In SFU Criminology, we value both qualitative and quantitative approaches to research. You received an overview of the full range of qualitative and quantitative methods when you received your introduction to research methods in Crim 220. Now we spend two semesters pursuing each in greater detail. This first course will focus on three major methods that have dominated quantitative social science, including: (1) experiments and quasi-experiments; (2) survey research; and (3) archival analysis. 

The Professor

Your instructor is Dr. Ted Palys. If you need to get in touch to arrange an appointment, ask a question, or other important matter, you can:

• Come by my office during designated office hours. The office is located in the School of Criminology in Room 1686 of the West Mall Complex;
• Phone my office at 60-42-91-40-37;
• Leave a voicemail at the office number;
• Send an email to palys@sfu.ca
• Leave an urgent message with the secretaries in the Criminology General Office, at 604-291-3213;
• Leave a note in my mailbox by the General Office.

Designated office hours for the Fall semester are Tuesday, 2:00 to 3:00 PM, Wednesday, 1:00 to 2:00 PM. Other times can be arranged by appointment.

The Teaching Assistant (TA)

The TA is Rob Tillyer. Rob will grade half the exams, prepare and lead three of the six tutorial groups, and grade term research projects that are produced by students in his tutorials. Rob will be doing the three tutorials on Monday mornings (Groups 2, 3 and 4). He meets these groups for the first time Monday, September 16th. Rob's office hours also will be held on Mondays from 12:00-2:00 in WMX 1678 (call 604-294-3282).

A "course reader" is available at the bookstore. You are expected to do the assigned reading ahead of the class/tutorial for which the reading is scheduled to be discussed, and to be ready to ask questions and participate in discussion. You also will be examined on their content. A preliminary schedule of course readings is included in the timetable shown later in this syllabus. 

We meet Tuesdays from 10:30 A.M. to 12:20 P.M. in AQ3153. Each meeting will involve both discussion and lecture. The typical class will begin by me asking you about the week's readings and soliciting your questions about the material, and then to use the readings as a launching point to discuss related topics. It is important that you keep up with the readings in order to be able to ask questions and partake in discussion.

The tutorials appear above in the order they occur in our "Crim 320 week," which begins with the lecture on Tuesday, and ends with the final set of tutorials on the following Monday. Because the first week of tutorials are cancelled, and our week begins on Tuesday, everyone's first tutorial will be after the second lecture on 10 September. Note that the Monday groups (2, 3 and 4) will meet their TA (Rob) for the first time on Monday, 16 September.

Most of our time in the tutorial will be spent responding to any questions you may have about the course readings, discussing and making sure you are progressing appropriately on your term research project, and occasionally meeting in computer labs for sessions where the focus will be on how to analyze structured, quantitative data with SPSS. 

We assume you know how to do the following: (1) to use Eudora, Outlook, SFU Webmail or some other programme for sending and receiving email, with and without attachments; and (2) to use Netscape and/or Internet Explorer and one or more of several search engines (e.g., Google, Alta Vista) to connect with information sources on the World Wide Web. It is important you know these things because I will contact you in one of two ways beyond class -- (1) by sending you (either individually or collectively) an email; and/or (2) by placing information and links to information on our course web page. If you do not know how to send and receive email and/or do not know how to locate information on the internet -- please let me or the TA know and we will ensure you get the necessary training.

Course Email

The course email address is crim320-d1@sfu.ca. Any person registered in the course can write an email to that address (from your SFU account or when logged into your SFU address via SFU Webmail) and it will be received by me, the TA, and everyone registered in the course. 

The main ways that I will distribute information to the class (other than in the class itself) are by sending an email to the entire class and/or placing the information on the course web page. The list of persons who are on the Crim 320 mail list is automatically updated weekly on the basis of the registrar's list of students enrolled in the class. However, the only email addresses that the system contains and recognizes are the email addresses each of you has been assigned by SFU Computing Services. If that is the email address you normally use, no problem. However, if you use a server other than SFU (e.g., Shaw, Telus, Uniserve), or prefer an email address that is based on another server (e.g., Hotmail, Yahoo), then you must arrange for your SFU email to be forwarded automatically to the email address of your choice. This is easily done by following instructions for "managing your email" that are listed at the SFU Computing Services website, for which you will find a link on the course web page.

Course Web Page

I will maintain a course web page throughout the semester that contains notices of general interest to the class, links related to the course, and anything else that seems useful to place there. The direct URL is <http://www.sfu.ca/~palys/crim320.htm>, or you can link to it from my home page at <http://www.sfu.ca/~palys/>.

There's nothing like doing a piece of research to better understand the complexities that are involved. You will do one semester-long research project in this course, which will contribute a total of 50% to your final grade in the course -- 5% for a brief (2-page) proposal you submit 1 October (and must continue re-submitting until it is approved); and 45% for your final written report.

You should begin thinking now about what you might like to research over the semester. The topic does not need to be explicitly "criminological;" the important thing is to find a research site, or group of people, or phenomenon that interests you, and about which/whom you would like to know more. The more you are sincerely curious about your research, the more enjoyable it will be for you, and the better your eventual report will be for those who read it. Options for projects will be discussed in class and during your tutorials, where hearing what others are doing may help you along as well. 

