Schmall crim today8e_ppt_ch2

Criminology Today
An Integrated Introduction
CHAPTER
Criminology Today: An Integrated Introduction, 8e
Frank Schmalleger
Copyright © 2017 by Pearson Education, Inc.
All Rights Reserved
Where Do Theories
Come From?
2

All Rights Reserved
Frank Schmalleger
Evidence-Based Criminology
• Emphasis on theories, policies,
practices that are evidence-based
• Founded upon the experimental
method
• Emphasizes randomized controlled
experiments
• "Evidence" refers to scientific findings.

All Rights Reserved
Frank Schmalleger
The Evolving Science of
Criminology
• John Laub's eras of criminological
thought
 Golden Age of Research (1900–1930)
 Golden Age of Theory (1930–1960)
 Testing of dominant theories (1960–
2000)
 Current era/21st century criminology
contains "all possible offspring" of what
came before.
continued on next slide

All Rights Reserved
Frank Schmalleger
Criminology
• Modern criminology more scientific than
"armchair criminology" of the past
• Scientific criminology involves:
 Systematic collection of related facts
 Emphasis on the scientific method

All Rights Reserved
Frank Schmalleger
Criminology
• Scientific criminology involves:
 General laws, field for experimentation
or observation, control of academic
discourse
 Acceptance into the scientific tradition
 Emphasis on a worthwhile subject

All Rights Reserved
Frank Schmalleger
Theory Building
• Goal of criminological research
 Construct theories or models that
improve our understanding of criminal
behavior and help us create effective
strategies to deal with the crime
problem

All Rights Reserved
Frank Schmalleger
Theory Building
• Theory
 A series of interrelated propositions that
attempt to describe, explain, predict,
and ultimately control some class of
events

All Rights Reserved
Frank Schmalleger
Figure 2-1 The Theory Building Process
Source: Pearson Education, Inc.

All Rights Reserved
Frank Schmalleger
Uses of Theory
• Provide patterns for interpreting data
• Link studies together
• Supply frameworks within which
concepts and variables have special
significance
• Allow us to interpret the larger meaning
of findings

All Rights Reserved
Frank Schmalleger
The Role of Research and
Experimentation
• Research
 The use of standardized, systematic
procedures in the search for knowledge
• Types of research
 Applied vs. pure
 Primary vs. secondary

All Rights Reserved
Frank Schmalleger
Stages of Scientific Research
1. Problem identification
2. Development of a research design
3. Choice of data collection techniques
4. Review of findings

All Rights Reserved
Frank Schmalleger
Problem Identification
• First step in any research
• Choosing the problem/issue to be
studied
• Most research in criminology explores
issues of causality.
• Frequently involves testing hypotheses

All Rights Reserved
Frank Schmalleger
• Hypothesis
 A tentative explanation for an
observation, phenomenon, or scientific
problem that can be tested by further
investigation
 Something that is taken to be true for
the purpose of argument or
investigation; an assumption

All Rights Reserved
Frank Schmalleger
• Variable
 A concept that can undergo measurable
changes
• Operationalization
 Turning a simple hypothesis into one
that is testable
 Making concepts in hypothesis
measurable turns them into variables.

All Rights Reserved
Frank Schmalleger
Development of a Research Design
• Research design
 The logic and structure inherent in any
particular approach to data gathering
• One-group pretest-posttest
O1 × O2
 Simple research design
 Does not eliminate confounding effects
or competing hypotheses

All Rights Reserved
Frank Schmalleger
Validity in Research Designs
• Internal validity
 The certainty that experimental
interventions did indeed cause the
changes observed in the study group
• External validity
 The ability to generalize research
findings to other settings

All Rights Reserved
Frank Schmalleger
Figure 2-2 Threats to the Internal Validity of a Research Design

All Rights Reserved
Frank Schmalleger
Figure 2-3 Threats to the External Validity of a Research Design

All Rights Reserved
Frank Schmalleger
Experimental and Quasi-
Experimental Research Designs
• Controlled experiments
 Attempt to hold conditions other than
the experimental intervention constant
• Quasi-experimental designs
 Give the researcher control over the
"when and to whom" of measurement
(but not exposure to intervention)
 Less powerful than controlled
experiments

All Rights Reserved
Frank Schmalleger
Experimental Design
• Pretest-posttest control group design
 Experimental group: O1 × O2
 Control group: O3 × O4
 Control group is not exposed to
experimental intervention.
 Using a control group increases power
of design.

All Rights Reserved
Frank Schmalleger
Experimental Design
• Randomization is critical to success of
experimental design.
 Process by which subjects are assigned
to study groups without biases or
differences resulting from selection
 No self-selection allowed, no personal
judgment used in subject assignment
 Controls threats to internal validity

All Rights Reserved
Frank Schmalleger
Choice of Data-Collection
Techniques
• Data gathering strategies provide
approaches to the accumulation of
information needed for analysis.
• Strategy must produce information in
usable form.
• Kind of information needed depends on
questions to be answered.

