Rios and Foubert Assignment

For this week, we are asking questions such as what is a program evaluation?  How is a program evaluation useful in the field of criminology or criminal justice?  And how do program evaluations further our understanding of social phenomena versus other research tools?

This assignment is twofold: 1) to assess how well you read journal articles and are able to extract pertinent information. Since you will utilize various articles for your research project, it is important that you know how to do this. 2) reading the two journal articles that use content analysis will give a better picture of how it is used in research. Although we did a similar exercise in week one, this is to make sure that you read my initial comments and in this assignment I will see improvement. 

Here are the guidelines: 

1 page, single-spaced, 12-point Times New Roman font, incorporating both of the assigned readings for the week.  You may not exceed the page limit.  You may not incorporate quotations, under any circumstance, anywhere in this assignment.

After reading the articles please provide, 1) the thesis of both readings, (2) the methodology used in the articles (be specific here), (3) the main findings, and (4) two policy implications.  

Couple of points to consider: Do not summarize the article. Please stick to the four main points above. In addition, be specific about the methods used. Do not just say, "program evaluation." What did they research? How many participants did they have? Where was it done?