The document outlines the requirements for a discussion assignment in a criminology course, which involves posting a main thread and two replies supported by scholarly citations. It emphasizes the importance of incorporating biblical principles and adhering to APA format for citations. Additionally, it discusses key research design concepts, causation, validity threats, and the importance of time dimensions in social science research.

1. CJUS 740
Discussion Assignment Instructions
The student will post one thread of at least 750–850 words by
11:59 p.m. (ET) on Tuesday. The student must then
post 2 replies of at least 250–300 words words by 11:59 p.m.
(ET) on Thursday.
For each thread, students must support their assertions with at
least 4 scholarly citations in APA format.
Each reply must incorporate at least 2 scholarly citations
in APA format.
Any sources cited must have been published within the last five
years. The original thread must incorporate ideas and several
scholarly citations from all of the Learn materials for that
Module: Week. The reply posts can integrate ideas and
citations from the Learn materials for other Modules: Weeks.
Integrate Biblical principles in your personal thread and in all
replies to peers.
Due by Tuesday 11:59a.m (Eastern Time) September 7,2021.
NO LATE WORK!
Discussion Board Question #2
What if you were a professional journalist? Do you think your
chief goals would be the same as that of a social scientist?
Should they be the same? Why or why not?
References
King James Bible. (1970). The Holy Bible. Camden, New
Jersey. Thomas Nelson, Inc.

2. Maxfield, M. G., & Babbie, E. R. (2018). Research methods for
criminal justice and criminology (8th ed.). Boston, MA:
Cengage Learning.
Chapter 4:
General
Issues
in
Research
Design
1
© 2018 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved.
Learning Objectives
• Recognize how explanatory scientific research
centers on the notion of cause and effect, and why
this is a probabilistic model of causation
• Describe the three basic requirements for
establishing a causal relationship in science, together
with what is a necessary cause and a sufficient cause
• Understand the role of validity and threats to validity
of causal inference
• Summarize the four classes of validity threats, and

3. how they correspond to questions about cause and
effect
2
© 2018 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved.
Learning Objectives, cont.
• Discuss how a scientific realist approach bridges
idiographic and nomothetic approaches to causation
• Describe different units of analysis in criminal justice
research
• Explain how the ecological fallacy relates to units of
analysis
• Understand the time dimension, together with the
differences between cross-sectional and longitudinal
research
• Describe how retrospective studies may approximate
longitudinal studies
3
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Introduction
• Causation, units, and time are key

4. elements in planning a research study
• As social scientists, we seek to explain
the causes of some phenomenon (e.g.,
crime)
• Who or what we are studying is an
important part of research
• Researchers also must consider the time
order of events
4
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Causation in the Social Sciences
• Causation is the focus of explanatory research
• Cause in social science is inherently
probabilistic
– Certain factors make crime/delinquency more or less likely
within groups of people
– Two models of explanation
• Ideographic: Lists the many, perhaps unique considerations
behind an
action
• Nomothetic: Lists the most important (and fewest)
considerations/variables that best explain general patterns of
cause and

5. effect
5
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Criteria for Causality
• Posited by Shadish, Cook, & Campbell (2002)
– Empirical relationship between variables
– Temporal order (cause precedes effect)
– No alternative explanations—no spurious other variable(s)
affecting
the initial relationship
• Any relationship that satisfies all these criteria is
causal
6
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Necessary and Sufficient Causes
• Within the probabilistic model, two types:
– Necessary cause: Represents a condition that must be present
for the effect to occur (e.g., being charged is necessary cause
to be convicted)

6. – Sufficient cause: Represents a condition that, if it is present,
will pretty much guarantee that the effect will occur (e.g.,
pleading guilty is sufficient cause to being convicted)
7
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Validity and Causal Inference
• Scientists assess the truth of statements about
cause by considering threats to validity
• When we make a cause-and-effect statement,
we are concerned with its validity—whether it is
true and valid
• Certain threats to the validity of our inference
exist
• These are reasons why we might be incorrect in
stating that some cause produces some effect
8
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Discussion Question 1
What are the greatest threats to validity in
social science?

