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The research literature. Methodological approaches to doing criminological research. Validity
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The research literature
As a researcher, you also need to be aware of what has been said before, by whom and in what ways. Preparing an area for research involves making sense of that which has been undertaken before, how, why and with what results. In making deci- sions about what to study, you will draw on an initial review of the academic and scholarly literature. After all, the objective here is to discover relevant material published on the topic area in order to help support the framing of the research questions. Alison Wakefield, in Chapter 3, provides a thorough discussion of the various types of research literature. Yet reviewing the research literature continues
throughout the process of doing criminological research. The purpose of reviewing the literature is to identify the key issues and problems and controversies surround- ing the proposed research area. This may be by identifying a gap in existing knowledge, articulating the weakness of argument of a particular approach, or assessing the evidence against competing perspectives. Thus, a literature review allows you to locate your research within the work of others. In doing so, you will explore the conceptual literature on the topic area, written by the leading research- ers and which gives insight into theories, concepts and ideas, as well as the research literature, offering specific accounts and findings of other research projects carried out in the field.
METHODOLOGICAL APPROACHES TO DOING CRIMINOLOGICAL RESEARCH
Decision making does not just occur at the outset of doing criminological research. It continues throughout the process. Thus, in preparing criminological research, you will also make decisions about the kinds of methods to use and the sorts of data to collect.
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You will need to develop a research strategy and research design.
2. You will need to identify what data to collect and how to collect it.
3. You will have to make a number of decisions regarding the operationalization of the approach and methods chosen, and include sampling, access and ethical issues.
Hannah Bows gives an overview of the broad approaches and distinctions between qualitative and quantitative approaches in Chapter 4, though she, Vicky Heap and Jaime Waters, in Chapter 5, and Jerzy Sarnecki and Christoffer Carlsson, in Chapter 13, make it clear that triangulation and mixed methods approaches mean that separating qualitative from quantitative research is often an artificial exercise.
Decisions will therefore be taken in the context of the purpose of the research and the time and resources available. Crucially, each decision must be properly reasoned and justified to ensure that the research is as valid, reliable and robust as it can be. Green (2008) asks the following in relation to the connections between research questions and research design:
· Are your approaches and research strategies commensurate with the question you are asking?
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· Is your proposed sample consistent with the groups, organizations, relationships or processes specified in the question?
· What methodological strategies are implied by the purposes and objectives of your research question?
· What methods of data collection are most consistent with the objectives of the research, as they are embedded in the question?
· Does the question need adjusting in light of your proposed research design, or could you rework your research design on the basis of your reconsidered question?
Validity
A primary factor in determining the content of a research project is the research problem: you will seek to design a strategy of research that will reach conclusions which are as valid as possible to the research problem. There are two aspects of validity which need to be emphasized. The first concerns whether the conclusions you reach are credible for the particular cases, context and time period under inves- tigation. Conclusions are neither ‘right’ nor ‘wrong’; they are more or less credible. The extent to which they are credible is the extent to which they are said to be internally valid. For example, if you are investigating the effects of security improve- ments on levels of crime in a particular area, the strength of validity will depend on whether there is evidence that a drop in crime levels followed the introduction of security measures and also evidence that no other factor could have produced or affected the change (such as the introduction of police beat patrols). Nick Tilley, Graham Farrell and Andromachi Tseloni touch on this in Chapter 10. A second aspect of validity concerns whether it is possible to generalize the conclusions to other cases, contexts and time periods. The extent to which this is possible is the extent to which conclusions are said to be externally valid. External validity is very much dependent on the cases, contexts and time periods which form part of the research design having representativeness and typicality.
The hallmark of a sound research proposal is the extent to which the research deci- sions which comprise it anticipate the potential threats to validity. This aspect of validity is concerned with the degree of ‘fit’ between a research problem and the strategy pro- posed to investigate it – is the proposed design likely to produce valid conclusions in relation to the research problem? Several factors are likely to influence the degree of fit between research problem and research design and are therefore likely to affect validity. For example, decisions about research design have to be taken in the context of con- straints imposed by cost and time, and there are many forms of research which cannot be justified on the grounds of ethics. Also, it is not possible to anticipate threats to valid- ity which may occur unexpectedly and when research is under way. So, all research, whether in the planning stage or in the operational stage, is a compromise between what is desirable in pursuit of validity and what is practicable in terms of cost, time, politics and ethics. This can be termed the validity ‘trade-off ’.
All of this underlies the value of viewing research as a form of decision making. Focusing on decisions taken when research is under way helps us evaluate the ways in which the validity of conclusions has been affected in ways which were not – and
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perhaps could not be – anticipated. This is vital to the evaluation of research which has already been completed.
As criminological researchers, we can collect data from existing resources, including using other people’s data. This is generally known as secondary research or secondary analysis. Or, we can collect data from the subjects of research first hand. This is generally known as primary research or primary analysis. These cat- egories can overlap and research designs will often triangulate methods to ensure that validity of measurement and valid conclusions are arrived at. Broad distinc- tions between primary and secondary research, alongside a range of common operational themes, allow us to consider some of the ways that criminological research takes shape. Here, we follow these broad distinctions and the initial dis- cussion is divided into two:
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existing resources
· data from subjects/ primary data collection – in particular, a number of key opera- tional themes are addressed including sources and types of data, surveys, sam- pling, interviews, observations and ethnography.
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