All Rights Reserved
Frank Schmalleger
Main Types of Data-Gathering
Strategies
• Surveys
• Case studies
• Participant observation
• Self-reporting
• Secondary analysis

All Rights Reserved
Frank Schmalleger
Surveys
• Use questionnaires or surveys to gather
"survey data"
• May interview respondents in person,
over the telephone, by e-mail, by fax,
or by mail
• National Crime Victimization Survey

All Rights Reserved
Frank Schmalleger
Case Studies
• In-depth investigations into individual
cases
 Life history
• Case study focusing on one individual (a
single subject)
• Suffer from high levels of subjectivity
but provide opportunity to examine
individual cases in depth

All Rights Reserved
Frank Schmalleger
Participant Observations
• Involves various strategies in which the
researcher observes a group by
participating, to varying degrees, in the
activities of the group
• Researchers may operate undercover
or make their purpose and identity
known from the start.

All Rights Reserved
Frank Schmalleger
Participant Observations
• Main types
 Participant as observer
 Observer as complete participant
• Important for observer to avoid
influencing group, identifying too
closely with group, or aversion to group

All Rights Reserved
Frank Schmalleger
Self-Reporting
• Subjects are asked to report rates of
certain behaviors, such as crime.
 May provide information when official
records are lacking
 May be a form of survey research
• Some techniques, such as introspection
and personal reflection, are purely
subjective.

All Rights Reserved
Frank Schmalleger
Secondary Analysis
• New analysis or evaluation of existing
data that was gathered by other
researchers
• Analysis of information originally
collected for a different purpose

All Rights Reserved
Frank Schmalleger
Problems in Data Collection
• Scientific observation must meet two
criteria.
 Intersubjectivity: Independent observers
report seeing the same thing under the
same circumstances
 Replicability: When the same conditions
exist, the same results can be expected to
follow
• Observations meeting these criteria may
still lead to unwarranted conclusions.

All Rights Reserved
Frank Schmalleger
Review of Findings
• Most data subjected to some form of
statistical analysis
 Descriptive statistics: describe,
summarize, highlight relationships
within data
 Inferential statistics: attempt to
generalize findings by specifying how
likely they are to be true for other
populations or locations

All Rights Reserved
Frank Schmalleger
Review of Findings
• Measures of central tendency
 Mode, median, mean
• Standard deviation
 Measure of dispersion
• Correlation
 Interdependence between variables

All Rights Reserved
Frank Schmalleger
Quantitative versus Qualitative
Methods
• Quantitative methods
 Techniques that produce measurable
results that can be analyzed statistically
 "Mystique of quantity"
• Qualitative methods
 Techniques that produce subjective
results, or results that are difficult to
quantify
 Verstehen

All Rights Reserved
Frank Schmalleger
Values and Ethics in the Conduct
of Research
• Values affect all stages of the research
process.
 Research is never free from
preconceptions and biases.
 Control their effect by being aware of
them at the onset of the research
 Biases may threaten validity of research
results.

All Rights Reserved
Frank Schmalleger
of Research
• Ethical issues do not affect validity but
may impact the lives of researchers and
subjects.
 Protection of human subjects
 Privacy
 Need for disclosure of research methods
 Data confidentiality

All Rights Reserved
Frank Schmalleger
of Research
• Informed consent
 Strategy used to overcome ethical
issues inherent in criminological
research
 Inform subjects as to nature of
research, their anticipated role, the uses
made of the data

All Rights Reserved
Frank Schmalleger
of Research
• Institutional review boards
 Established by universities, research
organizations, government agencies
 Examine research proposals to
determine whether expectations of
ethical conduct have been met before
the proposals are submitted to funding
organizations

All Rights Reserved
Frank Schmalleger
of Research
• Participant observation may entail
difficult ethical issue.
 Should researchers violate the law if
research participation appears to
require it?
• Researcher's primary role is that of a
scientist.

All Rights Reserved
Frank Schmalleger
Social Policy and Criminological
Research
• Ideally, research should significantly
impact public crime control policy.
• Realistically
 Public officials may be ignorant of
current research.
 Public officials may ignore research
findings, create politically expedient
policies.

All Rights Reserved
Frank Schmalleger
• Description of existing situation
• Statement of hypothesis
• Description of research plan
• Disclaimers/limitations
• Findings/results
• Analysis/discussion
• Summary/conclusions

All Rights Reserved
Frank Schmalleger
Writing for Publication
• Refereed journals
 Primary outlet for research results
 Journals that use peer reviewers to
gauge the quality of manuscripts
submitted to them

All Rights Reserved
Frank Schmalleger
Writing for Publication
• Refereed journals
 Believed to result in publication of
research making a worthwhile
contribution and rejection of lesser
quality research
 Manuscript submission requirements
vary by journal.

Schmall crim today8e_ppt_ch2

Recommended

Recommended

More Related Content

What's hot

What's hot (14)

Similar to Schmall crim today8e_ppt_ch2

Similar to Schmall crim today8e_ppt_ch2 (20)

More from Rappahannock Community College

More from Rappahannock Community College (11)

Recently uploaded

Recently uploaded (20)

Schmall crim today8e_ppt_ch2