7. 9
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Statistical Conclusion Validity
• Refers to our ability to determine whether a
change in the suspected cause is statistically
associated with a change in the suspected
effect
• Are two variables related to each other?
• Researchers cannot have much confidence in
statements about cause if their findings are
based on a small number of cases
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Internal Validity
• An observed association between two variables has
internal validity if the relationship is, in fact, causal
and not due to the effects of one or more other
variables
• Generally due to nonrandom or systemic error
• The threat to IV results when the relationship between
two variables arises from the effect of some third

8. variable
– Example: drug users sentenced to probation over prison
recidivate less
11
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Discussion Question 2
How can you best set up an experiment
with strong internal validity?
12
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External Validity
• Concerned with whether research findings in
one study can be replicated in another study,
often under different conditions
• Do the findings apply equally in different
settings (locales, cities, populations)?
• Kansas City evaluation found sharp reductions
in gun-related crimes in hot spots that had
been targeted for focused police patrols
– Indianapolis and Pittsburgh launched similar projects
13

9. © 2018 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved.
Construct Validity
• Concerned with how well an observed
relationship between variables represents the
causal process
• Refers to generalizing from what we observe
and measure to the real-world things in which
we are interested
– e.g., close supervision of officers -> more tickets?
– e.g., Kansas City Preventive Patrol Experiment, “police
visibility”
14
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Validity & Causal Inference Summarized
• The four types of validity threats can be
grouped into these two categories
• Bias: Internal Validity and Statistical
Conclusion Validity threats are related to
systematic and nonsystematic bias
• Generalizability: Construct Validity and
External Validity are concerned with

10. generalization to real-world behaviors
and conditions
15
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Discussion Question 3
What if someone offered you a survey
taken by South Africans to help you with
your survey project for North Americans?
Would you have any reservations as a
social scientist?
16
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Does Drug Use Cause Crime?
• Temporal order: which comes first?
• A statistical relationship exists, but
underlying causes affect both drug use
and crime (Internal Validity threat)
• What constitutes drug use? Crime?
(Construct Validity threat)
• How will policy affect drug use and crime?
– A crackdown on all drugs among all populations will do

11. little to reduce serious crime
17
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Introducing Scientific Realism
• Bridges idiographic and nomothetic
approaches to explanation by seeking to
understand how causal mechanisms
operate in specific contexts
– Studies how such influences are involved in cause-and-
effect relationships
– Exhibits both ideographic & nomothetic approaches to
explanation
– "Can the design of streets and intersections be modified
to make it more difficult for street drug markets to
operate?"
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Units of Analysis
• What or who is studied
– Individuals: Police, victims, defendants, inmates, gang

12. members, burglars, etc.
– Groups: Multiple persons with same characteristics
(gangs, cities, counties, etc.)
– Organizations: Formal groups with established leaders
and rules (prisons, police departments, courtrooms, drug
treatment facilities, etc.)
– Social artifacts: Products of social beings and their
behavior (stories in newspapers, posts on the Internet,
photographs of crime scenes, incident reports,
police/citizen interactions)
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Issues of Logic
• Ecological fallacy: Danger of making assertions
about individuals based on the examination of
groups or aggregations
– Poor areas = more crime, therefore poor people commit more
crime
• Individual fallacy: Using anecdotal evidence to
make an argument
– O.J. Simpson court resources
• Reductionism: Failing to see the myriad of
possible factors causing the situation being

13. studied
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The Time Dimension
• Time sequence is critical in determining
causation
• Time is also involved in the
generalizability of research findings
• Observations can either be made more or
less at one point, or stretched over a
longer period
– Observations made at more than one time point can
look forward or backward
21
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Cross-Sectional Studies
• Observing a single point in time (cross-section)
• Simple and least costly way to conduct
research
• Typically descriptive or exploratory in nature

14. • A single wave of the National Crime
Victimization Survey (NCVS) is a descriptive
cross-sectional study that estimates how many
people have been victims of crime in a given
time
22
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Longitudinal Studies
• Permit observations over time
– Trend: Those that study changes within some
general population over time (UCR)
– Cohort: Examine more specific populations as they
change over time (Wolfgang study)
– Panel: Similar to trend or cohort, but the same set of
people is interviewed on two or more occasions
(NCVS, panel attrition)
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Approximating Longitudinal Studies
• Gun ownership and violence study by Swiss

15. researcher Martin Killias (1993)
– Compared rates of gun ownership as reported in an
international
crime survey to rates of homicide and suicide committed with
guns
• May be possible to draw approximate conclusions
about processes that take place over time, even
when only CS data is available
• When time order of variables is clear, logical
inferences can be made about processes taking
place over time
24
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Retrospective Research
• Asks people to recall their past for the
purpose of approximating observations over
time
• People have faulty memories; people lie
• Analysis of past records also suffer from
problems—records may be unavailable,
incomplete, or inaccurate
• Prospective research: longitudinal study that
follows subjects forward in time (Widom,
child abuse/drug use)

16. 25
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Time Dimension Summarized
• Cross-sectional study = snapshot: an
image at one point in time
• Trend study = slide show: a series of
snapshots in sequence over time, allows
us to tell how some indicator varies over
time
• Panel study = motion picture: gives
information about individual observations
over time
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