Reporting Search Results

Reporting Research Results

Competencies Addressed in This Discussion

• Competency 1: Differentiate research methods used by criminal justice agencies.
• Competency 3: Contrast the research methods used by criminal justice agencies and scholar-practitioners.

Introduction

When you are setting out to perform research on a particular topic, a goal of your research must be to advance and expand knowledge. If social research findings, in particular, are not communicated to your target audience, then the effort is ultimately unproductive. Meaningful and successfully articulated presentation of research begins with drafting a formal plan for research. If an organization is performing the research, it may not have clear statements or ideas about its program goals. In these cases, researchers must work with agency staff to formulate mutually acceptable statements of goals before proceeding to effectively reach their target audience with their findings. Identifying the goal of the research being conducted is critical to ensuring that the research goals are focused and met, such as taking steps to learn policy goals when doing evaluation research.

For this discussion, use the Internet to locate two different examples of criminological research projects that have been completed. Then respond to the following in your main post:

1. Describe how each study differs in its approach to reporting the research results.
2. Explain to whom you believe the author (or authors) of each study chosen is reporting (that is, who is the audience?).
3. Explore whether the predicted audience helped to shape the author’s approach to reporting the results.
4. Analyze from a rating standpoint the overall quality of the research conducted and the effectiveness of the writing and data collected.
5. Outline the improvements you would you make, if any, to the studies you selected.

Discussion Objectives

The competencies in this discussion are supported by discussion objectives.

• Competency 1: Differentiate research methods used by criminal justice agencies.
  • Describe how research studies differ in their approach to reporting the research results.
• Competency 3: Contrast the research methods used by criminal justice agencies and scholar-practitioners.
  • Explain the target audience of selected research studies.
  • Explore whether a study’s predicted audience can help to shape the author’s approach to reporting the results.
  • Analyze from a rating standpoint the overall quality of research conducted and the effectiveness of the writing and data collected.
  • Outline potential improvements to make to select research studies.

Response Guidelines