Race and Social Dominance: Transferring and Sentencing Disparities for Juvenile Offenders
Students’ Names
Prairie View A&M University
Race and Social Dominance: Transferring and Sentencing Disparities for Juvenile Offenders
The current study examines a possible explanation for why African-American juveniles
are being transferred to adult court and found guilty at a higher rate, and receiving harsher
punishments than Caucasians (Deitch, Barstow, Lukens, & Reyna, 2009a). Using social
dominance theory’s concept of social dominance orientation (SDO), we will examine the
relationship between present (i.e., judges and prosecutors) and future (i.e., criminal justice
students) legal decision-makers’ levels of SDO and transfer, verdict, and sentence decisions.
Research into the correlates of disparate outcomes between African-American and
Caucasian juveniles is divided. Some individuals believe disparities are a result of institutional
racism (Human Rights Watch/Amnesty International, 2005) and political ideology
(Carmichael, 2010). Others believe that minority youth commit a greater number and more
egregious types of crimes compared to Caucasians (Males & Macallair, 2000). The current
proposal offers a third plausible explanation by suggesting that transfer, verdict, and sentencing
disparities are a result of ideological attitudes influencing the behaviors of legal decisionmakers.
Social dominance orientation (SDO) is a measure of the degree to which an individual
desires and supports group-based hierarchy and the domination of “inferior” groups by
“superior” groups (Sidanius & Pratto, 1999, p. 48). Individuals high in SDO justify their
discriminatory acts by supporting hierarchy- enhancing legitimizing myths (e.g., inequality is
fair or legitimate) that re-affirm the notion that subordinate groups deserve their position on the
lower rung of the social hierarchy (Pratto, Sidanius, & Levin, 2006). Moreover, the best
interests of the majority group are served by endorsing these attitudes in order to maintain their
status, at the expense of the minority (Eibach & Keegan, 2006).
SDO’s potential to explain biases in decision-making has made it a fruitful topic for
researchers. Since race remains the primary group aspect to engage SDO in the United States
(Sidanius & Pratto, 1999), prior researchers have used SDO to examine biased decisionmaking against African-Americans across several areas including affirmative action (Haley &
Sidanius, 2006), racial progress (Eibach & Keegan, 2006), and resource allocation (e.g.,
Sidanius, Haley, Molina, & Pratto, 2007). All of these studies suggest that individuals high in
SDO are more likely to make biased decisions against African- Americans than individuals
low in SDO. Several researchers have also examined SDO from a criminal justice perspective.
For example, Kemmelmeier (2005) found that SDO was positively related to perceptions of
guilt for African-American defendants, but negatively related to sentencing decisions for
Caucasian defendants. Others found SDO to be positively correlated with support for the
death penalty, general punitiveness, and support of lethal torture (Sidanius, Mitchell, Haley,
& Navarrete, 2006).
Hypotheses
We hypothesize that one of the contributing factors leading to the disproportionate
number of African-American juveniles in the adult system is that legal decision-makers high in
SDO: 1) transfer African-American juveniles to adult court more often; 2) find them guilty
more often; and 3) sentence them to longer prison terms than legal decision-makers low in
SDO.
Methods
Design Sample
Three different samples will be included in the current study: criminal justice
students, prosecuting attorneys, and judges. Undergraduate students currently enrolled in
criminal justice classes will be used for the current study. Including criminal justice students
offers a more realistic test of the current hypotheses than using students from majors such as
English and Psychology because criminal justice students are the police officers, attorneys,
and judges of tomorrow.
Current prosecuting attorneys will also be included in the current study. Prosecuting
attorneys are being sampled because, in 14 states and the District of Columbia, these
individuals are allowed the discretion to transfer juveniles to adult court.
The final sample will be actively-presiding juvenile and family court judges. These
individuals will be included for two reasons: 1) they are the most likely to transfer juveniles to
adult court and 2) they make sentencing decisions.
In order to ensure realism, and pertinence to the dependent variables, there are two
further stipulations for inclusion of these judges. First, only those judges presiding in states
allowing judicial waivers will be included. Second, only those states allowing for judicial
discretion in sentencing (i.e., no mandatory life without parole [LWOP] for certain crimes) will
be included. Using these criteria, the final sample will consist of judges from 16 states.
