1.4: Research Methods

Research methods comprise a systematic process of inquiry applied in such a manner as to learn something about our social world. The key message in the preceding statement is that undertaking research is a systematic process, i.e., there is a system, or a right way, to do research.

Basic research can contribute to criminological, psychological, or sociological theories or knowledge without having a specific application as a goal, e.g., a researcher may undertake a study that modifies an existing theory related to deviance. It is important to note, however, that even basic research may ultimately be used for some applied purpose. Applied research focuses on addressing real-world challenges by applying existing knowledge and scientific principles. Unlike basic research, which seeks to expand theoretical understanding, applied research aims to develop practical solutions that can be implemented immediately. This type of research is crucial for driving innovation, improving processes, and informing decision-making in various sectors, including crime prevention / intervention, rehabilitative services, diversion programs, etc.

Research typically has a nine-step process:

Figure \(\PageIndex{1}\): Nine-Step Research Process by JIBC. Licensed under a CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 License

1. Choose a topic.
2. Review the literature (past research).
3. Formulate the problem (find the gap in past research).
4. Develop a research question.
5. Choose and organize the research design.
6. Gather the data.
7. Analyze the data.
8. Interpret the data.
9. Communicate the findings.

Research methods take two primary approaches: qualitative and quantitative. Qualitative Research involves exploring and understanding human experiences and behaviors by delving into in-depth narratives, like personal stories and interviews. Quantitative Research uses numerical data and statistical analysis to identify patterns and draw conclusions, such as counting and measuring to uncover trends. It is important to study research methods to determine which method would work best in a particular scenario.

Experimental Method

Experiments represent a highly effective methodology for data collection, particularly for researchers seeking to determine the effects of specific actions or stimuli in creating reactions or changes in other stimuli.

An experiment can be defined as a systematic method of data collection aimed at evaluating hypotheses within controlled environments. This form of empirical research may be employed in either laboratory or field settings. Laboratory experiments occur within artificially constructed environments established by the research team, allowing for precise control over variables. Conversely, field experiments are conducted in naturalistic contexts, such as within actual agencies or organizations, thereby facilitating the observation of phenomena in real-world scenarios. Regardless of the setting in which an experiment is performed, certain fundamental terminology is universally applicable across all experimental methodologies.

In the context of experimental research, participants are typically divided into two distinct groups: one exposed to an experimental stimulus, sometimes referred to as a treatment, and another that serves as a control group, which does not receive such exposure. Social science researchers employ a diverse array of experimental stimuli, which may include written passages, visual imagery, audiovisual materials, and even olfactory (i.e., smelling) or auditory (i.e., hearing) cues. The group subjected to the experimental stimulus is referred to as the experimental group, while the group that remains unexposed is designated as the control group. In this context, researchers use various methodologies, including surveys and interviews, to quantify the impact of the stimulus. These assessments are conducted at two distinct points: prior to the introduction of the stimulus, termed the pre-test, and after its introduction, referred to as the post-test.

When conducting experimental research, scholars need to carefully consider the implications of both random selection and random assignment in their methodological frameworks. Both instances occur at different stages of the research process. Random selection refers to the process of selecting participants from a population through a technique of probabilistic random sampling. Following this initial phase of sampling, researchers engaged in experimental designs should strive for random assignment whenever feasible. That is, once a sample has been selected, random assignment involves the systematic allocation of participants in the sample into either experimental or control groups through a randomization process. This methodological approach significantly enhances the likelihood that the experimental and control groups are similar prior to the administration of any stimuli or interventions.

Quasi-Experimental Method

Quasi-experimental designs are considerably more prevalent in social science research than true experimental designs. Although quasi-experiments are less effective at providing robust evidence of causality, they still allow us to establish time order, which is a key element of causality. The prefix quasi means “resembling,” so quasi-experimental research is research that resembles experimental research but is not true experimental research. Nonetheless, given proper research design, quasi-experiments can still provide extremely rigorous and useful results.

There are a few key differences between true experimental and quasi-experimental research. The primary difference between quasi-experimental research and true experimental research is that quasi-experimental research does not involve random assignments to control and experimental groups. Instead, we talk about comparison groups in quasi-experimental research instead. As a result, these types of experiments do not control the effect of extraneous variables as well as a true experiment.

Quasi-experiments are most likely to be conducted in field settings in which random assignments are difficult or impossible. They are often conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of a program—perhaps a type of prevention or intervention program. We can eliminate some threats to internal validity, but we cannot do this as effectively as we can with a true experiment.

Survey Method

Survey research can be quantitative and / or qualitative. A survey is a research method involving a set of questions asked to a sample of people to gather information about their opinions, behaviors, preferences, or characteristics, used to understand a larger population for various purposes. Surveys are often conducted via online forms, interviews, or mail. It provides structured data to identify trends, test theories, and make informed decisions. A good survey design ensures the data collected accurately reflects reality, preventing errors and bias, which leads to reliable insights for better decision-making.

