CJ352—Exam 1 Study Guide
Exam—Tuesday, October 18th
Chapters 1 and 2
 What is “research” (Methodological, objective, believable)
 Scientific vs., Nonscientific inquiry (what is “scientific research? Science and “observation”)
 the link between theory and research; the link between research and policy
 How social science can benefit from the scientific method
 The probabilistic model
 Perspectives and paradigms
 Research paradigms shape the practice of research (What do we focus on based on different paradigms;
Different research questions different variables and comparing different paradigms based on these)
 Examples of research paradigms I talked about in class
 Classical school vs. positivism; macrotheories vs. microtheories
 Your own paradigm, perspective (what causes crime; factors would you focus on when doing research)
 Paradigm Shifts
 What are the dominant paradigms in Criminology today as discussed in class
 What is a “theory” and what role do theories play in research? (remember, theories are not facts or laws)
 Testing the theory (what does it mean that theories must be testable?)
 Testing propositions
 Going from concepts (what are these?) to variables (things that change) to test the theory
 Hypothesis Testing—what is the process?
 Going from a research question to a research hypothesis; testing the hypothesis with observations
 Deductive vs. Inductive reasoning (what is the difference)?
 Principles of scientific perspectives (understand the definition of each, how we described them in class, and how
they are related to research)
 Empiricism, Objectivity, Tentativeness, Skepticism, Ethical Neutrality, Parsimony, Publication,
Replication (what does this mean? Why do we need to replicate? Relation to “generalizability”),
Determinism (think in terms of causality)
Chapter 3
 Why is it important to address ethics/politics in social science research; in criminal justice research specifically?
 Ethics and Social Research (what are “ethics”; why are they important; what is the effect on quality of research?)
 Voluntary Participation (and what are the gray areas here?)
 Sampling (what is it), how the idea of a representative sample may be effected by voluntary participation
 No harm to the Participants (What kind of harm? When might the harm occur? Informed consent)
 Anonymity and Confidentiality (really understand what these things are)
 Deception
 Ethics and the “community of scholars”—what is the IRB (Institutional Review Board)?; Code of ethics?
 Association among the different ethical principles
 Willingness to participate and confidentiality/anonymity and the need to cause no harm to participants, etc.
 Ethics in the context of the Stanford Prison Experiment and Milgrim’s Obedience to Authority Experiement
 Politics and Research—what is the influence of politics and how we should avoid it
Chapter 4
 Three purposes of research
 Two major tasks: specify what your want to find out then figure out the best way to do it
 Link between research topic/question and research design
 Three purposes of research—in which are we testing hypotheses? Be able to recognize examples of each
o Exploration (exploratory research)
o Description (descriptive research)
o Explanation (explanatory research)
 Determinism and social science
 Complexity of determinism and causality
 Strict determinism and inevitability (these do not exist) vs. the Probability model
 False positives and false negatives (be able to recognize examples of each and problem with prediction)





Causality and Causation (understand the importance of causality)
 Criteria for Causality
 Understand what these criteria are and how to determine them as we discussed in class
 Be able to work through the process yourself (remember the “cows and crime” example)
 Four Criteria for Causality:
1. Correlation (and different types of correlation)
2. Temporal order is correct
3. Logic of causal relationship
4. Effect not due to some third variable (not spurious)
 Bidirectional causality
 Errors in reasoning about causation—Provincialism, Questionable causes
Determinism, causality, and “risk factors”
How the probabilistic model affects the language we use to describe our research findings (hint: tentativeness)
Units of Analysis (what are they, examples of each)
o Individuals; Groups (including cohorts); Organization; Geographic/structural level
o Drawing conclusions based on unit of analysis
o Faulty reasoning about units of analysis—Ecological Fallacy
Time-related issues—recognize examples of each
o Cross-sectional designs—different groups at the same time
o Longitudinal designs—Same thing at different points of time (Trend studies; Cohort studies; Panel studies)
o Longitudinal studies the best way to study changes over time; but more complex, difficult, time consuming
 Also usually the best for answering questions about causal relationships (because of temporal order)
 Problem of attrition (bias?)
Chapter 5
 What does the term measurement mean and why is it important?
 Three things scientists measure (p.121)
o Direct observables, indirect observables, constructs (ways to organize reality)
 Conceptualization and Concepts
o Concepts are theoretical; are “real” but measure things that can’t be directly or indirectly measured
o How we go to these observables from the construct/concept is through Conceptualization
 Indicators (and examples of indicators of different concepts)
 Dimensions (and examples of dimensions of different concepts)
 Why is it important to conceptualize what you are going to study early in the research process? (figuring out how
you are going to define your concepts)
 Operational definitions and Operationalization choices
o Defining Variables and Attributes (should be exhaustive and mutually exclusive)
o Single vs. multiple indicators
o Levels of Measurement (scale of measurement)
o Three properties of scales (a scale may or may not have these)—magnitude, equal intervals, absolute zero
o Types of Scales - based on how many (and which ones) of the above properties a scale possesses—ratio,
interval, ordinal, nominal (recognize examples of each)
 What does it mean to say that your definition of your concept will dictate how you measure it (ex, measuring
nonserious delinquency)
 What does it mean to say that how you measure your concept, in effect, defines your concept (ex., using official
arrest records to measure criminal behavior)
 Criteria of measurement quality
o Precision and accuracy
o Reliability (test-retest, split-half, using established measures, interrater)
o Validity (face, criterion, construct, content)
o Reliability doesn’t assure validity or vice versa
Chapter 6
 Composite measures
o Multiple indicators to measure one concept
o Difference between indexes and scales
 Index construction (four steps)


o Item Selection (face validity, unidimensionality, general or specific, variance)
o Examination of empirical relationship (what does it mean; bivariate vs. multivariate)
o Index scoring (range? Adequate number of cases at each point. Different weighting?)
o Validating the index
Scale construction
o Likert Scale
Typologies (briefly, what are they?)
THE BIG PICTURE
 Why is it so important to be scientific in our research?
 How do all these things relate to research?
 How we do research, how we choose our variables and how to measure them, how we interpret our findings
(testing our hypothesis/theory)
 Also, be sure to understand the type of data we can collect (“self-report” vs. “official”) and the pros and cons of
each