Memo 1
To:
From:
Date:
Subject: Preparing for how you will talk about data
Preparing the research on such an important and controversial topic as the effectiveness of the prison programs for juvenile delinquents, it is necessary to realize how the very data collection procedures will be carried out. In other words, it is necessary for the researcher to establish some techniques, and ground the choices, that would allow talking to former prison inmates about the role of prison programs in their further lives after their prison sentence (Schram, 2006, p. 130). In this respect, the issues of spontaneity and prompt responses, natural observation and artificially created interview conditions, and the role of the researcher in shaping the participants’ answers should be treated with special attention (Schram, 2006, p. 130).
Answering the question about the higher credibility of spontaneous answers, it is necessary to understand that the ways in which people respond to a problem in the natural, spontaneously arising situations are far more reliable sources of data about their reactions than the answers and activities they display when prompted or put in artificially created conditions (Schram, 2006, p. 131). For example, if a person who is intended to be selected as a research respondent talks to his/her friend or a close relative, the sincerity of his/her answers will be much higher than during a planned interview with a researcher whose credibility is doubted by the respondent and whose work might expose some private data of the respondent (Trochim & Donnelly, 2006, p. 121). Here, the points like the inconvenience of talking with strangers, especially on such topics as someone’s past prison term serving, should be considered together with the potential reluctance of the respondents, i. e. former prison inmates, to expose their private data in public.
Thus, spontaneous answers, not prompted by the researcher’s questions or reactions, are more credible than the answers of research respondents in initially established and reported research settings (Trochim & Donnelly, 2006, p. 122). The same is true about statements recorded during participants’ observations as compared to responses the same participants give when prompted by the researcher during the interviews. The natural setting of participants’ actions witnessed and recorded during the observation facilitates their natural, inherent, reactions to what is said or done (Schram, 2006, p. 128). When the participants know that it is the research work that they are involved in and when their reactions are prompted by research questions or remarks of the researcher during the interview, the credibility of the answers obtained is considerably doubted.
In this respect, the answers of the participants in which the obvious influence of the researcher’s prompt is observed cannot be regarded as objective and reliable ones. To avoid such answers, it is paramount for the researcher to either structure the interview so that no prompts were observed in the questions or to establish the technique of distinguishing between the prompted and spontaneous and natural answers (Schram, 2006, p. 134). Since the second is much more difficult, or even impossible, the provision of the objective, non-prompting questions for use during the interviews should be one of the prior research goals.
Memo 2
To:
From:
Date:
Subject:Anticipating ethical challenges
This memo is dedicated to facing and handling ethical challenges that might, and are sure to, arise during the research on juvenile recidivism and the effectiveness of prison programs to decrease it. First of all, the point of accessing the research setting is important. In other words, to interview former Connecticut juvenile prison inmates it is necessary to find out their personal data, i. e. to inquire about the names and addresses of the prison inmates in the very prison (Patton, 2002, p. 405). The ethics of such a process is doubted, so it is necessary for the prison officials if they agree to cooperate, to request their former inmates’ consent for data revelation and only then provide the researcher with those data (Schram, 2006, p. 118).
Moreover, accessing such data from the prison officials will be way too difficult as the research intends to do the work that they do not do (Schram, 2006, p. 118). In other words, prison officials do not monitor the efficiency of their programs helping inmates develop their social lives after their release, and the research focuses on such monitoring. Therefore, the very purpose of the research might be an obstacle in the way of getting research data (Shank, 2006, p. 118).
Another issue observed in respect of ethics is the use of formal ways to gain the potential participants’ consent for being involved in the research (Patton, 2002, p. 408). Considering their background, numerous participants might avoid dealing with any official documents or events in order not to expose their past or not to be involved in any potentially dangerous activity. Thus, the need to negotiate and renegotiate might arise in this process, and to succeed in it the researcher will have to be fully honest and informative about the research goals, potential outcomes, and all possible proceedings the research might involve (Schram, 2006, p. 120).
First of all, the researcher will have to disclose the complete list of research purposes to the potential participants initially (Schram, 2006, p. 146). The use of this step will be considered as it will allow the researcher to avoid the subjectivity of responses potentially obtained from the participants and ensure the absence of any conflicts caused by incomplete information given to the participants at the start. If informed only partially, people might feel offended or endangered during the research process when the hidden or unexposed details of the research come out. Therefore, to avoid this, the researcher should initially select only the participants that agree on involvement being completely informed about when, how, and what they will have to do (Shank, 2006, p. 119).
Finally, the progress of the research should be both careful recorder, in a research journal, and reported to the research participants so that they could monitor the process and see that the information given to them coincides with what is actually going on (Patton, 2002, p. 409). For example, if the researcher obtains the participants’ consent on the basis of the complete privacy guarantees and then decides to report the preliminary or final results to either a scholarly journal or any other third party to the research, this might cause an issue for the whole research process (Shank, 2006, p. 120). To avoid those issues, the research journal should be kept, where all proceedings should be recorded and all the innovations arising during this process should be communicated and agreed with the participants prior to carrying out and recording in the journal.
References
Patton, M. Q. (2002). Qualitative research & evaluation methods. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
Schram, T. H. (2006). Conceptualizing and proposing qualitative research. Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Pearson Merrill Prentice Hall.
Shank, G. D. (2006). Qualitative research: A personal skills approach. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Merrill Prentice Hall.
Trochim W. M. K., & Donnelly, J. (2006). The research methods knowledge base. Mason, OH: Thomson Learning.