A total of 174 participants will be recruited. Criminal justice students will be recruited
through the University of Nevada’s online research system. Prosecuting attorneys and judges
will be recruited through the author’s affiliations with the National Council of Juvenile and
Family Court Judges (NCJFCJ), which has a membership of over 2,000 judges and
prosecuting attorneys who regularly participate in research (i.e., online surveys) originating
from the NCJFCJ. Prior research using NCJFCJ judges and attorneys has had a response rate
of approximately 30 to 40% (Marsh, personal communication, November 1, 2011; Summers,
2009)—which will easily accommodate the sample size requirements.
Procedure
The procedures for students, prosecuting attorneys, and judges will differ from one
another. However, all participants will begin the study by completing the SDO, Modern
Racism, and Authoritarianism scales, as well as a demographic questionnaire.
All participants will read a summary of the case facts concerning an armed robbery
and murder trial. At the conclusion of the summary, judges and criminal justice students will
make transfer, verdict, and sentencing decisions for the defendants. Prosecuting attorneys will
only make a transfer decision for the defendants.
Materials
Participants will be randomly assigned to read one of two case summaries; one with
two Caucasian defendants and one with two African-American defendants. The case summary
was adapted from a prior study (Garberg & Libkuman, 2009) examining decisions to transfer
juveniles to adult court. Manipulation checks will be conducted to ensure that there is sufficient
variability in the transfer, verdict, and sentencing decisions to permit analysis using inferential
statistics. The case summary is a one-page description of the facts concerning an armed
robbery and murder involving two 14-year-olds. One of the children was the triggerman and
the other was the sidekick. To ensure realism, the case summary will include pictures of the
defendants. The race of the defendants will be varied across conditions between AfricanAmerican and Caucasian. A judge from the NCJFCJ will review, and edit (if necessary), the
case summary to ensure its accuracy and realism.
Independent variables. The major variable of interest in the current study, SDO, will
be measured using the SDO scale. The SDO scale is a 16-item scale used to assess participants’
level or desire for group dominance. The SDO has been validated using 14 independent
samples from six nations and has been found to have a median reliability of .83 (Pratto et al.,
2006).
Control variables. The current study will control for several different variables:
modern racism, authoritarianism, and race of the legal decision-makers. McConahay, Hardee
and Batts’ (1981) Modern Racism Scale (a = .72) will be used as a control variable because
prior researchers (Umphress et al., 2008) have controlled for modern racism in their
examination of biased decision-making as it pertains to SDO. Modern racism has also been
found to be correlated with SDO (e.g., Hodson & Esses, 2005). Similar to modern racism,
authoritarianism has been found to be a related, yet distinct concept from SDO (Altemeyer,
2004). Altemeyer’s (2006) updated 22-item Right-wing Authoritarianism scale will be used (a
= .90). We will control for the race of the legal decision-makers to ensure that there are no
systematic differences between African-American and Caucasian respondents that may
influence the results. Prior research (e.g., Lalonde, Giguere, Fontaine, & Smith, 2007)
indicates that SDO is significantly correlated to hierarchy beliefs such as attitudes toward
interracial dating and transracial adoption for Caucasians, but not African-Americans.
Dependent variables. Transfer recommendation (0 = juvenile justice system or 1 =
adult criminal justice system), verdict (0 = not guilty or 1 = guilty), and sentencing
recommendations (1 = I do not believe the defendant should be tried in the juvenile justice
system to 7 = maximum allowable by law) for the defendants will be the three dependent
variables of interest.
Analysis
An ANOVA and multiple regression analysis will be used for this study.
References
Altemeyer, B. (2004). Highly dominating, highly authoritarian personalities. The Journal of
Social Psychology, 144(4), 421–447.
Altemeyer, B. (2006). The authoritarians. Winnipeg, Canada: Bob Altemeyer. Retrieved from
http://members.shaw.ca/jeanaltemeyer/drbob/TheAuthoritarians.pdf
Carmichael, J. T. (2010). Sentencing disparities for juvenile offenders sentenced to adult prisons:
An individual and contextual analysis. Journal of Criminal Justice, 38, 747-757.
Deitch, M., Barstow, A., Lukens, L., & Reyna, R. (2009). From time out to hard time: Young
children in the adult criminal justice system. Austin, TX: The University of Texas at
Austin, LBJ School of Public Affairs
Eibach, R. P., & Keegan, T. (2006). Free at last? Social dominance, loss aversion, and white and
black Americans’ differing assessments of racial progress. Journal of Personality and
Social Psychology, 90(3), 453- 467.
Garberg, N. M., & Libkuman, T. M. (2009). Community sentiment and the juvenile offender:
Should juveniles charged with felony murder be waived into the adult criminal justice
system? Behavioral Sciences and the Law, 27, 553-575.
