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Understanding The Basics in Criminological Research

The document outlines the fundamentals of criminological research, emphasizing the systematic inquiry process that includes both inductive and deductive methods. It categorizes the contributions of research into four types of knowledge: description, prediction, improvement, and explanation, while also detailing four research purposes: basic, applied, evaluation, and action research. Additionally, it describes the stages of conducting a research study, which include identifying a research problem, preparing a proposal, conducting a pilot study, executing the main study, and preparing a report.

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5 views2 pages

Understanding The Basics in Criminological Research

The document outlines the fundamentals of criminological research, emphasizing the systematic inquiry process that includes both inductive and deductive methods. It categorizes the contributions of research into four types of knowledge: description, prediction, improvement, and explanation, while also detailing four research purposes: basic, applied, evaluation, and action research. Additionally, it describes the stages of conducting a research study, which include identifying a research problem, preparing a proposal, conducting a pilot study, executing the main study, and preparing a report.

Uploaded by

sagradsabdulrahman
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© © All Rights Reserved
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UNDERSTANDING THE BASICS IN CRIMINOLOGICAL RESEARCH

Research is a systematic inquiry to describe, explain, predict and control the observed
phenomenon. Research involves inductive and deductive methods (Babbie, 1998). Inductive
methods analyze the observed phenomenon and identify the general principles, structures, or
processes underlying the phenomenon observed; deductive methods verify the hypothesized
principles through observations. The purposes are different: one is to develop explanations, and
the other is to test the validity of the explanations.

One thing that we have to pay attention to research is that the heart of the research is not
on statistics, but the thinking behind the research. How we really want to find out, how we build
arguments about ideas and concepts, and what evidence that we can support to persuade people
to accept our arguments.

Gall, Borg and Gall (1996) proposed four types of knowledge that research contributed to
education as follows:

1. Description: Results of research can describe natural or social phenomenon, such as its
form, structure, activity, change over time, relationship to other phenomena. The
descriptive function of research relies on instrumentation for measurement and
observations. The descriptive research results in our understanding of what happened. It
sometimes produces statistical information about aspects of education.
2. Prediction: Prediction research is intended to predict a phenomenon that will occur at
time Y from information at an earlier time X. In educational research, researchers have
been engaged in:
o Acquiring knowledge about factors that predict students' success in school and in
the world of work
o Identifying students who are likely to be unsuccessful so that prevention programs
can be instituted.

1. Improvement: This type of research is mainly concerned with the effectiveness of


intervention. The research approach include experimental design and evaluation research.
2. Explanation: This type research subsumes the other three: if the researchers are able to
explain an educational phenomenon, it means that they can describe, can predict its
consequences, and know how to intervene to change those consequences.

What are the purposes of research?


Patton (1990) pointed out the importance of identifying the purpose in a research process. He
classified four types of research based on different purposes:

1. Basic Research: The purpose of this research is to understand and explain, i.e. the
research is interested in formulating and testing theoretical construct and propositions
that ideally generalize across time and space. This type of research takes the form of a
theory that explains the phenomenon under investigation to give its contribution to
knowledge. This research is more descriptive in nature exploring what, why and how
questions.
2. Applied Research: The purpose of this research is to help people understand the nature of
human problems so that human beings can more effectively control their environment. In
other words, this type of research pursues potential solutions to human and societal
problems. This research is more prescriptive in nature, focusing on how questions.
3. Evaluation Research (summative and formative): Evaluation research studies the
processes and outcomes aimed at attempted solution. The purpose of formative research
is to improve human intervention within specific conditions, such as activities, time, and
groups of people; the purpose of summative evaluation is to judge the effectiveness of a
program, policy, or product.
4. Action Research: Action research aims at solving specific problems within a program,
organization, or community. Patton (1990) described that design and data collection in
action research tend to be more informal, and the people in the situation are directly
involved in gathering information and studying themselves.

What is a research process?


Gall, Borg, and Gall (1996) described the following stages of conducting a research study:

1. Identify a significant research problem: in this stage, find out the research questions that
are significant and feasible to study.
2. Prepare a research proposal: a research proposal usually consists of the sections including
introductory, literature review, research design, research method, data analysis and
protection of human subject section, and timeline.
3. Conduct a pilot study: the purpose is to develop and try out data-collection methods and
other procedures.
4. Conduct a main study
5. Prepare a report

Gall, Borg, and Gall (1996) also explained that these five stages may overlap or occur in a
different order depending the nature of the study. Qualitative studies which involve emergent
research design may gather and analyze some data before developing the proposal, or a pilot
study can be done before writing a research proposal or not at all.

References:

Anglin, G. J., Ross, S. M., & Morrsion, G. R. (1995). Inquiry in instructional design and
technology: Getting started. In G. J. Anglin (ed.), (2nd ed.) Instructional technology: Past,
present, and future. Englewood, CO: Libraries Unlimited, Inc.

Gall, M. D., Borg, W. R., & Gall, J. P. (1996). Educational Research: An Introduction ( Sixth
ed.). White Plains, NY: Longman.

Patton, M. Q. (1990). Qualitative Evaluation and Research Methods. ( 2nd ed.). Newbury Park,
CA: Sage.

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