CCJ 4700 - Exam 1 Practice Questions and Answers

CCJ 4700 - Exam 1 Practice Questions and Answers What are the two realities that explain how we know what we know? - Answer- Experiential - direct experience Agreement - what we've been told What is tradition? Give an example. - Answer-Things that "everybody knows" Ex: Driving on the left side of the road in the U.S. is dangerous What is authority? Give an example. - Answer-Trusting the judgement of someone with special expertise Ex: You are more likely to believe a judge regarding your driver's license suspension than your parents Errors in Personal Human Inquiry - Answer-Inaccurate Observation - overcome by using measurement devices Overgeneralization - overcome by replicating the study to see if you get the same results Selective Observation - specify in advance the number and types of observations Purposes of Research - Answer-Explore - examine an issue or policy about which little is known Describe - observe and describe the scope of a problem or policy response Explain - answer "why?" EMILLYCHARLOTTE 2024/2025 ACADEMIC YEAR ©2024 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, FIRST PUBLISH SEPTEMBER 2024 2/15 Apply - Applied research is often used to evaluate the effects of specific criminal justice programs Two major types of applied research: - Evaluation research Comparing program goals to results - Policy analysis Anticipate future consequences of alternative actions What is the research process? - Answer-Problem or Objective - Describes what will be studied Literature Review - Summarizes the prior research on the topic Research Questions - Specifies what the research will answer Subjects For Study - Whom or what will be studied Measurement - Identifies the key variables of the study Data Collection Methods - Explains how observations will be collected Analysis - Specifies how the observations will be analyzed References - List of materials consulted and cited Schedule - A timeline for the various stages of the proposal Budget - Species where money to support the research will be spent Social Scientific Theory - Answer-Discovering what is, not what should be - Cannot settle debates on value - Problematic with evaluators Ex: What constitutes a good parole officer? Social science aims to find... - Answer-Patterns of regularity in social life created by norms, rules, and observations EMILLYCHARLOTTE 2024/2025 ACADEMIC YEAR ©2024 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, FIRST PUBLISH SEPTEMBER 2024 3/15 What kind of patterns do social regularities represent? - Answer-Probabilistic What are more often the subject of social science research? - Answer-Aggregates What does social science distinguish? - Answer-The difference between the activities criminal justice researchers do from the daily routines of most criminal justice practitioners Variables and Attributes - Answer-Theory is written in a variable language; people are the carriers of those variables Social science involves the study of these two concepts: Attributes - Characteristics or qualities that describe some object such as a person Ex: less than high school degree, high school degree, GED, some college, college degree, etc Variables - Logical groupings of attributes Definition of Causation Ex of Independent Variable Ex of Dependent Variable - Answer-Causation: A person's attributes on one variable are expected to cause or encourage a particular attribute on another variable Independent Variable - "cause", "influencer" Dependent Variable - "effect", "depends" Ex: Type of defense attorney -> Prison or Probation