Deck 31: Being a Criminologist and Doing Real-World Criminological Research

Question 1

Which of the following best describes a deductive approach to forming a research question?

A) The existing literature on a topic is read/reviewed and a research question is developed based on gaps in the literature
B) The existing literature is ignored in favour of a 'fresh' approach
C) Data is collected with an aim in mind and the literature of the topic is read after this to add context
D) A research question is deduced from what the data shows

Answer 1

A

Question 2

Which of the following is an example of an explanatory research question?

A) What are the perceptions of the use of force by police among white and non-white young adults living in Newcastle in 2020?
B) What are the feelings of safety or fear of crime among male and female students of Northumbria University when walking home to city centre Halls of Residence after midnight on Friday and Saturday nights?
C) Does the introduction of an arts and crafts programme improve prisoner mental health in an adult women's prison?
D) What are the perceptions among old and young residents of the prevalence of violent crime in Wallsend on a weekend?

Answer 2

C

Question 3

Which of the following is NOT a characteristic of quantitative research?

A) It typically looks to measure causality
B) It tends to collect broad information from large numbers of respondents
C) It is closely linked to the concept of positivism
D) It tends to collect detailed information from a small number of respondents

Answer 3

D

Question 4

What is interpretivism?

A) The assumption that researchers must aim to interpret every social phenomenon
B) The assumption that there is an objective 'truth' that social scientists should be seeking to reveal
C) The assumption that instead of one, single objective reality, there are different forms of reality constructed by different people
D) The assumption that everyone experiences reality the same way

Question 5

What is meant by the term ethnogenesis in the context of qualitative research methods?

A) An approach that seeks to measure how often an action is performed by an individual
B) An approach that attempts to understand individual actions as part of a wider 'episode' in an individual's life
C) An approach that looks to understand individual actions as wholly reflective of a person
D) An approach that attempts to understand an objective truth to why people behave in a certain way

Question 6

Which of the following is NOT a type of random sample?

A) A purposive sample
B) A simple random sample
C) A systematic random sample
D) A stratified random sample

Question 7

In which of the following situations would purposive sampling be the most appropriate?

A) For research with few resources and limited access to people outside their existing contacts
B) For research wanting to study people within a population who meet a certain set of criteria
C) For research that needs a strictly representative sample of a population
D) For research that just needs a very simple random sample

Question 8

Which of the following is an advantage of face-to-face interviews?

A) They are time-consuming
B) Avoids interviewer bias
C) Can look for non-verbal cues to deduce the potential accuracy of the information being provided
D) Low cost because there is never any travel time involved

Question 9

Which of the following data collection methods is qualitative?

A) Focus groups
B) Online questionnaires
C) Postal questionnaires
D) Structured telephone interviews

Question 10

In which of the following situations would the use of inferential statistics be the most appropriate?

A) The data is quantitative and has been collected from the entire population being tested
B) The data is quantitative and has been collected from a random sample
C) The data is qualitative and has been collected from a random sample
D) The data is quantitative and has been collected from a sample that is not a random sample

Question 11

Which of the following is NOT an analysis designed for qualitative data?

A) Narrative analysis
B) Thematic analysis
C) Secondary analysis
D) Content analysis