CCJS300 Exam #2

what are nominal variables?

• can only be categorized and state that answers differ from one another

• no ranking

• can’t say that one answer is better/ worse than another

• Example: favorite ice cream, yes/no answers

what are ordinal variables?

• Answers are ranked

• Differences between values are not precise

• Example: Likert scales

what are interval variables?

• Used when researchers create scales

• There isn’t a true zero/ zero does not equal absence

• Can compute distances between codes/ answers

• Example: Fahrenheit

what are ratio variables?

• can compute distances between codes/ answers

• There is a true zero point/ 0= absence

• most versatile

• Example: arrested 0 times, 0 children, 0 dollars

what is variable list in coding?

names and definitions for each question or measure

what is data management in coding?

importing, cleaning, and storing data

what is editing in coding?

checking errors and inconsistencies

what is coder monitoring in coding?

checking within- and between- coder agreement

what is data verification?

using R to inspect and validate data

what is noncompliance in coding?

when the researcher doesn’t follow set rules/ guidelines in coding

• blank, multiple, or invalid responses require documented rules

what is within-coder consistency?

Apply the same rules to every survey

• Measures how well one individual researcher stays aligned with themselves

what is between-coder consistency?

all coders use the same codebook

what are the hardest types of surveys to get people to answer?

mail surveys

What is the ideal scheduling for mail surveys?

• 1st mailing: send survey, directions, and a return envelope

• 1 week after that: send a postcard to 1. remind people to do the survey and 2. as a thank you to those that have done it

• 3 weeks after: send another survey, letter, and stamped envelope

• 7 weeks after: final mailing with survey, letter, and stamped envelope sent as certified mail (they have to sign for it)

  • induces guilt, can backfire because people get angry

what are some advantages to mail surveys?

• Reasonable cost given potential geographic coverage

• Eliminates interviewer bias

• privacy/ convenience

• Useful for research that involves going through records

what are some disadvantages of mail surveys?

• lowest response rate

• bias

• no realistic item explanation

• lengthy process

• subject may read entire survey before answering

• subjects may get help from others

• literacy problems

what do telephone surveys need to be effective?

• you need to be articulate/ a good communicator

• needs to be short (5 mins max)

• short items with few response categories

what are some advantages to telephone surveys?

• ability to get quick data

• item explanation

• response rate - middle

• avoids the literacy problem

what are some disadvantages to telephone surveys?

• limits the sample to those who have phone/ are reachable

• may be relying on listed numbers

• screening problems

  • no idea who is answering the phone

• interviewer bias

• timing of call

• sensitive items must be asked out loud

  • use branching to make it less awkward

what is branching in surveys?

asking a series of questions that are designed to narrow down a subjects answer without actually asking a sensitive question

• talking around the actual question you want answered

what are some interview rules?

• neutral role

• Be familiar with the survey (don’t memorize the whole thing)

  • You want to be personable

• follow the item wording (instrumentation)

• record answers exactly

what are some advantages to interviews?

• the best response rate

• item explanation

• ability to observe more than just answers

  • body language, eye contact, appearance of their home

• avoids literacy problems

what are some disadvantages of interviews?

• interviewer bias

• time consuming

• physically demanding

• safety issues

who were James Short and Ivan Nye?

• they started self reports

• questioned juveniles about committing crime across different age groups

• created scales and introduces stronger methodologies to self report research

what are the types of self reports?

• Opinionnaire: asks for respondents’ opinions on a given statement

• interviews

• check list

• questionaires

• interest inventory: often open-ended

• Attitudinal scale

what are some advantages of self reports?

• directly asking may achieve more honest answers

• qual/ quant data can be collected quickly and cheaply

• validity and reliability

• data can easily be obtained that is missing

• ease of coding and analysis

what are some disadvantages of self reports?

• frequently limited to juveniles/ males

• fixed questions lack flexibility

• more chances for misunderstanding or confusion

• often reflects feelings, not facts

• response rates are low

• often used in schools

  • leads to missing populations/ limited demographic

• no external validity

• honesty/ accuracy issues

• recall issues

• multiple offenders

• telescoping

• expensive

• biased

what is telescoping in self reports?

time frames are difficult to recall

what is backwards telescoping in self reports?

