of scientific methods to investigate individuals, societies, and social processes, including questions related to criminol- ogy and criminal justice; the knowledge produced by these investigations. Natural science you're dealing with the physical world its not human behavior.

7. Why do we conduct social science research?: Answer practical questions, make informed decisions, make money, change society, build basic knowledge

8. What are the four categories of research purposes? What is the purpose of each one? What does each one entail?: Exploration, Description, Explanation, Evaluation. Exploration: formulate more precise questions for future research, Description: describe a process, mechanism, or relationship. Explanation: to find out why something is. Evaluation: determine effectiveness of specific policies and programs

9. What is a theory?: A set of interconnected statements or propositions that explain how two or more events or factors are related to one another

10. What is induction?: Specific-->General

Begin with concrete observations Move toward more abstract generalizations

11. What is Deduction?: General-->Specific

Begin with abstract, logical relationship

Move toward concrete evidence

12. What are the two levels of theory? What does each one represent?: Micro level and Macro level, Micro represents individuals and Macro represents Larger aggregates (states, counties, neighborhoods)

13. What are the two modes of explanation?: Idiographic and Nomothetic

14. What does each level of modes of explanation represent?: Idiographic: Choose one situation and explain it completely and Nomothetic: Choose class or type of situation and try to explain them collectively

15. Which level of modes of explanation looks for exhaustive list of factors and which focuses on most important?: Idiographic: exhaustive list of factors Nomothetic: focuses on most important

16. Which mode of explanation is more common in Criminology?: Nomo- thetic, the only way Idiographic uses it is for case studies (e.g. gangs)

17. What are attributes?: characteristics or qualities of a person, place, or thing

18. What are variables?: Logical grouping of attributes

19. What is a hypothesis?: expected relationship between concepts

20. What are the two main components of a hypothesis: Dependent variable and Independent variable

21. What is a dependent variable?: Outcome; caused by the independent vari- able, "Y"

22. What is an independent variable?: presumed to cause or influence a depen- dent variable, "X"

23. What is a control variable?: A specific kind of Independent variable,

24. What do we mean by "ethical(morals)"?: Conforming to the norms or stan- dards of a group/Being in accordance with accepted professional practices

25. What is voluntary participation? How do we ensure it?: Cannot be forced to partake. We ensure it by Informed consent.

26. What is informed consent?: Agreeing to participate after being told about the goals, procedures, and potential risks.

27. What do we mean by dissemination of findings?: -Obligation to publish

-Report negative or null findings

-Admit relationships found by accident

-Should we publicize our research?

28. What is harm?: Physical, psychological, embarrassment

29. How does harm relate to confidentiality?: Sometimes has implications for confidentiality

E.g. mandatory reporting?

30. How does harm relate to costs and benefits?: Somewhat arbitrary costs v. benefits

31. What is anonymity?: Researcher cannot link specific answers to specific participants

32. What is Confidentiality?: Research can link answers to participants, but promises not to share them publicly.

33. What do we mean by deception?: Researchers sometimes mislead partici- pants about the study's purpose

34. Is deception ethical?: -Usually unethical to deceive

-Sometimes seems necessary

35. What is Debriefing?: -Give partial information upfront

-Then full information afterward

36. What are the potential ways that research can cause legal liability?: -Wit- ness crimes during course of research

-Be drawn into criminal or deviants roles yourself

-Become privy to knowledge of illegal acts through interviews or surveys

37. Is research protected for legal recourse? In what way?: -Federal law pro- tects researchers in most cases

Example: Federal Certificate of

Confidentiality

-Still a gray area

38. What was the purpose of the National Research Act of 1974?: Created a commission to develop guidelines for human subjects research

39. What was the Belmont Report? What are the ethical principles laid out in it?: Set of ethical principles for protecting human subjects

1) Respect for persons

2) Beneficence

3) Justice

40. What is an IRB?: Institutional Review Boards

41. What do IRB boards do?: -Judge overall risks and benefits

-Assess safeguards for safety, confidentiality, and general welfare

-Look for informed consent

42. What is plagiarism?: Plagiarism is the act of stating or implying that another person's work is your own.

43. What kind of research is causation the focus of?: Explanatory research

44. What are the two kinds of causality?: -Deterministic

-Probabilistic

45. Define and give an example of both deterministic and probabilistic: De- terministic: Precisely identify all factors that cause something to happen each and every time

Examples:

-What causes water to boil?

