In a 3 – 4 page paper address the following:
Identify and describe five scientific methods of research inquiry and how you would apply them to a research project.
Be sure to provide examples.
Develop a hypothesis focused on the professional practices of criminal justice practitioners.
An example of a hypothesis would be: you could propose a hypothesis that focuses on whether law enforcement is better equipped to handle terrorism post 9/11 or whether airline safety has improved since the attacks of 9/11, etc.
Then select two methods of inquiries and how you would apply them to your hypothesis to reach a conclusion.
The paper should be 3 pages in length, excluding title and reference pages.
(PLEASE NOTE: This assignment will require outside research. Use at least three credible sources.)
You may consult the Library, the internet, the textbook, other course material, and any other outside resources in supporting your task, using proper citations in APA style.
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Hypothesis and Conclusion
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A research is a systematic investigation, critical inquiry and identification of a problem or a fact with the aim of advancing human knowledge and understanding. An approach of research is regarded systematic when a researcher follows the specific methods starting with, question,hypothesis,experimentation,data analysis and conclusion. In a scientific research a question define and identifies the problem to be tackled hence general questions in this sense provide a preliminary ground problem solution (Daskalakis and Kawase, 2017). Formulating the general questions containing the ‘w’- letter who,what,why,when and the ‘h’ letter- how, forms the preliminary ground for a researcher which essentially helps in developing a hypothesis.
A hypothesis is an educated or tentative assumption of what a researcher expects as an outcome. A hypothesis should be constructed with the aim of gathering empirical evidence or information for verification or refuting its accuracy. The evidence or information of a researcher may be accurate or inaccurate however, of essence is that it leads to an empirical test. Therefore, a researcher needs to assure himself that he can come up with a tentative proposition that is workable and that he can put to empirical test so as guide his research thereto. A usable hypothesis would be one that has the following characteristics; a hypothesis should be specific and should not contain vague terms hence it should be specific ,practicable and significant in order to develop a testable and workable research(Meyer,2019). A hypothesis should be related to the available techniques hence applicable to a body of theoretical orientation.
Hypothesis plays an important role in providing a well-analyzed conclusion and hence provides strong recommendations in researches. Tested hypothesis plays an integral role since when it is empirically tested ,the initially assumed coexistence between the concepts or variables maybe considered as facts of a research. It is also important to note that when hypothesis is tested,it supports the existing theory that accounts for description of a phenomenon and also tests it in a way to provide further meaning. Testing of hypothesis is also important since it suggests weaknesses of the existing legislative theory and even hint at creating probable solutions.
The third method of scientific research inquiry is experimentation, which includes aspects of description,comparison and modelling. Experimentation helps in determining the relationship between dependent and independent variables. The fourth method is data analysis,which means observation and examination of the collected information. In this context, once a researcher has the needed data, he needs to perform a legal analysis combining the factors of experimentation to support or refute a hypothesis.
The last step is conclusion,which offers a brief analysis whether to accept or reject the hypothesis in place. The conclusion should be precise and analyse whether the outcome of the experiment was correct or incorrect. Further, accepting the hypothesis does not imply it is correct since sometimes a hypothesis may predict an outcome and on the other hand a researcher may provide something incorrect in his conclusion. As a result a correct interplay between the aspects of scientific research inquiry will give a correct systematic flow of conclusion.
Hypothesis on Law Enforcement and Suicide
The research question herein will be to what extent will a Judicial officer’s knowledge moderate misconduct and suicidal ideations? This will be addressed in two ways ,directional hypothesis which states that an officer’s misconduct will increase and the level of knowledge will decrease hence there will be an increase in suicidal thoughts. Misconduct here will be examined on a reverse method , such that higher levels of misconduct will not integrate with higher levels of performance. Under alternative hypothesis, we can denote that misconduct will be governed by the extent of education on matters of suicide and vice versa.
Application of methods of inquiry to reach a conclusion
In our case scenario, application of experimentation will be of essence since a researcher’s mind is inquisitive. The researcher will develop questions on how they view things in their own opinion hence they develop an hypothesis on how things should be viewed. The same has been viewed herein as the tentative and educative view of a researcher that leads to reliable predictions that can be applicable upon experimentation(Taylor,2017). Another inquiry method is data collection, a researcher acknowledges hypothesis as a conjecture hence the data collected during research is sufficient to provide questions and shows how hypothesis is diverse by providing the solution needed. With the aid of data collection, hypothesis should be falsifiable so that is can be tested to provide relevant answers and hence putting in a conclusion and provide recommendations. When a hypothesis provides recommendations it is viewed as a fact by researchers and hence reliable to prove a point relevant to the said research.
Conclusion.
Its evident that the five highlighted scientific methods of research inquiry inter rely on each other in order to achieve a credible research. That questions are important in denoting a hypothesis, body and conclusion of a research. Finally experimentation and data collection determine to what extent one can apply hypothesis to reach at a credible conclusion.
References
Daskalakis, C., & Kawase, Y. (2017, January). Optimal Stopping Rules for Sequential Hypothesis Testing. In 25th Annual European Symposium on Algorithms (ESA).
Meyer, S. C. (2019). Return of the God Hypothesis. HarperCollins Publishers.
Taylor, Renée R. Kielhofner’s research in occupational therapy: Methods of inquiry for enhancing practice. FA Davis, 2017