• when asked about the last year, people will frequently shift to further back than just one year

• rates, issues, and offenses appear higher than they actually are

what are some self report findings?

• UCR vastly underestimates total amount of crime

• most juveniles break law at some point, small percentage are responsible for a disproportionate amount

• males confess to more crimes than females

• most offending takes place in groups

• property crime is most commonly reported

what is the national survey of drug use and health?

• started in 1971 and is now in all 50 states

• reaches around 70,000 homes/ year

• informs treatment centers and recommendations

• government uses for resource allocation purposes

what is the point of using unobtrusive measures?

• individuals will act naturally when they don’t know they are being observed

• cons: you cant ask follow up questions, people usually don’t like to be watched without knowing why

what is physical trace analysis?

studies that involve analysis of deposits, accretion of matter, and other indirect substances produced by previous human interaction

• ex: blood, footprints

what is content analysis?

systematic classification and study of mass media

• newspapers, magazines, television, etc.

what is secondary analysis?

reanalysis of data that has already been gathered for other purposes

what is simple observation?

• the researcher makes no interference

• purpose is to watch people in their own environments to observe natural behaviors

• naturalistic observation: directly in the environment it occurs in, no interaction with participants

• structures observation: in a lab or simulated environment

  • less natural but meant to observe a specific and limited set of behaviors

what is a disguised observation?

when informed consent is not sought and researchers pretend to be part of the study group

• complete immersion in phenomenon and environment

• researcher does not reveal identity and conceals themselves

• confederates

what are some examples of simulation studies?

• Milgram’s shock therapy

• Stanford prison experiment

what are archival or available date?

• Form of secondary analysis

• Previously gathered data used for other purposes

• ex. personal documents/ biographies, diaries

what are some potential limits/ issues for archival + available data?

• data may not contain degree or accuracy or operationalization wanted by the researcher

• data may be manipulated

what are some advantages of unobtrusive measures?

• non-reactivity: the subject does not react due to being unaware of the researchers presence

• no Hawthorne effect

• harms that may be caused by the researcher may not occur

• very cheap

• easier to correct mistakes

• good for examining processes over time or that have occurred in the past

what are some disadvantages of unobtrusive measures?

• ethically questionable/ invasion of privacy

• Validity issues may be present depending on the data source

• scope of study is strictly limited

• Social context is missing (since we can’t see everything)

what is test-retest reliability?

when the same instrument is administered at least twice to the same group, are the results the same/ stable?

what are some problems with test-retest reliability?

• carryover effect/ memory:

  • participants remember what they answered previously

  • the shorter the time between administration

• answers might actually change in between administrations

  • the longer the time between administrations

what are equivalent or multiple forms reliability?

does the administration of a disguised or alternative version of the same instrument to the same group result in the same/ stable scores?

• generate two similar, yet different tests given to the same group at two different times

• intended to try and reduce carryover effect

what are some issues with equivalent or multiple forms reliability?

• carryover effect

• answers might change between administrations

• how do we know the items are actually equivalent?

what is the split-half technique?

In the administration of the instrument to one group at one time, are separate halves of the instrument similar in response (are they consistent)?

• generate two similar, yet different tests that are attached together in one long survey given out at one point in time

what are some issues with the split-half technique in reliability?

• maximized carryover effect

• items may not actually be equivalent

• eliminates answers not changing, but this maximizes carryover effect

what is validity?

• accuracy of measurement

• does the measuring instrument measure what it claims to measure

what is face/ logic validity?

• subjective

• does it appear to measure what we intend to measure

• simplest measurement

• face value

what is content validity?

• accuracy of individual items in a scale measure the concept of what is being measured

• ensures multiple indicators are consistent

what is construct validity?

• accuracy of the scale or measurement in tapping the correct concept of construct

• look at other peoples research

• how did other people measure your variables

what is concurrent validity?

• the assessment correlates with other assessments that measure the same construct

• A correlates with B

what is predictive validity?

• the assessment predicts performance on a future assessment

• A predicts B

what is pragmatic validity?

accuracy of the measuring instrument in predicting the current status or future status

what is convergent discriminant validity?