The following rules and principles apply to your research project and should be considered as you decide on a topic: 

1. Your project must be "quantitative" as understood within the themes of the course, the most clearly defining aspect of which is that you will be gathering structured data that can be aggregated and will be summarized by placing them in appropriate charts and graphs. It is up to you to choose whether you would prefer to do a survey or content analysis; whichever you choose, your project must involve the creation of new data.
2. As novice researchers, your research project should be "minimal risk" when considered in light of the definition for "minimal risk" that appears in the SFU ethics policy. In part this is simply good ethics -- you need to build up experience with less complex situations before you (and the research participants for whom you are responsible) dive into more challenging ones. It is also the more pragmatic option: the REB has delegated to me the responsibility for ethics review of minimal risk class projects; any research project that is "greater than minimal risk" needs to be submitted to the university Research Ethics Board (REB). In either case, you cannot proceed to gather data until you have submitted a proposal and that proposal has been approved by me or the REB in accordance with the SFU ethics policy.. 
3. In order for me (or the REB) to approve your project, the SFU ethics policy requires that your project conform to the highest ethical standards of our discipline, i.e., criminology. There is a link to the Code of Ethics of the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences on the course web page.
4. Because of both ethical complexities and pragmatic concerns, you also should consider the following when formulating your project for this course:
   • Avoid situations/institutions/agencies where you have to apply for permission to engage in research; otherwise the semester will be over and you will still be awaiting approval. Consider picking situations and samples that are public (e.g., people waiting for buses; people attending a festival or other event) and/or where you already know people (e.g., work colleagues, fellow students);
   • Avoid research involving children and/or any other persons who are somehow challenged in their ability to understand and consent to being a research participant;
   • Do not undertake research in an Aboriginal community or any business or organization to which you are a stranger;
   • Do not undertake research that involves information that is subject to mandatory reporting laws (e.g., regarding child abuse, venereal disease) because of the ethical complexities that are involved;
   • Do not undertake research that involves deception as to your "true" motives in undertaking the research or the "real" focus of study;
   • Gather data anonymously where possible; when it is not, design your research to incorporate the Wigmore criteria in order to maximize the legal protections you can offer participants regarding confidentiality;
   • Unless there is some ethical reason not to, you should prepare a brief (i.e., less than one page)  "information sheet" you can show to, read to, or distribute to prospective participants that explains the purpose of your research, what their participation will involve, what you will do with their data, and any other considerations that might influence their willingness to participate;
   • Unless there is an ethical reason for doing so, do not use signed consent forms. In most cases, doing so only creates records that may violate confidentiality, needlessly kills trees, and is not likely to be in the interests of research participants.

Proposal and Ethics Review

Before collecting data, you must submit a 2-page proposal, due in class on 1 October, that identifies your topic area, the method(s) you will follow, the sample this will involve, and any ethics issues you have considered in the formulation of your proposal. I will return them to you with comments by the following class on 8 October. If your proposal is approved, you will receive 5% toward your final grade in the course. If your proposal is not approved, you will have to re-submit the proposal as soon thereafter as you can, and I will return it to you as soon as I can after that. If approved on the second round, you will receive 4% toward your final grade in the course. If not approved, you will have to re-submit a third proposal worth 3%. This pattern will continue until you have submitted a proposal that is approved. Note that, according to the SFU ethics policy, you cannot gather data until you have received ethics approval. Approval will be contingent on you showing that you understand how criminology's professional standards with respect to research ethics apply to your area of research.

The Final Research Report

The research report you submit at the end of the semester will be no more than 20 pages long -- double-spaced, in 12-pitch font, excluding appendices, references, figures and tables. Further guidelines regarding format will be made available through the course web page later in the semester. You can use ASA, APA or legal/historical style -- the three most commonly used in criminology -- but once you have chosen a style, use it consistently. You should plan to do at least two drafts of your research report; first drafts rarely get an "A." The final paper can be handed in the last class of the year, but, in any event, is due by no later than 4:02 PM Friday, 29 November 2002. 

Exams

There will be two — a mid-term and a final — each of which will contribute 25% toward your final grade in the course. The mid-term exam will be held in class on October 8^th. The final has been scheduled by the Registrar’s Office for December 10^th from 3:30 to 5:30 PM. The exams will include material from the course reader as well as lecture material covered up to the end of the class preceding the exam. The final exam will deal only with material covered in the second half of the course. In both cases a more quantitative approach to assessment will be taken.

Because you have the complete course schedule from the outset, I consider that all of you have been given sufficient warning to be able to meet the various requirements as listed. I am loathe to make exceptions. And yet, in any given semester, in any class of more than 100 students, some weird stuff is going to happen that none of us could have anticipated, is beyond anyone's control, and precludes some person's ability to follow the course schedule as written. By this, I don't mean the "run of the mill" obstacles that all of us have to deal with — a bout of the flu in October; your printer running out of ink; a family wedding in November on the weekend that you hoped to be able to complete an assignment; too many things all due at the same time in December — but those rare extreme circumstances that come completely out of left field, hit like a train, and leave you completely unable to live up to your responsibilities to the course. In those rare circumstances, I am prepared to make exceptions for any student, as long as the circumstances are "unanticipated" and "exceptional." If this happens to you, my expectations are that you will (a) inform me at the earliest possible opportunity what has happened; (b) provide appropriate and detailed documentation (normally from a medical authority) at the earliest possible opportunity that makes it clear the event meets the criteria and clearly precluded your ability to meet the class schedule; and (c) take steps to rectify the omission as soon as possible.