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CRIM.5910-061,062: Research Design in Criminal Justice

Welcome to Research Methods in Criminal Justice

Your instructor is April Pattavina, PhD. Her contact information is at the left. 

In this class, Students are introduced to the essential elements of criminal justice research. Topics covered include: 

•criminal justice data sources 
•conceptualization and non-experimental and quasi-experimental designs 
•survey research 
•document studies
•other types of research designs.

What to Expect

The purpose of this course is to introduce students to the process of social research and its application to criminal justice issues. The material covered in this course can be roughly divided into two distinct sections. Covered first are topics that provide the foundation for scientific research. They include the differences between lay and scientific inquiry, the assumptions underlying the social scientific method, and the elements of research design including purpose, measurement, and sampling.

The latter half of the course will focus on specific types of research methods, such as experimentation, survey research, field techniques, and the analysis of existing data. If time permits at the end of the course, we will discuss elementary data analysis.

Textbook

Hagan, Frank E. (10th edition). Research Methods in Criminal Justice and Criminology. Prentice Hall.

To read the e-book on the Internet Archive, create an account and log in. Be sure to click the Return Now button when through for the day. Only use the one hour checkout option.

 

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