Quantitative Research in Criminology
Assignment #1
This assignment is due at the BEGINNING of class on January 21st 2020. Please also upload an identical copy to Brightspace prior to class.
Students are encouraged to complete this assignment in pairs of two (2). For those working in pairs, one assignment will be submitted, and one mark will be attributed to both students. Do not put your name on your assignment. Only identify yourself (yourselves) by your student number(s).
Please write using double-spacing to permit sufficient room for the corrector to include comments. Further, please write in complete sentences. In the case of hand-written submissions, please ensure that the writing is CLEARLY legible. Otherwise, a grade of 0 will be attributed to each illegible answer.[unique_solution]
Imagine that you have been hired by a community group to examine men’s experiences of domestic viohttps://studygroom.com/domestic-violence-3/lence. Specifically, this group has learned that a substantial number of its male members report having been victims of intimate partner violence. This anecdotal evidence seems to contradict the general assumption that women are considerably more likely than men to be victims of intimate partner violence. Given the apparent lack of resources available to men who have been victims of domestic violence, this community group would like you to empirically explore this seeming contradiction between the reported experiences of its male members and the generalized perception of intimate partner violence as violence against women.
To examine this question, you use data taken from Statistics Canada’s publicly available dataset for the General Social Survey on Victimization. This survey collects data every 5 years from a representative sample of approximately 20,000 (non-institutionalized) Canadians aged 15 and older. The data presented in this assignment were collected in 1999. Each respondent was asked whether they had experienced any violence over the past 5 years from their current spouse/intimate partner and if so, the types of violence experienced. In the case that a respondent experienced several types of violence, only the most serious type is listed. Imagine that you have produced all tables below using these GSS data.
Recall that we use tabular presentations of data to tell a criminological story. The tables below tell a story about the gendered nature of intimate partner violence in Canada. Each table tells a different part of the wider story. When reviewing the 3 sets of tables, think about what each is contributing to our understanding of intimate partner violence.
Table 2: Frequency Distribution for Women of the Most Serious Type of Violence Experienced by Current Spouse/Partner in the Past 5 Years
Based on Tables 3 and 4 below (in conjunction with Tables 1 and 2 above, as needed), answer the following questions:
- What is the level of measurement of the variable being described? Justify your response. (2 points)
- What advantage do these tables have (in contrast with the prior tables) in examining the issue of intimate partner violence against men and women? That is, why did you construct these tables differently? (2 points)
- How do these new tabular presentations advance the criminological story that you want to report to the community group? Has your conclusion (presented in #4 above) about the gendered nature of intimate partner violence changed? If so, in what way? If not, why not? Justify your response by making reference to specific data. (4 points)
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Table 3: Frequency Distribution of Presence of Violence Experienced by Men by their Current Spouse/Partner in Past 5 Years
Table 4: Frequency Distribution of Presence of Violence Experienced by Women by their Current Spouse/Partner in Past 5 Years
Based on Tables 5 and 6 below (in conjunction with Tables 1-4 above, as needed), answer the following questions:
- What is the level of measurement of the variable being described? Justify your response. (2 points)
- How do these new tabular presentations advance the criminological story that you want to tell the community group? Has your conclusion (presented in #7 above) about the gendered nature of intimate partner violence changed? If so, in what way? If not, why not? Justify your response by making reference to specific data. (4 points)
- 4 –
- Are there any caveats (i.e., limitations) to your conclusions? That is, are there any reasons to exhibit caution when accepting the findings from these tables? Present 2 different reasons. (2 points)
- What policy recommendations might the community group suggest, based on your conclusions? Justify your answer (3 points). Accompany these policy recommendations with a properly constructed graphical presentation of data taken from any of the tables which you feel would help policy makers better understand and support the recommendations (5 points). Make direct reference to this graph when discussing the recommendations. The graph can be constructed by hand or produced on a computer.
Table 5: Frequency Distribution of Most Serious Level of Violence that Men
Experienced by Current Spouse/Partner in Past 5 Years
Table 6: Frequency Distribution of Most Serious Level of Violence that Women Experienced by Current Spouse/Partner in Past 5 Year