The Practice of Research in Criminology and Criminal Justice
Web Exercises
Click on the following links. Please note these will open in a new window.
1. Access your university’s library system and obtain three peer-reviewed journal articles that use qualitative data analysis methods. Briefly describe the goals of the study, then outline the main qualitative data analysis methods used. Does this method seem to be the most appropriate for the research question? Why or why not? Does the author provide a justification for the use of this particular method, and if so, what is the reasoning behind their choice?
2. Using the Web, search for a book review on a criminological ethnography. What is the sample or population under study? How does using the ethnographic method provide the researcher data on the topic of interest? What are the main findings from the study? How might the findings be different if the researcher focused on quantitative methods rather than qualitative data analysis?
3. Many criminological theories originated from qualitative data collections and are rooted in grounded theory. Using the Web, search for the historical origins of a criminological theory. Outline how the theory was developed. What was the original research question used to develop the theory? What qualitative methods were used in the original data collection? Were any quantitative methods used? If so, how do the two methods complement each other?