Shared Flashcard Set

Details

CJ 300
Test 1
43
Criminal Justice
Undergraduate 2
10/08/2012

Additional Criminal Justice Flashcards

 


 

Cards

Term

Inaccurage Observation

(Common Error)

Definition
Failure to observe things or mistakenly observe things that aren't so.
Term

Overgeneralization

(Common Error)

Definition
Assuming a few similar events are evidence of a general patern.
Term

Selective Observation

(Common Error)

Definition
Paying attention to future events and situations that correspond with a pattern and ignore those that do not.
Term

Illogical Reasoning

(A common error.)

Definition
Thinking a streak of good weather will cause it to rain on the day you have a picnic planned.
Term

Ideology and Politics

(Common Error)

Definition
Racial, political, religious, and personal bias
Term
Four Purposes of Research
Definition

Exploration

Description

Explanation

Application

Term

Exploration

(4 purposes of research)

Definition
Research conducted to explore a certain problem
Term

Description

(4 purposes of research)

Definition
Observing, then describing what was observed.  Describing the scope of the problem
Term

Explanation

(4 purposes of research)

Definition
A type of research that seeks to explain why things happen. 
Term

Application

(4 purposes of research)

Definition

Applied research, a type of explanatory research that trys to determine links between justice policy and crime or other problems.

 

Example: Estimating whether prison populations will be reduced from changes in parole standards.

Term
Variables
Definition

Logical groupings of attributes.

 

Example: Male and female are attribues, and gender is the variable.

Term
Confidentiality
Definition
A researcher that can link information to a specific person, but promises not to reveal their identity.
Term

Anonymity

Definition
Researcher cannot associate a given piece of information with the person researched.
Term
Units of Analysis
Definition

Individuals

Groups

Organizations

Social Artifacts

Term

Individuals

(Units of Analysis)

Definition

A variety of individuals may be the units of analysis.

 

Examples: Plice, victims, defendants, inmates, gang members, and active burglars.

Term

Groups

(Units of Analysis)

Definition

Social groups may be used, they are different from individuals studied in a group. 

 

Example: People who live in a specific police jurisdiction or beat.

Term

Organizations

(Units of Analysis)

Definition

Formal political or social organizations. 

 

Example: A correctional facility.

Term

Social Artifacts

(Units of Analysis)

Definition

The products of social behavior.

 

Example: Newspapers or television shows.

Term
Statistical Conclusion Validity
Definition
Whether we are able to determine if two variables are related.
Term
Face Validity
Definition

The quality of an indicator that makes it seem a reasonable measure of some variable.

 

Example: the sentence for a crime can be an indicator for how serious the crime was.

Term
Construct Validity
Definition
The degree to which a measure relates to other variables as expected within a system of theoretical relationships.
Term
Convergent Validity
Definition
A measure can be validated by showing that it predicts scores on another measure that is generally accepted as valid.
Term

Causation in the Social Sciences

 

Three Requirements

Definition

To explain why things are the way they are.  Some thigns are caused by other things.

 

1: The Cause must precede the effect in time.

2: Two Variables must be empirically correlated with each other.

3: The observed empirical correlations between two variables cannot be explained away as due to the influence of another variable

Term
Conceptualization
Definition
The process by which we specify what we mean when we use particular terms.
Term
Operationalization
Definition
The concrete steps, or operations, used to measure specific concepts.
Term
Cross-Sectional Studies
Definition
A research project that studies a phenomenon by taking a cross section of it at one time and analyizing that cross section carefully.
Term
Longitudinal Studies
Definition
Research projects that are designed to permit observation over an extended period
Term
Trend Study
Definition

Studies trends.

 

Example: A study that examines annual figures for prison po;ulation over time, comparing totals for the years before and after new sentencing laws took effect.

Term
Nominal Measures
Definition

Variables whos attributes have only the characteristics of exhaustiveness and mutual exclusiveness.  Having attributes that are different.

no numerical value, such as gender or occupation

Nominal variables are often gathered in order to place people into groups. Thus, nominal variables are also called categorical variables.

 

Term
Interval Measures
Definition

When the actual distance that separates the attributes composing some variables does have meaning, the variables are interval measures.

 

Example: Fahrenheit temperature scale.

Term
Ratio Measures
Definition

A level of measurement that describes a variable whos attributes have all the qualities of nominal, ordinal, and interval measures, and in addition are based on true zero.

 

Example: length of prison sentence

Term
Generalizability
Definition

The quality of a research finding that justifies the inference that it represents something more than the specific observations on which it was based.

 

 

Term
Two Pillars of Science
Definition
Logic, rationality,a nd observation
Term
Idiographic Explanation
Definition

A mode of causal reasoning that seeks
detailed understanding of all factors that contribute to a
particular phenomenon.

 

Example: Police detectives trying to solve
a particular case use the idiographic mode of explanation.

Term
Nomothetic Reasoning
Definition

A mode of causal reasoning that tries to
explain a number of similar phenomena or situations.

 

Explain: Police crime analysts trying to explain patterns of auto thefts, burglaries, or some other offense use nomothetic reasoning.

Term
Conceptual Definition
Definition
A conceptual definition is a
working definition specifically assigned to a term.
Term
Operational Definition
Definition
A definition that spells out precisely how the concept will
be measured. Strictly speaking, an operational defi-
nition is a description ofthe operations undertaken
in measuring a concept.
Term
Inductive Reasoning
Definition
Inductive reasoning (induction) moves
from the specific to the general, from a set of par-
ticular observations to the discovery of a pattern
that represents some degree of order among the
varied events under examination.
Term
Deductive Reasoning
Definition
Deductive reasoning (de-
duction) moves from the general to the specific. It
moves from a pattern that might be logically or
theoretically expected to observations that test
whether the expected pattern actually occurs in
the real world.
Term
Three elements of the traditional model of science
Definition
Theory, operationalizaiton, and observation
Supporting users have an ad free experience!