Haley, H., & Sidanius, J. (2006). The positive and negative framing of affirmative action: A
group dominance perspective. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 32(5), 656-68.
Hodson, G., & Esses, V. M. (2005). Lay perceptions of ethnic prejudice: Causes, solutions, and
individual differences. European Journal of Social Psychology, 35, 329–344.
Human Rights Watch/Amnesty International. (2005). The rest of their lives: Life without parole
for child offenders in the United States. Retrieved from
http://www.hrw.org/en/reports/2005/10/11/rest-their- lives
Kemmelmeier, M. (2005). The effects of race and social dominance orientation in simulated juror
decision making. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 35(5), 1030-1045.
Lalonde, R. N., Giguere, B., Fontaine, M., & Smith, A. (2007). Social dominance orientation and
ideological asymmetry in relation to interracial dating and transracial adoption in Canada.
Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 38(5), 559-572.
McConahay, J. B., Hardee, B. B., & Batts, V. (1981). Has racism declined in America? It
depends on who is asking and what is asked. Journal of Conflict Resolution, 25, 563–579.
Males, M., Macallair, D. (2000). The color of justice: An analysis of juvenile adult court transfers
in California. Retrieved from http://www.csub.edu/~danderson_facile/docs/Week9_1.pdf
Pratto, F., Sidanius, J., & Levin, S. (2006). Social dominance theory and the dynamics of
intergroup relations: Taking stock and looking forward. European Review of Social
Psychology, 17, 271-320.
Sidanius, J., Haley, H., Molina, L., & Pratto, F. (2007). Vladimir’s choice and the distribution of
social resources: A group dominance perspective. Group Processes & Intergroup
Relations, 10(2), 257- 265.
Sidanius, J., Mitchell, M., Haley, H., & Navarrete, C. D. (2006). Support for harsh criminal
sanctions and criminal justice beliefs: A social dominance perspective. Social Justice
Research, 19(4), 433-449.
Sidanius, J., & Pratto, F. (1999). Social dominance: An intergroup theory of social hierarchy and
oppression. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Summers, A. (2009). The role of expertise in legal decision making in juvenile dependency cases:
Comparing judges to mock jurors. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Nevada, Reno, United
States -- Nevada. Retrieved November 9, 2011, from Dissertations & Theses @
University of Nevada Reno. (Publication No. AAT 3355639).
Umphress, E. E., Simmons, A. L., Boswell, W. R., & del Carmen Triana, M. (2008). Managing
discrimination in selection: The influence of directives from an authority and social
dominance orientation. The Journal of Applied Psychology, 93(5), 982-93.
Race and Social Dominance: Transferring and Sentencing Disparities for Juvenile Offenders
Students’ Names
Prairie View A&M University
Race and Social Dominance: Transferring and Sentencing Disparities for Juvenile Offenders
The current study examines a possible explanation for why African-American juveniles
are being transferred to adult court and found guilty at a higher rate, and receiving harsher
punishments than Caucasians (Deitch, Barstow, Lukens, & Reyna, 2009a). Using social
dominance theory’s concept of social dominance orientation (SDO), we will examine the
relationship between present (i.e., judges and prosecutors) and future (i.e., criminal justice
students) legal decision-makers’ levels of SDO and transfer, verdict, and sentence decisions.
Research into the correlates of disparate outcomes between African-American and
Caucasian juveniles is divided. Some individuals believe disparities are a result of institutional
racism (Human Rights Watch/Amnesty International, 2005) and political ideology
(Carmichael, 2010). Others believe that minority youth commit a greater number and more
egregious types of crimes compared to Caucasians (Males & Macallair, 2000). The current
proposal offers a third plausible explanation by suggesting that transfer, verdict, and sentencing
disparities are a result of ideological attitudes influencing the behaviors of legal decisionmakers.
Social dominance orientation (SDO) is a measure of the degree to which an individual
desires and supports group-based hierarchy and the domination of “inferior” groups by
“superior” groups (Sidanius & Pratto, 1999, p. 48). Individuals high in SDO justify their
discriminatory acts by supporting hierarchy- enhancing legitimizing myths (e.g., inequality is
fair or legitimate) that re-affirm the notion that subordinate groups deserve their position on the
lower rung of the social hierarchy (Pratto, Sidanius, & Levin, 2006). Moreover, the best
interests of the majority group are served by endorsing these attitudes in order to maintain their
status, at the expense of the minority (Eibach & Keegan, 2006).
