Research Methods in Criminal Justice Assignment 3

Topic (Assessing the effectiveness of incarceration in reducing crime)

Assignment 3 is to help you flush out more of the details of your research proposal. For this assignment, you are to address the following questions in 2-3 double-spaced pages with 1" margins (all sides) and 12 point font. Your heading should be no longer than one line, and should include the following: name, course, and assignment #. Please number each response, and submit your assignment in .doc, .docx, or .rtf format. Make sure that you follow the directions carefully.

1.  List at least 7 variables that will be measured in your research. No more than 3 of these variables should be demographic variables (i.e., race/ethnicity, age, sex/gender, socioeconomic status, etc.). The inclusion of each variable should be justified in terms of theory or prior research that suggests it would be an appropriate independent (IV) or  dependent variable (DV) or will have some relation to either of these. Please indicate whether each variable is an independent or dependent variable, and write a conceptual definition for each. Whenever possible, the definition should come from existing literature that you have been reviewing.

2.  Discuss whether you are planning on conducting an experimental or non-experimental design to test your research question(s) and hypotheses. Given the general design that you choose, provide more detail as to the specific research design chosen and why. For example, true experiments or randomized experimental designs, quasi experiment designs (nonequivalent control group designs or before-and-after designs/pre-test posttest), and nonexperimental designs (cross-sectional designs and longitudinal). Please note that if you choose a longitudinal design, please specify the type - Repeated cross-sectional design, fixed-sample panel design, or event-based design.

3. Given the design that you choose, discuss the potential threats to internal and external validity.

You should read Assignment 1 and 2 in attachment to get start in Assignment 3

please only use those articles in attachment that was used in assignment 2 if we need to use them agin in this assignment.