Order 1364653: Statistical autopsy & research breifing

Statistical autopsy instructions

Background: Extant peer-review literature is the place where researchers, practitioners, students and others publish what they know about phenomena. Reading and understanding the peer-review literature is a vital part of starting any research project or implementing any good criminal justice policy. This project is designed to allow students to explore and analyze peer-review literature on a topic of relevance and interest to them, academically or professionally. Though it is a separate grading item, this project works iteratively with and is coterminous to the student research briefing.

The project attends to all of the course goals and is a major work product of this course.

Instructions: There are several parts of this assignment. These are all discussed below, along with their individual point values. I will not accept any submissions that do not follow these instructions.

Where these instructions require written submission, all submissions are to be APA formatted, typed into a Microsoft Word document, and then submitted via the appropriate D2L Dropbox. Where these instructions require class presentation, all presentations must include an appropriate audio/visual aid.

Students who do not make an acceptable submission of all previous steps must complete any missing step before I will accept any new submissions from those students. Except where I have already approved an absence documentation and assigned a new due date/time, I will enforce all due dates and times, regardless of missing any previous submissions.

Each autopsy is worth up to 15 points, (30 points total, 30% of grade).

(1) Selection of articles and identification of authors’ research hypotheses (3 points each article/6 points total). Students will locate two peer-review research articles on their research briefing topic of interest. One of the peer-review articles must be quantitative and the second must be qualitative. Students will submit three documents to the D2L Dropbox; A Word document with the proper APA formatted citations for each of the two articles, and APA formatted text that clearly identifies the research hypothesis, IV, DV, and DOE for each of the articles; and PDF versions of each of their peer-review research articles. All submissions are due no later than Friday, September 28, 2018.

(2) Assessment of research methodology (4 points per article/8 points total). For each article you will assess whether the author(s) used appropriate research methodology. In assessing methodology, you will specifically consider: (i) appropriateness of the research design, (ii) appropriateness of the sampling frame and final sample, (iii) any spurious variables that could explain the influence of the IV on the DV or the association between the IV and DV. You will present your assessments to the class during Module 4 and then use classmates’ feedback to finalize your assessments. You will submit written final assessments to me no later than 8:00 pm, Friday, October 19, 2018.

(3) Reliability and validity of research (4 points per article/8 points total). For your two peer-review articles you will assess any threats to reliability and validity of the potential findings. You will present your ideas to the class during module 5. You will then use classmates’ feedback to refine your assessments and submit them in written form to me no later than 8:00 pm, Friday, November 2, 2018.

(4) Assessment of findings (combined knowledge from both articles, 8 points total). Using your newfound knowledge of research methods/statistics and information from the two articles you have now thoroughly autopsied you will discuss what you think are the most important findings of each of your articles for your research topic. In doing so, you are to directly discuss how the research findings help us to understand, predict, and control your topic of interest. Very simply, tell the class, in an informed manner, what you found out about your research topic and why it matters. You will present your assessment of findings to the class during module 6.

Notes:

Students may request my permission to compete this project in pairs. When asking such permission, each student of the pair acknowledges that s/he will be graded based on the overall demonstration of learning within the pair. Thus, each student is responsible for knowing, understanding, applying and analyzing the material of this project as if s/he was completing the project alone. To insure each student is fully invested in the pair’s project, I will choose which project questions to ask each member of the pair during class presentations. Once I ask the question, the student to whom I posed the question must answer it correctly.