Cross-sectional surveys are administered at a single point in time, offering researchers a snapshot of respondents’ lives, opinions, and behaviors when the survey was administered. One issue with cross-sectional surveys is that the events, opinions, behaviors, and other phenomena that such surveys are designed to assess don’t generally remain static. Thus, generalizing from a cross-sectional survey can be tricky as things change. For example, Trust in police and courts is likely to change depending on high-profile events, such as the Movement for Black Lives, so this survey represents a snapshot of how people feel at one moment in time.

Longitudinal surveys try to overcome this problematic aspect of cross-sectional surveys. Longitudinal surveys are administered at multiple points in time. There are three types of longitudinal surveys: trend, panel, and cohort. Researchers conducting trend surveys explore how surveyed phenomena change over time in large, general groups. Though surveys are collected multiple times, those who are surveyed can be different at each data collection point. Unlike in a trend survey, in a panel survey the same people participate in the survey each time it is administered. The third type of longitudinal survey offers a middle ground between trend and panel surveys. In a cohort survey, a researcher identifies a specific rather than general category of people of interest and then regularly surveys people who fall into that category. For example, researchers may identify people of specific generations or graduating classes, people who began work in a given industry at the same time, or perhaps people who have some specific life experience in common. Like a trend survey, the same people don’t necessarily participate from year to year, but all participants must meet the categorical criteria for inclusion in the study.

Interviews/Focus Group Method

Interviews are a method of qualitative data collection that involves two or more people exchanging information through a series of questions and answers. An interview is like a conversation but one conducted with a purpose. The researcher designs the questions to elicit information from participants on a specific topic or set of topics. Typically, interviews involve an in-person meeting between an interviewer and an interviewee (also called a respondent). They need not be limited to two people, nor must they occur in person.

Interviews are a great way to gather detailed information. They are also useful when the topic is complex, when the questions require lengthy explanation, or when participants may need extra time or to engage in dialogue with others to work out their answers. Additionally, if the topic is one about which people will likely have a lot to say or you want them to reflect on their experience or describe some process, then interviews may be the best method.

In sum, interview research is especially useful when a researcher:

• wishes to gather very detailed information.
• anticipates wanting to ask respondents for more information about their responses.
• plans to ask questions that require a lengthy explanation.
• wants to access personal experience.
• has a complex or confusing topic.
• has a topic that involves studying thought or decision processes.

Focus groups are planned discussions designed to elicit group interaction to gain a deep understanding of people’s experiences and perceptions of complex social issues. Historically, focus groups were more commonly used in market research. They were adopted in the 1940s by sociologists to study reactions to wartime propaganda. Today, focus groups are used in fields as diverse as health research, social work, product development, and criminal justice studies.

As with an in-depth interview, a focus group is a meaning-making process but one that occurs within a group rather than a dyad. In this method, a researcher gathers a small group of people to participate in a facilitated discussion on a particular topic. The researcher serves as a moderator, a person who organizes and guides the discussion by posing questions or topics for discussion. They then let the group members discuss the questions or topic among themselves, with the goal of ensuring that everyone has a chance to respond and observe interactions among participants.

A researcher conducting focus groups collects data on more than people’s direct responses to their questions; the group interaction is also a key focal point. During their conversations, participants may ask each other follow-up questions, agree or disagree with one another, display body language that tells us something about their feelings during the conversation, or even come up with new questions. Further, when people hear others talk, it can trigger responses or ideas they had not yet considered. These are the kinds of interactions and displays the researcher can focus on.

While focus groups can be expensive and time-consuming, group events may save time because they require fewer sessions than one-on-one interviews to collect data from the same number of people. Nevertheless, a focus group should not be approached simply as an expedient means of gathering more individual-level data. The group dynamics will affect who speaks (and how much) and who may remain silent. While there are ways to mitigate these issues (e.g., creating groups of people who occupy similar social positions), the fact that context affects how people communicate becomes part of the data. Focus groups tell us how people communicate when in a group and how meaning is constructed in a particular social context, which from a social constructionist perspective reflects more reliably how people develop their thoughts and opinions.

Field Research Method

Field research is a qualitative method of data collection aimed at understanding, observing, and interacting with people in their natural settings. Field researchers immerse themselves in the settings they wish to study. While the extent to which researchers immerse themselves in a particular setting varies, all field researchers have in common their participation in “the field.”

When social scientists talk about being “in the field,” they are talking about being in contact with the everyday lives of the people they are studying. Field researchers gain firsthand experience and knowledge about the people, events, and processes they study, and no other method offers quite the same kind of close-up lens in everyday life. This means that field researchers can obtain very detailed data about people and processes, perhaps more so than any other research method. You might think of field research as an umbrella term that includes all the activities that field researchers engage in when they collect data: they participate, they observe, they usually interview some of the people, and they also analyze documents, audio files, and other artifacts created by the people they observe.

