I would like to first address that I very much enjoyed the article by Jordan
and Zanna (1999), I have read numerous research articles and sometimes
have struggled understanding what the researcher was trying to say. After
reading the assigned article for this week’s module, I then chose my
desired article and was shocked about how much easier I was able to
understand what the researcher was discussing just by viewing the article
as the researcher was trying to tell me a story (Jordan & Zanna, 1999). For
my desired article I chose to focus on a study that was concerned with
identifying the impacts that childhood trauma has on violent juvenile
offending and whether or not race plays a factor in this issue (Johnson,
2018). In my opinion, I thought Johnson (2018), did an excellent job at
making this article readable even for individuals who do not have a
background in this area.
Although I enjoyed reading my chosen article, one area where I struggled
was understanding some of the statistical terms that I have yet to learn,
such as proxy measures, but I followed the suggestions from Jordan and
Zanna (1999) and chose to focus on what the researcher was actually
saying rather than their chosen method of measuring a variable.
Furthermore, the research was completed only on juvenile offenders in
the state of Florida, so one question I had while reading this article was
that I would like to see if the results are similar based on a nationwide
study of juvenile offenders (Johnson, 2018). Overall, I enjoyed the article
that I chose, because I told myself that I was just reading a story about
juveniles who have experienced trauma while paying attention to the
issue that the researcher was mainly concerned with. Which was
identifying a way to combat labeling youth who have experienced trauma
growing up as violent offenders instead of treating the main issue
(Johnson, 2018).
References
Johnson, M. E. (2018). Trauma, race, and risk for violent felony arrests
among Florida juvenile offenders.3Crime & Delinquency,364(11), 1437-
1457.
Jordan, C.H., & Zanna, M.P. (1999). How to Read a Journal Article in Social
Psychology.3The Self in Social Psychology3(pp. 461-470).3 Philadelphia:
Psychology Press.
