Answers: CJ 260 Research Methods in Criminal Justice Assignment



Answers: CJ 260 Research Methods in Criminal Justice Assignment

Part 1

A.

From the perspective of research methodology, the problem with the news reporter's title is that he has jumped to a definite conclusion. In a research, there is always a hypothesis which is subject to changes. In research, we analyze the relationship between variables. There is always a null hypothesis, which the researcher is trying to statistically disprove. Through the process of rejecting the null hypothesis, the other hypotheses gain reliability. Thus, the reporter by saying, “Raising a child with both parents will do wonders for your child's future career success!” made a mistake. In research methodological terms, it would mean that all evidence points to a definitive conclusion that raising a child with both parents would do wonders. That is a wrong statement. The correct statement would have been, “Research study seems to suggest a positive relation between a child's career success and being raised by both parents. B.

From the data given above, it seems that the researcher has used a questionnaire method in this study. This method has its own set of advantages and disadvantages. Through questionnaire method, large numbers of respondents are available. In a questionnaire, the questions can be easily coded and can be highly structured. Statistical analysis can be easily run. Questionnaires are also an inexpensive way to cover a large geographical area. In this case, the researcher placed an online ad which reached a large number of people and invited them to answer a questionnaire. Another advantage of a questionnaire is that it is easily reproducible and adaptable. Hence, it can also be used in later studies.

On the other hand, this methodology has some disadvantages as well. The major disadvantage is that the questions in it can be misunderstood, some of which can go unexplained hence they can affect the outcome of the study. Also, questionnaires are unable to provide proper context to the answers that have been provided. Another factor that can be cause of aberration in the research results is that the respondents-in some cases- tend to answer in socially desirable terms. In the context of the research example of the given above, we can see that the researcher has used a questionnaire method. Through this method, we can see that some of the respondents might have given socially-acceptable answers, or based their answers on peer-pressure. The researcher also does not provide the approximate error figures as well.

The external validity of the above mentioned research can critiqued as well. It may well happen that the conclusions derived by the researcher may well hold true for a certain area of the time period, but given the rise of single-parent families and consequent researches, this findings may well be local or after some time, obsolete. Also, one can question the random sampling of the research as well. It may well have happened that only respondents of a certain geographical population answered the ...