Do a web search for information on a criminological subject that interests you. How much of the information that you find relies on statistics as a tool for understanding the subject? How do statistics allow researchers to test their ideas about the subject and generate new ideas? To what extent could the research topic benefit from a qualitative data collection and analysis and what would a revised research study design look like? Write your insights in a brief report, referring to the websites that you found.
Sage publishes several journals that focus on qualitative research: https://journals.sagepub.com/. Select one and conduct a search for a metasynthesis that addresses a criminological topic. Summarize the article including its research question, sample, methods, and main findings.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) at https://www.cdc.gov/ has identified a number of “vulnerable populations” in the United States. Search the website to browse these groups and think of a research question you might want to pose about the experiences of one of the groups mentioned. Given what we know about a) Research Question Congruency, b) Researcher Training, c) Participant Accessibility, and d) Access to Resources, outline how your research question and subsequent study design would be impacted and which methodology(ies) you would use to launch your study.