• different measures of the same construct should yield similar results (convergence)

• the same measure of different concepts should yield different results (discrimination)

what is triangulation?

using multiple methods of data collection

who was Barbara Heyl?

• She was interested in trying to see how many ways she could triangulate in a study, so she studied a madam of a brothel

• did a case study

  • Found a successful madam, and she agreed to be the subject

• observational work

• interviews

• content analysis

• The madam allowed Heyl to view the educational videotapes

what did Hirschi find with reliability of self-reports?

• he used test-retest approach with a group of juveniles and correlated the two tests

• found that reliability of self reports depends on the severity of the offense

• the most serious offenses are the least reliable

what did Clark and Tifft find about reliability of self reports?

• they threatened participants with lie detector tests

• found that after being threatened with the lie detector test, only 18.5% of answers were changes

• argued that original answers were pretty reliable

what did Farrington find about reliability of self-reports?

• Card sort strategy: gave 14 and 15 year olds cards with delinquent behaviors on it, had to sort the cards into “had done it” or “not done it” piles

• Returns to kids 2 years later (16-17 now) and they had to sort the cards again

• *Found that 25% of the total early confessions were later denied and 50% of the serious early confessions were later denied

in order for an assessment to be valid, it must also be what?

reliable

what required elements must be present in Classical Experimental Design (CED)?

• experimental group and control group

  • experimental group gets treatment, control group doesn’t

• equivalence: the 2 groups must be equal/ equivalent to each other

  • random assignment to decide who goes in what group

  • matching: twinning, cloning

what are the symbols for pre and post tests in classical experimental design?

• 01= pretest

• 02= post-test

• E= equivalence

• T= treatment

what is Solomon’s Four Group Design?

• splits participants into four randomly assigned groups to evaluate the effectiveness of a treatment while controlling for the influence of a pre-test

what is Quasi- Experimental Design?

• Participants are already in pre-existing groups

• Because groups aren't randomized, pre-existing differences might skew the results

• One group Ex Post Facto

  • only T and 02 (no manipulation)

• One group before and after

  • 01, T, 02

• Two group Ex Post Facto

  • 1. T, 02

  • 2. 02

what is the time series design?

• used to study phenomenon that normally fluctuate or change over time

• used to determine when a fluctuation is more than normal

• uses multiple pretests and post tests to determine this

• ex. pretest in January, february, and march to track the crime rate. Add the treatment

  (more police presence). Then post-test in april, may, and june(more police presence).

what is the counter-balanced design?

• created to deal with multiple treatment interference

• examines every possible combination of treatment in a separate group

• EX. have two treatments A and B and we don’t know which is important

  • have a group of people that gets A, a group that gets B, a group that gets both, and a group that gets nothing

what was operation 25?

• They wanted to see how police presence affected crime rates

• Tested whether massively increasing foot patrol could deter crime

• One group (no equivalence if only one group)

what was the Rand 20th Precinct Study?

• two groups, two precincts in New York that were demographically similar

• only increased crime rate in one group

what was the Kansas City Preventative Patrol Study?

• proactive approach: officers are out and making presence known

• reactive approach: officers not making presence known

• wanted to see how approaches affected crime rates and fear of crime

• took 15 beats (geographical locations)

  • beats randomly assigned to groups

  • 5 beats were told to be proactive

  • 5 beats were told to be reactive

  • 5 beats were control and officers weren’t given any instruction

what was the Berk and Sherman Study?

• wanted to look at police response to domestic violence to see what police can do to deter domestic violence

• officers randomly would use an arrest, force separation or mediation approach for a domestic violence situation

• several follow ups to see if DV occurred after

what is a double bind experiment?

• neither the researcher or subject knows who is getting the treatment

  • using a placebo keeps subjects unaware of who is getting the real treatment

  • a third party keeps track of who has the real treatment and who has the placebo

what are parables?

• Short stories that teach a moral lesson or communicate a broader message

• Often used to examine people's values or beliefs

• what lesson did you learn?

what are scenarios?

• Descriptions of hypothetical situations used to study how people might react or behave in a specific situation

• What would you do?

what are vignettes?

• Short stories or descriptions presented to participants to measure their opinions, attitudes, or judgments about a situation

• what do you think?