Social Research Methods Final Project



Criminal Justice Research Final Project

Bloomsburg University, Dr. Leo Barrile,

Your final project is to write a brief research paper on the issue of attitudes about punishment, particularly attitudes about DUI laws. Using the survey that we constructed and distributed, and using SPSS, you will analyze the data applying both descriptive and inferential statistics. The following steps are provided as a way for you to organize the paper. I want to see each step covered, though you can exceed these requirements if you wish. All final papers are due at the exam time, Thursday May 5, 8-10 A.M. Any papers that I receive after 10 A.M. during the day on Thursday until 3:00 p.m. will be assessed a 20 point reduction, and any paper that I receive from Thursday after 3:00 p.m. and until Friday 3:00 p.m. will receive a 50 point reduction. No final papers will be accepted after Friday, 3:00 p.m. I must receive papers IN PERSON. No final paper will be accepted if I do not receive the paper in person. DO NOT leave papers in my box or with anyone else, they will not be counted.

1. ABSTRACT After doing the work for your paper write a brief summary, four to eight sentences about the major questions that you addressed, the methods that you used, and the general findings that you derived from your analysis. 10 points

2. Literature Review. Find at least three RESEARCH articles on “ATTITUDES about sentencing or punishment.” Identify the variables, methods and samples that were used in these research studies. 25 points

3. Methods: Sample/Data Collection and Operationalization. Describe the reasoning in constructing the questionnaire, which variables or types of variables did we attempt to measure. Describe the sample and data collection. Describe the main dependent and independent variables that you used in your particular analysis. Describe any “constructed” or recoded variables and the reasons that you developed them. 10 points

4. Hypotheses. Describe any hypotheses between the variables that you generated based upon your reading of previous research or hunches that you might have, or on your look at the descriptive statistics. 5 points

5. Data Analysis, Results, Findings. Describe the data analysis that you are doing. Make sure to do both DESCRIPTIVE statistics, that is simple percents and frequency breakdowns of the data and INFERENTIAL statistics were you look at how two or more variables relate to one another in a t-test or correlation. Construct at least four tables in a work processing program using output from SPSS but DO NOT use the SPSS tables in the body of your paper. 30 points

6. Discussion. Discuss the results. What do they seem to indicate: Clear relationships? Support for your hypotheses? No relationships? Surprises? Support for the relationships found in the research studies that you summarized. 10 points

7. Conclusion. What were the strengths and weaknesses of the study? What would have improved the study? From the study could you make suggestions for further research?

5 points

8. References and or Appendices. List a bibliography of the sources that you used for the literature review. Follow the format used in one of the articles that you summarized or follow APA format. If you need to place larger tables or lists in an appendix, place it after the reference page. 5 points

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