Boston College Criminal Justice Paper

Weekly Reflect Paper #1

We often begin our research through some sort of curiosity. For example, I might say “what happens when I stick a fork in this socket?” Prior to this, I may have no knowledge of what the outcome might be. For this week’s two page reflect paper, I want you to think of a research project you might be interested in. You will not necessarily being using this as part of this class, but if you had all the time in the world, what is one thing you are interested in? Here are the following things I want you to discuss.

What is one topic you would like to study if you had the resources and time to do so? 

State the formal research question.

1. What is your hypothesis?
2. What is your dependent variable?
3. What are some possible independent variables? In other words, what do you think is affecting the thing you want to study?
4. Would this be a qualitative or quantitative study?
5. Is there a particular criminological theory that applies to your study?
6. Is your study going to be a survey, observation, using data already collected, or perhaps an experimental design project?
7. The Topic I would study if I had the resourced and time to do so would be “How did covid impact society, both financially and on a crime rate level”
8. Remember, this is a short 2-page, double spaced paper. It is informal and is really meant to use the concepts that you have learned through your readings and apply to pseudo real-life events. This assignment is due no later than Sunday March 27