SDO’s potential to explain biases in decision-making has made it a fruitful topic for
researchers. Since race remains the primary group aspect to engage SDO in the United States
(Sidanius & Pratto, 1999), prior researchers have used SDO to examine biased decisionmaking against African-Americans across several areas including affirmative action (Haley &
Sidanius, 2006), racial progress (Eibach & Keegan, 2006), and resource allocation (e.g.,
Sidanius, Haley, Molina, & Pratto, 2007). All of these studies suggest that individuals high in
SDO are more likely to make biased decisions against African- Americans than individuals
low in SDO. Several researchers have also examined SDO from a criminal justice perspective.
For example, Kemmelmeier (2005) found that SDO was positively related to perceptions of
guilt for African-American defendants, but negatively related to sentencing decisions for
Caucasian defendants. Others found SDO to be positively correlated with support for the
death penalty, general punitiveness, and support of lethal torture (Sidanius, Mitchell, Haley,
& Navarrete, 2006).
Hypotheses
We hypothesize that one of the contributing factors leading to the disproportionate
number of African-American juveniles in the adult system is that legal decision-makers high in
SDO: 1) transfer African-American juveniles to adult court more often; 2) find them guilty
more often; and 3) sentence them to longer prison terms than legal decision-makers low in
SDO.
Methods
Design Sample
Three different samples will be included in the current study: criminal justice
students, prosecuting attorneys, and judges. Undergraduate students currently enrolled in
criminal justice classes will be used for the current study. Including criminal justice students
offers a more realistic test of the current hypotheses than using students from majors such as
English and Psychology because criminal justice students are the police officers, attorneys,
and judges of tomorrow.
Current prosecuting attorneys will also be included in the current study. Prosecuting
attorneys are being sampled because, in 14 states and the District of Columbia, these
individuals are allowed the discretion to transfer juveniles to adult court.
The final sample will be actively-presiding juvenile and family court judges. These
individuals will be included for two reasons: 1) they are the most likely to transfer juveniles to
adult court and 2) they make sentencing decisions.
In order to ensure realism, and pertinence to the dependent variables, there are two
further stipulations for inclusion of these judges. First, only those judges presiding in states
allowing judicial waivers will be included. Second, only those states allowing for judicial
discretion in sentencing (i.e., no mandatory life without parole [LWOP] for certain crimes) will
be included. Using these criteria, the final sample will consist of judges from 16 states.
A total of 174 participants will be recruited. Criminal justice students will be recruited
through the University of Nevada’s online research system. Prosecuting attorneys and judges
will be recruited through the author’s affiliations with the National Council of Juvenile and
Family Court Judges (NCJFCJ), which has a membership of over 2,000 judges and
prosecuting attorneys who regularly participate in research (i.e., online surveys) originating
from the NCJFCJ. Prior research using NCJFCJ judges and attorneys has had a response rate
of approximately 30 to 40% (Marsh, personal communication, November 1, 2011; Summers,
2009)—which will easily accommodate the sample size requirements.
Procedure
The procedures for students, prosecuting attorneys, and judges will differ from one
another. However, all participants will begin the study by completing the SDO, Modern
Racism, and Authoritarianism scales, as well as a demographic questionnaire.
All participants will read a summary of the case facts concerning an armed robbery
and murder trial. At the conclusion of the summary, judges and criminal justice students will
make transfer, verdict, and sentencing decisions for the defendants. Prosecuting attorneys will
only make a transfer decision for the defendants.
Materials
Participants will be randomly assigned to read one of two case summaries; one with
two Caucasian defendants and one with two African-American defendants. The case summary
was adapted from a prior study (Garberg & Libkuman, 2009) examining decisions to transfer
juveniles to adult court. Manipulation checks will be conducted to ensure that there is sufficient
variability in the transfer, verdict, and sentencing decisions to permit analysis using inferential
statistics. The case summary is a one-page description of the facts concerning an armed
robbery and murder involving two 14-year-olds. One of the children was the triggerman and
the other was the sidekick. To ensure realism, the case summary will include pictures of the
defendants. The race of the defendants will be varied across conditions between AfricanAmerican and Caucasian. A judge from the NCJFCJ will review, and edit (if necessary), the
case summary to ensure its accuracy and realism.
Independent variables. The major variable of interest in the current study, SDO, will
be measured using the SDO scale. The SDO scale is a 16-item scale used to assess participants’
level or desire for group dominance. The SDO has been validated using 14 independent
samples from six nations and has been found to have a median reliability of .83 (Pratto et al.,
2006).