-What causes an object to fall when I let go of it?

Probabilistic: An effect or outcome occurs more frequently, but not always, when a cause occurs

-X males Y more likely to occur

Example:

-juvenile delinquent behavior and criminal behavior

46. Which causality tries to define rules?: Deterministic

47. Which causality is more interested in trends?: Probabilistic

48. What kind of science does each causality follow?: Deterministic follows hard sciences and Probabilistic follows social

49. Define necessary and sufficient and explain how they relate to causality.-

: -Necessary: Y will not occur without X

-Sufficient: Whenever X occurs, Y will always occur

- Traditional scientific causality requires that X be necessary and sufficient for Y to be considered "causal"

50. What are the three criterion of probabilistic causality?: 1) Association/Cor- relation

2) Temporal (time) Order

3) No spuriousness

51. Define each criterion, when the criterion is met and when it is not: 1) Association: Variation in one variable should coincide with variation in the other variable

2) Temporal (time) Order: "Cause" must occur before "effect"

3) No spuriousness: No alternative explanation (e.g. a third variable) Spuriousness occurs when two variables seem to be related, but it is through a third variable

52. What are the three ways you can describe Association?: Strength (strong or weak)

Direction (positive or negative) Form/linearity (linear or not)

53. What are the two primary uses of research?: Basic and Applied

54. What is the purpose of each use of research?: Applied addresses policy concerns

Basic Advances fundamental knowledge

55. How is each use of research related to theory?: Basic: Tests theories

Applied: Theory less central

56. What are the three types of applied research and what are they for?-

: Action research: -Stimulate social action -Raise consciousness and increase awareness -Tied to a political agenda

Impact assessment: -Social impact of proposed change -Helps choose between alternatives

Evaluation: -Examine effectiveness -Often required -Ethical and political conflict can arise

57. What are the two types of evaluation research and how do they work?:   -

Formative: -Ongoing, continuous -Helps modify the program

Summative: -Conducted after completion of program -Can inform future programs

58. What are the three aspects of research design as discussed in class?:   -

Units of Analysis

Time Dimension

Data Collection Technique

59. Be able to define "units of analysis.": Social entities under study; what social researchers observe, describe, explain

60. What do we mean by nesting? Hierarchy? Be able to give an example of units that are nested.: Higher-level units of analysis consist of multiple units of analysis at a lower level

Nation > region > state > city > neighborhood > family > individual

61. What is the ecological fallacy?: Making inferences about individuals from findings about groups

62. What is the individualistic fallacy?: Making inferences about groups from findings about individuals

63. Give an example of each ecological fallacy and individualistic fallacy and identify when one or the other has occurred.: Ecological EX: -Finding: poor areas have more crime -False inference: poor people more likely to commit crime

Individualistic: -Remember: overgeneralization

64. What is cross-sectional research?: -Most common form of analysis

-"Snapshot" at one point in time

-Usually simplest and cheapest

-Cannot fully capture change

65. What is longitudinal research?: -Incorporates time directly

-More powerful for meausuring change

-More costly and difficult

66. What are the four different methods of longitudinal research?: -Time-se- ries study

-Panel study

-Cohort study

-Case study

67. What are the three main sources of crime data?: Official statistics: From a formal institution or criminal justice agency

Victimization surveys: From victims themselves

Self-report (offender) surveys: From people about their own criminal behavior

68. What is the most well-known official statistics data source?: Uniform

Crime Report (UCR)

