¶ … measure situations of reality (Piquero, 2002). A dependent variable and an independent variable are studied for patterns of relation, covariance, and cause and effect. For example, the relationship between impulsivity, the independent variable, and criminal behavior, the dependent variable, or the effects of a mandatory arrest policy, the independent variable, on future patterns of domestic violence, the dependent variable, are both examples of quantitative research. For causality, three criteria are needed. In association, the variables must be related to each other. The independent variable must precede the dependent variable in time order. And the issue of no spuriousness, which occurs if there is no third variable observed.
Surveys are mostly used for observation within the social sciences, such as behaviors or the general public has feeling about certain issues. Experimental and quasi-experimental research is best to study the cause and effect situations. True experiments must have three features: two comparison groups, one experimental and one comparison, variation in the independent variable before assessing for change in the dependent variable, and random assessment of the two comparison groups. An important consideration for the approach is to identify the effects of randomization in order to generalize the findings regarding the cause and effect relationships. Quasi-experimental research does not have random assigning to the experimental and control groups.
Two types of quasi-experimental designs exist. The nonequivalent control group is experimental and control groups are designated before treatment. The before and after designs both have pretests and posttests, but no comparison group. An example of a nonequivalent control group would be a study of the effects of police actions on the seat belt law violations. Before and after design examples could include the impact of the gun law.
In the experimental community, the researchers instituted a media campaign to increase seat-belt usage, followed by increased police enforcement of the seat-belt law. It was found that the percentage of drivers using seat belts increased in the experimental community but remained stable or declined slightly in the comparison community (Piquero and Piquero, 2002). An example of the before-and-after design would be the analysis of the impact of the Massachusetts Bartley-Fox
Our semester plans gives you unlimited, unrestricted access to our entire library of resources —writing tools, guides, example essays, tutorials, class notes, and more.
Get Started Now