Control variables. The current study will control for several different variables:
modern racism, authoritarianism, and race of the legal decision-makers. McConahay, Hardee
and Batts’ (1981) Modern Racism Scale (a = .72) will be used as a control variable because
prior researchers (Umphress et al., 2008) have controlled for modern racism in their
examination of biased decision-making as it pertains to SDO. Modern racism has also been
found to be correlated with SDO (e.g., Hodson & Esses, 2005). Similar to modern racism,
authoritarianism has been found to be a related, yet distinct concept from SDO (Altemeyer,
2004). Altemeyer’s (2006) updated 22-item Right-wing Authoritarianism scale will be used (a
= .90). We will control for the race of the legal decision-makers to ensure that there are no
systematic differences between African-American and Caucasian respondents that may
influence the results. Prior research (e.g., Lalonde, Giguere, Fontaine, & Smith, 2007)
indicates that SDO is significantly correlated to hierarchy beliefs such as attitudes toward
interracial dating and transracial adoption for Caucasians, but not African-Americans.
Dependent variables. Transfer recommendation (0 = juvenile justice system or 1 =
adult criminal justice system), verdict (0 = not guilty or 1 = guilty), and sentencing
recommendations (1 = I do not believe the defendant should be tried in the juvenile justice
system to 7 = maximum allowable by law) for the defendants will be the three dependent
variables of interest.
Analysis
An ANOVA and multiple regression analysis will be used for this study.
References
Altemeyer, B. (2004). Highly dominating, highly authoritarian personalities. The Journal of
Social Psychology, 144(4), 421–447.
Altemeyer, B. (2006). The authoritarians. Winnipeg, Canada: Bob Altemeyer. Retrieved from
http://members.shaw.ca/jeanaltemeyer/drbob/TheAuthoritarians.pdf
Carmichael, J. T. (2010). Sentencing disparities for juvenile offenders sentenced to adult prisons:
An individual and contextual analysis. Journal of Criminal Justice, 38, 747-757.
Deitch, M., Barstow, A., Lukens, L., & Reyna, R. (2009). From time out to hard time: Young
children in the adult criminal justice system. Austin, TX: The University of Texas at
Austin, LBJ School of Public Affairs
Eibach, R. P., & Keegan, T. (2006). Free at last? Social dominance, loss aversion, and white and
black Americans’ differing assessments of racial progress. Journal of Personality and
Social Psychology, 90(3), 453- 467.
Garberg, N. M., & Libkuman, T. M. (2009). Community sentiment and the juvenile offender:
Should juveniles charged with felony murder be waived into the adult criminal justice
system? Behavioral Sciences and the Law, 27, 553-575.
Haley, H., & Sidanius, J. (2006). The positive and negative framing of affirmative action: A
group dominance perspective. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 32(5), 656-68.
Hodson, G., & Esses, V. M. (2005). Lay perceptions of ethnic prejudice: Causes, solutions, and
individual differences. European Journal of Social Psychology, 35, 329–344.
Human Rights Watch/Amnesty International. (2005). The rest of their lives: Life without parole
for child offenders in the United States. Retrieved from
http://www.hrw.org/en/reports/2005/10/11/rest-their- lives
Kemmelmeier, M. (2005). The effects of race and social dominance orientation in simulated juror
decision making. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 35(5), 1030-1045.
Lalonde, R. N., Giguere, B., Fontaine, M., & Smith, A. (2007). Social dominance orientation and
ideological asymmetry in relation to interracial dating and transracial adoption in Canada.
Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 38(5), 559-572.
McConahay, J. B., Hardee, B. B., & Batts, V. (1981). Has racism declined in America? It
depends on who is asking and what is asked. Journal of Conflict Resolution, 25, 563–579.
Males, M., Macallair, D. (2000). The color of justice: An analysis of juvenile adult court transfers
in California. Retrieved from http://www.csub.edu/~danderson_facile/docs/Week9_1.pdf
Pratto, F., Sidanius, J., & Levin, S. (2006). Social dominance theory and the dynamics of
intergroup relations: Taking stock and looking forward. European Review of Social
Psychology, 17, 271-320.
Sidanius, J., Haley, H., Molina, L., & Pratto, F. (2007). Vladimir’s choice and the distribution of
social resources: A group dominance perspective. Group Processes & Intergroup
Relations, 10(2), 257- 265.
