Criminal Justice

In light of our switch to online instruction, I have decided to change the format of our final from an exam to a methods paper. The paper should be similar to a methods section in a scientific article. It should include a description of the sample and data, specify the research questions and hypotheses, and include the appropriate statistics (detailed below) to answer the research questions. The submission deadline for this paper is still our scheduled final exam time so please ensure to submit your paper to the “Final Paper” submission folder on D2L no later than May 7th at 10.30 AM to allow for sufficient grading time on my end.

Papers must be 5-7 pages not counting title, tables, or reference pages. No abstract needs to be included. Submissions short of 5 full pages will have points deducted. The paper must be written in your own words with sources of information and quotations appropriately cited, and must follow APA format. See the Purdue OWL APA guide here: https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/section/2/10/ or other style guides for reference. Originality of papers will be checked by Turnitin and TCU’s plagiarism policy will be applied.

Grading Criteria: the most important grading criteria for this assignment will be the degree to which the stated research question(s)/hypotheses are answered, the factual correctness of the applied statistics, their appropriateness for the research questions at hand, and the correctness of the interpretations of findings. At a minimum, your research section should include descriptive statistics, t-tests, and at least one multivariate linear regression. See this guide for proper reporting and formatting of statistical results in APA tables https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/research_and_citation/apa_style/apa_formatting_and_style_guide/apa_tables_and_figures.html. We will also practice reporting in appropriate table formats in the coming weeks.

In addition, the following writing-related criteria/rubric will be applied:

A range (90% or above): The submission is well-organized and well-written. It includes insightful reflections and experiences, meets or exceeds the required minimum length, and it contains the required citations. It uses proper spelling, punctuation, grammar, and APA formatting. Direct quotes are used sparingly and writer summarizes others’ ideas in his/her own words.

B range (80% -89%): The submission is overall well done and meets all formal requirements, but suffers from minor blemishes (e.g., it may have spelling, punctuation, grammar, quoting, or APA formatting errors).

C range (70%-79%): The submission has more than one deficiency. It has numerous grammatical, spelling, word choice, citation, or APA formatting problems, it is not well-organized, or does not meet the required minimum length.

D range (60%-69%): The submission has numerous and severe deficiencies. It is unpolished, has numerous grammatical/spelling problems, is poorly-organized, or does not meet the required minimum length.

F range (below 60%): No submission, “ghost-writing,” or plagiarism is apparent. Alternatively, the assignment is incoherent or does not address the question(s) posed by the assignment.

To work with SpSS off campus, you will need to obtain and install a TCU-licensed copy of the software from here: https://it.tcu.edu/keeplearning/ Click on the large yellow “click here” button and log into box to obtain a copy.

As for data, I suggest you download and use GSS data from http://gss.norc.org/get-the-data/spss Just click on the year(s) you want the data for, and download and extract the zip files. Click on the .sav file(s) to open in SpSS.

To quickly find research ideas and variables, I recommend you use the GSS Data Explorer: https://gssdataexplorer.norc.org/. Click on “search variables” or go to this link: https://gssdataexplorer.norc.org/variables/vfilter and type in keywords/topics you’re interested in analyzing to find variables and the years for which they are available. Any criminal justice-related topic is okay and I recommend you use this as an opportunity to do active research on a topic that is personally interesting to you.

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use our library to find publications pertaining to your chosen paper topic that contain quantitative methods sections. Make sure you find at least 1 table showing how to publish descriptive statistics results in APA format, 1 table showing t-test results in APA format, and 1 table showing a table for multivariate linear regression results in APA format.

Note: For your own papers, I want you to interpret your findings in the same way we’ve practiced in class (interpretations in publications are oftentimes more abbreviated with the authors assuming that the reader can extract it all from the table), but format your spss outputs into table formats in line with typical publications. When you find articles pertaining to your chosen topics, feel free to use them as references.

Discussion 2: general questions about the papers. The emphasis here is on general. If you have a particular question about your paper, post them here as general as possible. Be descriptive in the title and say what your entry is asking – so that others can look it up if they have the same question.

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THIS IS AN EXAMPLE. THIS IS ANOTHER STUDENTS SOURCE AND PAPER TOPIC
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0218334
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