Sampling
You are studying how incarcerated mothers maintain relationships with their children. You have access to only a few participants who can refer you to others.
Name the method & if it is Probability or Nonprobability
Snowball Sampling
nonprobability
Nomothetic or Idiographic. Explain
A journalist investigates one particular wrongful conviction to uncover what mistakes led to it.
Idiographic
A detailed explanation that focuses on understanding one specific case or event in depth.
It emphasizes the unique combination of factors/circumstances that led to (caused) an outcome
Contextual, Detailed, Case-specific
If researchers are interested in understanding alcohol consumption in college students, what is a demographic question they might include.
Why is this an important one?
age, year in school, etc.
As long as you can justify it
Compare Qualitative and Quantitative methods- when are qualitative methods more appropriate.
A focus on meanings rather than on quantifiable phenomena
Collection of many data on a few cases rather than few data on many cases
In-depth study and attention to detail, without predetermined categories or directions - understanding experiences
Context
Goal: get rich descriptions of the world vs measurement of specific variables
Name 2/4 of the major types of secondary data
surveys
official statistics
official records
historical documents
You want to survey 200 probation officers across the state by randomly choosing every 5th name from a complete list.
Name the method & if it is Probability or Nonprobability
Systematic Random Sampling
Probability
Nomothetic or Idiographic
Explain
A criminologist uses national survey data to determine whether higher education levels are associated with lower rates of violent crime.
nomothetic
A general explanation that identifies patterns, laws, or regularities across many cases. It seeks to find broad, generalizable causal relationships.
X causes Y
General, Broad, Predictive
A researcher asks participants how often they resonate with the statement: "I can't stop thinking about a terrorist attack happening" in a survey given to participants.
Which principle of creating survey questions is the researcher ignoring?
HINT: Can you think of a more clear wording option.
avoiding negative words/double negatives
A researcher has a series of long conversations with formerly incarcerated women to understand their personal experiences with reentry barriers, such as housing, employment, and family reunification. Their goal is to gather detailed narratives that cannot be captured through survey questions
This is an example of what Qualitative method?
intensive interviewing
Using secondary data there is greatly reduced risk to participants.
What is one main concern with this method?
subject confidentiality - remove identifying characters/information from records
To balance your sample, you decide to interview an equal number of men and women from different racial groups until each category is filled.
Name the method & if it is Probability or Nonprobability
Quota Sampling
Nonprobability
What type of experiment would you use to test the following hypothesis.
Juvenile offenders who attend a rehabilitation program have lower recidivism rates than those who are sentenced to incarceration in a detention center.
Quasi-Experiment
Can you randomly assign individuals to each group?
A researcher includes the question: "Have you, or anyone you know, ever used cocaine?"
Which principle of creating survey questions is the researcher ignoring?
double-barreled questions
asking multiple questions as one
A researcher gets a part-time job at a retail store without telling coworkers they are studying employee theft, allowing them to observe how often items go missing and how staff talk about stealing
What role is the researcher taking?
covert participation
being one of them - not known as researcher
A police department uses GIS software to find the locations of recent burglaries across a city to identify clusters "hot spots" where break-ins are most frequent, helping them allocate patrols more effectively.
This is an example of ...
crime mapping
A national victimization survey wants to estimate the prevalence of burglary using random phone numbers generated by software.
Name the method & if it is Probability or Nonprobability
Random Digit Dialing
Probability
Hypothesis: Researchers test whether increased lighting reduces nighttime vandalism by randomly assigning some alleys in a city to receive new bright streetlights while leaving similar alleys unchanged.
What type of experiment is this?
Field Experiment
real world setting
When measuring violent victimization - what are the two main surveys discussed in the chapter
National Crime Victimization Survey (Bureau of Justice Statistics)
National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey (CDC)
Which qualitative research method is the hardest to establish "Voluntary Participation"
Participant observation
Most field research would be impossible if the participant observer were required to request permission of everyone having some contact, no matter how minimal, with a group or setting being observed.
Respect for privacy, avoid harm and discomfort, free to leave at any time etc.
Easy to establish this in Focus Groups or Intensive Interviews
About a month before the 9/11 attack, Zacarias Moussaoui, referred to as the 20th hijacker, was arrested after he raised suspicion at flight school in Oklahoma by requesting information on flying a 747.
He was indicted and found guilty in 2006 of 6 charges including conspiracy to commit acts of terrorism.
Information from his indictment, media and his connections were used to understand the terrorist cell that carried out 9/11.
Investigating his connections is an example of what?
social network analysis
SNA
You interview police chiefs across the country who are known for implementing reform policies
Name the method & if it is Probability or Nonprobability
Purposive Sampling
Nonprobability
Researchers test whether a new anti-theft training program reduces shoplifting among store employees.
Employees are randomly assigned to either:
-the training program (treatment)
-no training (control)
true experiment
Explain the importance of creating clear survey questions.
survey questions, if misleading or unclear, can result in inappropriate and unintended answers.
measurement validity is lost unless the questions in a survey are clear and convey the intended meaning to respondents
Explain the origins of Qualitative research
anthropologists and sociologists in the 20th century
Rather then relying on secondhand accounts of peoples/groups they started a very early version of research- got close to the communities to learn but not disturb
ethnography: The study of a culture or cultures that some group of people share, using participant observation over an extended period of time
Analyzing millions of social media posts, police reports, and 911 call records to predict potential spikes in gun violence. ___ helps researchers detect patterns that would be impossible to notice with traditional datasets.
Big Data