CRIM 220 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Eyewitness Testimony, School Violence, Property Crime
14 May 2018
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Monday, January 15, 2018
Research Methods – Lecture Notes
o Foundations of Research
o How do we know that “being homeless is bad for your health”?
o Two Realities
o (1) Experiential reality:
o Knowledge based on experience.
▪ Empirical research
o (2) Agreement reality:
o Knowledge based on what we’ve been told.
o Science
o Logical support:
o Does it make sense?
o Empirical support:
o Does it agree with observations?
o Methodology
o The study of the methods used to understand something.
o Example: surveys, observation, and prison population.
o Personal Human Inquiry
o Firsthand experience(s).
o Understand why things are the way they are.
o Looking for patterns.
o And why they don’t always hold.
o Tradition
o Things that “everybody knows”.
o Cumulative knowledge based on inherited information.
o Example: chicken soup is good for colds and crime being higher in urban
areas.
o Authority
o New knowledge.
o Importance of:
o Legal authority.
o Training and experience.
o Example: Asking an experienced employee a question over a new(er) employee.
o Human Error
o Inaccurate observation
o Eyewitness testimony
o Overgeneralization.
o Property crime.
o Selective observation.
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Monday, January 15, 2018
o Racial and ethnic prejudices.
o Illogical reasoning.
o Crime rates.
o Ideology and politics (note: can get in the way of the best research).
o Harm redux.
o Example: safe injection sites to reduce overdosing and disease spread.
Drug use is however illegal – so some may not be for minimizing the harm
because of the ideology.
o Purpose of Research
o Problem or Objective
o What do you want to study?
o Why is it important?
o Research Question
o The specific question(s) your research will answer.
o Example: Comprehensive School Safety Initiative Study.
o Exploratory Research
o Purpose:
o Get a basic understanding of a problem or issue.
o Research questions:
o What’s the broad picture of school violence? (i.e., students thought
bullying, fighting, and theft were a problem in their schools).
o Descriptive Research
o Purpose:
o Describe the scope of the problem.
o Research questions:
o How many students have been cyberbullied? (i.e., about 40% students
thought at least one time they had mean or hurtful things said about them).
o Explanatory Research
o Purpose:
o Explain why something is the way it is.
o Research question:
o How does school climate affect school violence? (i.e., lower victimization
rates in school climates where rules are enforced).
o Applied Research
o Purpose:
o Get specific facts and findings to inform policy
o Research question:
o Has anti-bullying legislation reduced bullying? (i.e., the study could include
specific legislation changed).
o Foundation of Social Science
o Generating knowledge through logic …
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Document Summary
Monday, january 15, 2018: racial and ethnic prejudices, illogical reasoning, crime rates, ideology and politics (note: can get in the way of the best research), harm redux, example: safe injection sites to reduce overdosing and disease spread. Monday, january 15, 2018: variables and relationships, x y, independent variable: the variable that causes another variable, cause, predictor, x, dependent variable: the variable that is caused by another variable, outcome, effect, y. Sfu library research: check canvas for crim 220 library information *. Research methods tutorial notes: some of the common errors of human inquiry include: inaccurate observations, overgeneralization, selective observation, ideology and politics, and illogical reasoning, babbie (2013) discusses several common errors in human inquiry. Inaccurate observations are described as casual observations, therefore, most often detail and information is lost. Eye witness testimony error is one example that comes to mind. I would assume quite a few: overgeneralization occurs when generalizations are reached with few observations.
