Week Two Flashcards
What are research questions and what are their possible sources?
Questions about some aspect of crime, crimes or the cjs that can be answered through data collection and analysis
Sources: theory, prior research, researcher’s observations and or personal experiences
What is feasibility
The ability to conduct the research project within the available time frame and resources
What are the five reasons literature could be missing something?
- Key piece of research missing as no one has ever studied it
- The question has been studied but all of the empirical studies have inconsistent findings
- It has been studied but not through a specific approach or methodology
- Tried to answer but did not focus on specific population or sample
- Question has been explored but a critical variable has not been addressed
What is deductive and inductive reasoning
Deductive: move from general (theory) to specific (data)
Inductive: move from specific (data) to theory (general)
What is a theory and hypothesis
Theory: a logically interrelated set of propositions about empirical reality
Hypothesis: a tentative statement about empirical reality, involving a relationship between two or more variables and the direction of that relationship
What is an independent and dependent variable?
A characteristic of property that can vary
Independent: a variable that is hypothesis to cause or lead to variation in another variable
Dependent: a variable that is hypothesised to vary depending on or under the influence of another variable
What is direction of association
Positive relationship: the independent and dependent variables move in the same direction
Negative relationship: the independent and dependent variables move in the opposite direction.
What is measurement validity?
Exists when a measure measures what we think it measures
Causal validity: exits when a conclusion that a leads to or results in B is right
What is sample and cross population generalisability
Generalisability: exists when a conclusion holds true for the population, group, setting or event that we say it does, given the conditions that we specify
Sample: exists when a conclusion based in a sample or subset of a larger population holds true for that population
Cross- population: exists when findings about one group, population or setting hold true for other groups, population or settings
What is operationalisation
The process of specifying the operations (measures) that will indicate the value of a variable
What are nominal measure
Qualitative and without a mathematical interpretation
The nominal level of measurement identified variables whose values have no math interpretation. Differ in kind or quality but not amount. Attributes must be
Mutually exclusive: measure can be identified by one and only one attribute
Exhaustive: all possible measures must be included in the attributes
Eg gender
What are ordinal measure
The numbers assigned to each case specify only the order of the cases, permitting greater than and less than distinctions
Level of agreement w a statement from agree to disagree for example
What are interval and ratio measure
Interval: numbers represent fixed measurement units but have no absolute zero point eg temperature
Ratio: fixed measuring units with an absolute zero point. Zero means that absolutely no amount of the variable, ratios can be formed between the numbers. Eg number of drinks consumed in one sitting
Both are continuous
What is face validity
A measure is face valid if it appears to measure the concept of interest, that is, if it obviously pertains to the meaning of the concept of interest
What is content validity
A measure has content validity if it covers the full range of the concepts meaning
