CRM 1300 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Uniform Crime Reports, General Social Survey, Convenience Sampling
Document Summary
Patterns of criminality and methods and gathering crime statistics. Criminological knowledge is based on science, a logical organized method of obtaining information through direct systematic observation. Scientific knowledge is based on empirical evidence, information that is directly verifiable. A research method is a strategy for systematically conducting research. Concepts are mental constructs that represent some part of the world, inevitably in a simplified form. Variables are concepts whose values changes from case to case. Operationalizing a variable is the process of developing the measure to be used in gauging a variable. Measurement requires reliability the quality of consistent measurement and validity the quality of measuring precisely what one intends to measure. Cause and effect is a relationship in which change in one variable causes. Correlation exists when two (or more) variables are related in some way. Human behavior is too complex to allow criminology to predict any individual"s actions precisely.
