Fluent Essays

topic-  How Reliable is EyeWitness Evidence in A Criminal Case  This 3-4 page assignment should include the information provided in your first assignment, but expand in more detail on the hypothesis(es) developed based on your research question and what variables you will be using to address the research question. Your hypothesis(es) should make clear the main independent and dependent variables in your proposal and the relationships between these variables that you are examining. In addition to identifying your variables, describe them using characteristics that have been presented in class (e.g., unit of analysis, operational definitions). INSTRUCTIONS You will write a short paper applying skills learned from Modules 1, 2, and 3 in order to identify and describe the variables, hypotheses, and research question you will need to complete your final research proposal. This assignment should include the information provided in your first assignment, but expand in more detail on the hypothesis(es) developed based on your research question and what variables you will be using to address the research question. Your hypothesis(es) should make clear the main independent and dependent variables in your proposal and the relationships between these variables that you are examining. In addition to identifying your variables, describe them using characteristics that have been presented in class (e.g., unit of analysis, operational definitions). Your Variable Assignment Paper should be 3-4 pages long, and it should include all of the following topics: Overview of finalized research question Your hypothesis/hypotheses Independent variable(s) Dependent variable(s) Description of all variables that you will address Unit(s) of analysis Operational Definition(s) Rationale, evidence, and support for why you think these variables are the correct ones to focus on, in order to address your research question.Slide 1: What are ethics? Ethics are standards of moral conduct that distinguish between what actions are right and what actions are wrong. Ethical standards for research are used to guide methodology in order to protect participants. Many ethical standards are based on general social standards, however, other protections are derived based on past research ethical errors. Researchers always have the professional obligation to protect the rights and welfare of their participants. Ethical standards for research are often based on the Belmont Report Principles. These principles encompass respect for persons, beneficence, and justice. Respect for persons dictates that researchers must treat participants as autonomous agents who have the freedom and capacity to decide what happens to them, and that researchers must always protect those with diminished capacity such as inmates, children, persons with developmental disabilities, pregnant women, or persons with fewer social/political rights. Beneficence obligates that researchers secure the well-being of the participants in their studies by maximizing the possible benefits of the study and minimizing possible risks or harms. Justice requires researchers to fairly distribute the benefits and burdens of research so that any group selected for research may also benefit from any positive results of the research. Slide 2: Four major issues… When considering ethics in research, there are four major issues that researchers must contemplate: potential harm, lack of informed consent, deception, and privacy invasion. Any research participant has the right to personal safety and protection from harm. The most fundamental right of research participants is that they will not be harmed for their participation in a research project. Researchers must also consider various types of harm that may occur due to research including physical harm, mental harm, and emotional harm. These types of harm can be difficult to predict, so it is incredibly important that a researcher considers the potential impacts of their research and even discusses it with unaffiliated parties to get neutral perspectives. Informed consent is the second ethical struggle in research and places emphasis on participant’s freedom of choice. Informed consent is defined as the ethical principle that individuals should be given enough information about a study, especially its potential risks, to make an informed decision about whether or not they wish to participate. This is related to respect for persons, as in order to consent to research, participants must be able to form rational decisions. All participants included in the study must voluntarily consent to participate in the project. Researchers often consider using aspects of deception in their research projects in order to reduce the likelihood that a participant will change their attitudes due to their knowledge of what is being studied, otherwise known as participant bias. Deception is defined aSlide 1: The Research Process A research design is an overall plan of study that researchers will use when developing a project and collecting data. Research designs include four steps: selecting a research topic, reviewing the current literature and considering theory, formulating a research question, and then developing a research design based off of the question you are asking and the method you want to use in order to collect data. The first step in the research process is selecting a research topic. Topic selection may be influenced by various external factors as discussed in previous modules including academic motivations, policy motivations, political motivations, and personal interests. In criminology, often times our research questions relate to crime, deviance, or victimization. When doing research, you should always strive to choose a topic that interests you so that you will not get tired of conducting a research project. Additionally, the topic should be practice, so that you can achieve some sort of success while researching. Once you have chosen a general topic, the second step in the research process is conducting a literature review which includes both past studies and books that have been written on your chosen topic, as well as theoretical explanations that have been used to explain phenomena within your chosen topic. When reading prior literature, it is always important to consider not just the content, but also the methodology that past researchers have used when developing projects on your chosen topic. This is important for two reasons: one, you may be able to find what methodology is best suited for researching your topic, and two, you may be able to use a different methodology than what was used in the past to make your project unique. Conducing a literature review can take a lot of time and energy, as you are expected to read as much literature as you can, if not all of the past literature. While you may find a gap in the literature that provides you with a unique research question, you may also have to reroute your chosen topic based on past research. Throughout the research process, you must always be flexible when considering your topic, questions, and how you may need to evolve your own project or interests in order to develop something new and meaningful. Formulating a research question can happen both before or after the literature review. It may also evolve throughout the research process based on what you learn in your literature review. Essentially, a scientific research question is one that is answerable through systematic collection and analysis of verifiable data. Research questions should contribute to conversations and investigations that are occurring in the social science field of your choosing; in this case, criminology. A good research question should be focused and feasible in terms of managing time and resources. After you have completed these three steps in the research process, you must dev