69. What is the UCR? Who initiated it? When?: -Initiated by the International

Association of Police Chiefs during the 1920s

-Key function: to provide uniform definitions of crime

-Yearly publication: Crime in the United States

70. What % of the population is represented by the UCR?: Around 95% of the population is represented

71. What are the three types of data collected as part of the UCR? What are the characteristics of each?: Crimes known to the police

-Victim reports, witness reports, detected by police -Unfounding

Supplemental homicide reports

-Extra info: weapons, victim characteristics, offender relationship

Crimes cleared by police

-"Arrest data"

-Offender characteristics

72. What's missing from the UCR?: -Characteristics of offenders (for crimes known to police)

-Characteristics of victims

-Everything reported as counts

73. What are the Index crimes?: Part I crimes, the most serious 8 types of crimes

74. What makes non-index crimes different from index crimes?: Part II crimes, less serious crimes

75. What is the Hierarchy rule?: Only the most serious crime is reported for a single incident

76. What do we mean by uniform definitions and why does that matter?: -Only crimes that fit the strict criteria in the handbook get counted

-It matters because Sometimes the definitions used by local agencies do not match the FBI's definition.

77. Is the UCR an overestimate or underestimate of crime?: UCR underesti- mates crime

78. What do we mean by the "dark figure of crime"?: Term to describe the amount of unreported or undiscovered crime.

79. What's the most popular victimization survey? What are its purposes? Who collects it?: The most popular is The National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS)

-Its purpose is -More reliable estimates of serious crimes and crime trends -More information about situational factors -More demographic data about victims and offenders

-Collected by US Census Bureau

80. Panel Design, # of households sampled, frequency of interviews, re- sponse rates.: -60,000 Households are sampled

-Interviews every 6 months for up to 3 years about victimization that occurred in the last 6 months

-Response rate is very good

81. What are screening questions and short cues?: Screening questions: De- tailed follow-up for each incident reported

Short cues: prompt people into remembering

82. What are series victimizations?: -High frequency (3+), hard to distinguish

-Not included in annual estimates

83. What is a bounding interview and what is its purpose?: data from the first interview are not included in the published figures

84. What data is collected as part of the NCVS and how does it compare to the UCR?: -Household victimizations

-Individual victimizations

-Part I offenses (link to UCR)

-Not homicide and arson

-Adding simple assault

85. What are the problems with the NCVS?: -No data about part II crimes

-Interview is long

-Social desirability

-Telescoping

-Report incidents outside of reference period

-Recall problems

86. What are the best uses for the NCVS?: -National estimates of victimization

-Characteristics associated with victimization

-Compare victimization across states

-Trends over time

-Information about non-reporting of crime

87. What are self report surveys?: "Offender surveys"

88. What is operationalization?: Process of defining the measurement of a con- cept, based on the conceptual definition

89. What is a conceptual definition?: A specific working definition of the concept

90. What is an operational definition?: Definition that spells out exactly how the concept will be measured.

91. What is measurement?: assigning numbers or labels to units of analysis to represent variable categories

92. ¥: Some Opening Definitions

93. ¥: Methodology:

94. o: Science of finding out

95. o: systematic procedure, technique, or mode of inquiry

96. o: Empirical knowledge:

97. o: based on what we experience and observe

98. ¥: Ways of "Knowing"

99. o: Authority

100. o: Tradition

101. o: Personal Experience

102. o: Scientific Approach: Empirical Research

103. c: Knowledge from someone with "expertise"

104. c: Examples: parents, teachers, experts, politicians, etc.

105. o: Pros:

106. c: Quick and easy

107. c: Experts spend a lot of time and energy to learn something in particular

108. o: Cons:

109. c: Overstated expertise

110. c: Ulterior motives

111. •: E.g. physicians recommend pharmaceutical because of stake in company