For those who study criminology, the tradition of going out into “the field” to learn about the lives of people on the margins of urban society can be traced back to the University of Chicago. It was there, during the first half of the 20th century, that professors such as Ernest Burgess and Robert E. Park encouraged their students to get out of the library and do firsthand research around the city. Many students took up this challenge, producing seminal studies on youth gangs, race and class relations, and the cultural life of unhoused men.

What made these studies different from those that came before was that researchers went out to collect primary data based on their own observations. This often took place via a long ongoing conversation with research participants, one that lasted weeks, months, or even years. This approach is similar to the one being taken up by anthropologists at the time, where figures such as Bronislaw Malinowski (1979) spent years studying the culture of people living in remote places (remote, that is, from where the researchers themselves lived). Anthropologists found that this extended immersion in a cultural setting was the best way to get a nuanced, complex understanding of social behavior. This approach is known as ethnography, which literally means “writing culture.”

Ethnographers immerse themselves in a setting so they can observe the lived experience of their research subjects. While the tradition of ethnography began with studies of non-Western societies (Malinowski himself lived for years in the Trobriand Islands of the South Pacific), contemporary ethnographers are just as likely to conduct their work in urban North American settings. Examples of contemporary ethnographies include Philippe Bourgois’ (2003) study of crack cocaine dealers in New York City and Alice Goffman’s (2014) study of Black community life under intense state surveillance in Philadelphia.

W.E.B. Du Bois (1903/2007) conducted fieldwork in the Black community, but his focus was on the American South during the early years of the 20th century. Being Black himself helped him gain access to a population that had good reason not to trust White people with sensitive information. Elijah Anderson (1978/2003) likewise found entry into the field facilitated by his racial identity. Anderson was interested in studying urban Black life in Chicago and chose as his research site a neighborhood liquor store where people hung out. He found that being Black himself was helpful in terms of gaining access, but he also reminds us that we carry many different identities with us into the field; while his racial identity may have helped him gain access, Anderson notes that his education and class background marked him off as different from the rest of the folks hanging out at the store, leading him to adopt a fictive kin role as a family member of the store owner in order to be accepted. Fieldwork in criminology and other disciplines depends a great deal on relationships.

Case Study Method

A case study in research is an in-depth, detailed investigation of a specific subject (like an individual, group, organization, or event) within its real-life context, aiming for a deep understanding of complex issues, often answering "how" or "why" questions. It uses various data sources (interviews, observations, documents) to provide a holistic view.

In criminology, a case study is an in-depth investigation of a specific individual, group, event, or situation (like a crime, offender, or justice program) to understand complex criminal phenomena in real-world contexts, using detailed analysis of factors like crime causes, legal application, or practical solutions, often employing qualitative methods to explore themes from theories to policy impacts. These studies provide rich, contextual understanding, helping students and practitioners analyze issues, evaluate strategies (like legal aid access), and apply criminological theories.

Case studies are typically conducted when a phenomenon is new or is rare. For instance, to get the typology of a would-be serial killer, case studies were conducted on serial killers that have been found guilty to find common traits from their psycho-social upbringing. An example of crime analysis case studies comes from The Office of Community Oriented Policing Services that looked at bullying, reducing crime in a mobile home community, or issues with a neighborhood bar.

Content Analysis Method

Content analysis is a research method used to study communications, such as texts or images, and examine their meaning in a particular social context. It gained popularity at the beginning of the 20th century with the mass production of newsprints and was initially a largely quantitative endeavor, then referred to as quantitative newspaper analysis. Now, though, content analysis can certainly adopt a more inductive, qualitative approach when the goal is to thematically analyze hidden meanings.

Content analysis involves the study of communications and their meaning. The “texts” that contemporary content analysts investigate include such things as actual written content (e.g., news or magazine articles, legislation, e-mails, letters, blog posts), content we might hear (e.g., speeches, podcasts, lectures), and even visual representations of human communication (e.g., photographs, online videos, television advertisements, movies). Content analysis methods can be applied to almost any form of communication so long as the study of messages is systematic.

Unlike many of the other methods that involve human participants (e.g., focus groups, interviews, field research, surveys and experiments), content analysis is classified as an unobtrusive method (also referred to as a nonreactive method) of research, meaning that the researchers generally do not intrude into the lives of those they are studying in order to collect their data. Researchers focus on data that already exist, that are often publicly available, and that were often not produced for the purpose of being researched. In addition to research design, the study of crime relies heavily on the collection and analysis of empirical data. Crime data systems serve as a primary source of information for understanding patterns, trends, and the scope of criminal behavior.