Sidanius, J., Mitchell, M., Haley, H., & Navarrete, C. D. (2006). Support for harsh criminal
sanctions and criminal justice beliefs: A social dominance perspective. Social Justice
Research, 19(4), 433-449.
Sidanius, J., & Pratto, F. (1999). Social dominance: An intergroup theory of social hierarchy and
oppression. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Summers, A. (2009). The role of expertise in legal decision making in juvenile dependency cases:
Comparing judges to mock jurors. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Nevada, Reno, United
States -- Nevada. Retrieved November 9, 2011, from Dissertations & Theses @
University of Nevada Reno. (Publication No. AAT 3355639).
Umphress, E. E., Simmons, A. L., Boswell, W. R., & del Carmen Triana, M. (2008). Managing
discrimination in selection: The influence of directives from an authority and social
dominance orientation. The Journal of Applied Psychology, 93(5), 982-93.
Forensic Psychology Project Outline
1. Title page
a. Include the title of your project
b. Include the names of the group members
2. Research Question (1 – 2 sentences)
a. The research question should be written as a question and should characterize
what you are interested in and specifically what you want to know.
b. For example, “Do religious beliefs influence jurors’ verdict decisions in a death
penalty trial?”
c. People should be able to read your question and logically identify your
independent and dependent variables (for correlations these would be your
predictor and criterion variables).
3. Background Research (3/4 – 1 page)
a. Find 3 journal articles pertaining to your research question and summarize them
in this section.
i. What did they study?
ii. What procedures did they use?
iii. What were their findings?
4. Hypothesis (1-2 sentences)
a. The hypothesis should state a proposed relationship between your variables.
b. Here are some characteristics of a good hypothesis:
i. A hypothesis should be a positive statement. In other words do not
propose a non-existent relationship.
ii. A hypothesis should be logical. It should make sense. Do not state that
what people do tomorrow directly affects what they did yesterday. What?
That does not make sense.
iii. A hypothesis should be testable. You should be able to measure your
variables.
1. Example of a non-testable hypothesis:
a. A person’s aura is positively related to their uniqueness.
i. Although some might consider this to be true, aura
and uniqueness are not really measurable.
iv. A hypothesis should be refutable. You should be able to find evidence that
contrasts with what you originally hypothesized.
v. A hypothesis should describe the direction of a relationship. Specify how
variables are related and not simply that they will be related.
1. Bad hypothesis: People’s education is related to the number of
documentaries they watch.
2. Good hypothesis: Individuals’ level of educational attainment will
be positively correlated with the number of documentaries (both
television and movies) they watch per year.
5. Variables (1/4 – 1/2 page)
a. Your hypothesis should include your variables, but in this section, you need to
specify how each variable will be measured. For example, if you measure
“health” will this be measured by subjective health, physical or mental health, the
number of doctor’s visits a year, the purchasing of medications, symptoms of
sickness, etc.? Do this for both the independent and dependent variables.
6. Sample and Population (1/4 – 1/2 page)
a. Describe the people you want to study. For example, if you want to study selfesteem among police officers, your population would be police officers in the
U.S. and your sample might be police officers in Houston or PVAMU police. The
population is the broad group you are interested in and the sample is the actual
people you study (the people you survey, interview, etc.).
7. Research Design (1/4 – 1/2 page)
a. Describe the specific research design you will employ and explain why this is the
best way to test your hypothesis.
8. Data Collection (1 page)
a. Methods (1/2 page)
i. This is a description of how you will collect your data. What measures
will you use or how will you administer your questions or observe your
behavior? Describe any behavioral measure and how you will collect data.
Basically, describe the process of collecting data.
ii. Random selection? Random assignment? Will you mail the surveys? Pass
out the surveys individually? Have them fill out surveys in a group?
Observe participants in natural environments? Bring participants into a lab
for observation? Individual tasks? Group tasks?
b. Procedure (1/2 page)
i. In this section, you should describe exactly what the participants will do.
Be sure to provide details about consent forms, contact or communication
with the participants, order of measures, environmental characteristics,
manipulation checks, inclusion/exclusion criteria, screening questions, and
other related details.
ii. People should be able to read this section and then carry out your study
exactly as you did.
9. Statistical Analysis (1-3 sentences)
a. State the statistical test (correlation, ANOVA, t-test, chi-square test, regression,
etc.) you will use to analyze your data and why it is appropriate to assess your
hypothesis.
10. References
a. Use APA formatting to list the references used in the background information
section or any other section.
Purchase answer to see full
attachment