Transcript KEY CONCEPTS IN SOCIAL SCIENCE RESEARCH

APPLIED DATA ANALYSIS IN
CRIMINAL JUSTICE
CJ 525
MONMOUTH UNIVERSITY
Juan P. Rodriguez
Course Overview - 1
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The Police Chief wants to measure citizen
satisfaction with the police.
The Sheriff wants to determine the fear of
crime in the community.
The Mayor wants to know if the time and
money used in his crime suppression program
has had any impact on the town’s crime rate
The City Manager wants you to prepare a
proposal to get state or federal grant funds.
CJ 525 - Juan P. Rodriguez - Fall 2006
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Course Overview - 2
How will you accomplish these tasks?
 Through the examination of quantitative and
qualitative information
 Through the preparation, dissemination, and
evaluation of surveys
 Through the use of scientific methods
designed to separate fact from fiction and
truth from perception.
You will accomplish these tasks with
research!
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Course Overview - 3
At the end of the course, you will know how to:
 Design and implement scholarly research projects
 Acquire and analyze data
 Employ scientific principles to justify your
conclusions.
You will be able to provide administrators,
officers, and investigators with objective
information they can use to address a wide
variety of law enforcement concerns.
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Lecture 1
KEY CONCEPTS IN SOCIAL
SCIENCE RESEARCH
Key Concepts in Social Science
Research
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Overview
Empiricism
Data
Developing Research Questions
Theory and Hypothesis
Relationships & causality
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Association
Time order
Non Spuriousness
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Empiricism
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Social Scientists study:
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Occurrence of conditions or behaviors –
Information gathered over time is used to identify
trends and predict future patterns
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Extent of family poverty
Frequency of criminal behavior
Relationships – How one set of conditions or
behavior affect another
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Which factors predict crime?
Which factors contribute to success in attaining HS and
college degrees?
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Empiricism
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Both types of studies require rigorous
observation and analysis: empirical
A critical and systematic way of
separating facts from beliefs is needed:
Statistics
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Key Concepts in Social Science
Research
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Overview
Empiricism
Data
Developing Research Questions
Theory and Hypothesis
Relationships & causality
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

Association
Time order
Non Spuriousness
CJ 525 - Juan P. Rodriguez - Fall 2006
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Data
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A Research Project requires the collection and
organizing of Data (pieces of information)
Data for analysis are organized in Datasets,
linking Cases with Variables
Cases are the individual units under study.
Each case has one Datum (observation) per
Variable
Variables contain information about each
Case in a way that makes Cases comparable
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Data
Name
Age No school years
Income
Daniel
34
12
25000
Richard
45
16
30000
Mary
26
12
27000
Takisha
32
18
45000
Morgan
18
11
16000
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Data
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The course uses 2 datasets
General Social Survey (GSS98) contains
demographic information from a nationally
representative sample of respondents
States Data contains information on the
states and the people that live in them
These data in these sets is comparable to
that used by professional social scientists and
policy makers
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Data
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Researchers should:
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Gather and construct the best quality data:
It should be suited to the issue of interest
(GIGO)
Use Indicators that are
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Reliable (consistent)
Valid: the indicator measures what is supposed
to measure
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Key Concepts in Social Science
Research
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



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Overview
Empiricism
Data
Developing Research Questions
Theory and Hypothesis
Relationships & causality



Association
Time order
Non Spuriousness
CJ 525 - Juan P. Rodriguez - Fall 2006
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Developing Research
Questions
Why students drop out of school?
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Developing Research
Questions
Why students drop out of school?
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Identify the Research Question
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The question should drive the research
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Capital punishment is beneficial to society vs.
Is capital punishment a deterrent to crime?
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Developing Research
Questions
Is there racial discrimination in the Education
System?
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Broad questions may need to be parsed into
manageable sub questions:
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Is there an equitable representation of minority
groups within the curriculum?
Is there proportionate representation of minority
members in school systems?
Are there differences in graduation rates among
racial groups?
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Developing Research
Questions
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Perform a Literature review
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An overview of past research on topics
related to the research question
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It provides the knowledge gained on a subject
to date
Informs the researcher of the methods and
analysis others have used to answer similar
questions
Allows researchers to identify unanswered
questions or untried methods
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Key Concepts in Social Science
Research






Overview
Empiricism
Data
Developing Research Questions
Theory and Hypothesis
Relationships & causality



Association
Time order
Non Spuriousness
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Theory and Hypothesis
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Finding answers to research questions
involves developing theories and
hypothesis
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Theory: unproven explanation of facts or
phenomena
Hypothesis: a falsifiable statement
concerning expected relationships; they
can be supported or refuted when
subjected to a test.
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Theory and Hypothesis
Deductive Approach: Uses a theory to
develop a number of hypothesis to be
tested
 Theory: Inequities in school funding
leads minority group students to
perform worse that white students
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Theory and Hypothesis
Deductive Approach:
 Hypothesis:
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States with higher proportions of African
Americans and Hispanics will have lower
school funding
States with higher levels of school funding
will have higher graduation rates
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Theory and Hypothesis
Deductive Approach:
 Theory: Death penalty is effective at
deterring crime
 Hypothesis:
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States that
have lower
States that
have lower
have the death penalty will
murder rates
have the death penalty will
recidivism rates
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Theory and Hypothesis
Inductive Approach
 Tentative theories are based on data
and researchers continuously refine the
theories to concur with analyses
 At the end, the researcher understands
the relationships in the data and
develops a theory to explain these
relationships
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Key Concepts in Social Science
Research






Overview
Empiricism
Data
Developing Research Questions
Theory and Hypothesis
Relationships & causality



Association
Time order
Non Spuriousness
CJ 525 - Juan P. Rodriguez - Fall 2006
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Relationship and Causality
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In causal relationships a set of
conditions lead to predictable outcomes
Deterministic relationships: the
conditions lead to inevitable outcomes
Most social science relationships are
probabilistic: certain factors increase
tendencies toward particular outcomes
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Relationship and Causality
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Causal relationships: independent
variables are hypothesized to cause
changes in dependent variables
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Death penalty deters crime
School funding increases educational
success
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Relationship and Causality
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Causality Criteria:
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Association: there must be a relationship
between the independent and the dependent
variables
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Positive: an increase in one variable corresponds with
an increase in the other. People with higher degrees tend
to have higher incomes
Negative: an increase in one variable corresponds with
a decrease in the other. People with higher levels of
education tend to be less prejudiced
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Relationship and Causality
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Causality Criteria:
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Time order: the change in the
independent variable must precede the
change in the dependent variable
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Making the assertion Instituting the death
penalty will reduce crime requires having
measurements of crime activity prior to and
after the establishment of the death penalty
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Relationship and Causality
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Causality Criteria:
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Non spuriousness: the relationship
between the 2 variables is not due to a
third “spurious” factor.
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Ice cream consumption causes drowning
deaths
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Association: more people drown when more ice
cream is sold
Time order: increases in ice cream sales precede
increases in drowning deaths
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Relationship and Causality
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The unmeasured factor is temperature
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More people swim in the summer and more ice
cream is consumed in the summer
Researchers need to control possible
spurious factors: income and education
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